RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Not really sure what you're saying here. An X1C is hard to hack if you use it in a way BambuLab doesn't really recommend, and that very few users will set up that way? Sounds good. Now how about how 99% of them will be used. On the internet, so Bambu Handy works, and so they can slice and print models directly from Maker World... Making a printer as easy as possible to use is a good thing IMO, but the people taking advantage of that ease of use are pretty likely to set things up the "easy way", not how a network security-savvy IT pro might.
Why is pointing out that it's $1K more for the X1C "misinformation"? The information is available, and we're free to decide if it is a lot of money for the minor improvements - ones Bambu Lab themselves list out for comparison. Not sure on the misinformed part- it sounds more like an opinion over the additional features. I like to think of it as the "cost of not using their cloud" 🙂
I’ve used an X1C for about 2 months with an AMS. We were making an RC car (Badger) project and the project was designed to get other instructors up-to-speed on 3d printer technology for use in their courses. The main chassis printed in 2 hours, where my MK3S+ took 6. The part was made with Polymaker PLA+ and every bit as strong. There is no truth to a part being weak just because the printing is fast. If you don’t have a fast-flow filament and your temps remain the same, then the layer lines won’t bond as well.. but when tweaked, the parts (up to a speed point) can be every bit as strong. There has been info here about security and using Wifi of Bambu being prone to attacks. Also comments about the X1E being $1k more for minimal improvements. That is just speculation and misinformation. We put the X1C on a local wifi access point with no Internet connection and it worked well with an iMac using their slicer and local Lan mode. The chances that printer being hacked are so remote as to be negligible.
RE:
I’m a FREE market capitalist. Competition is almost always a good thing for the consumer. Let the markets decide who makes the best printers.
That being said, would I buy a Bambu printer? No
I have a few problems with Bambu but my biggest problem is where its made. I just don’t think it’s a good long term idea to send money to a communist country. I’ll stop there. This is not the time or place for that debate.
I guess I'm not quite as dogmatic in that regard, but you raise a very valid point: A powerful electronics device that is connected to your LAN is a security risk. And if that device, like the Bambus do, expects you to run with an active internet connection, being a chinese piece of hardware makes it kind of a major security risk nowadays.
Before I'm accused of being an egomaniac because I assume that a foreign country would target me, let me clear one thing up: If push comes to shove, nobody would be interested in my data - but having an active network node in my network could be very useful as a jump host or part of a bot net. And that's something I'd really like to avoid.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
I hope 2024 is not the year for Bambu's subscription model.
RE:
I hope 2024 is not the year for Bambu's subscription model.
Don't make up gossip. It's impolite and not helpful to anybody. This issue is dead, Bambu is an open filament system:
"Filament: It would be very stupid if it were not open.
"Everyone showed their concern when they saw RFID in the system, asking whether the filament is a closed system. We believe that it would be supremely stupid to make a closed filament system. There are so many materials, colors, surface finishes, compounds, and blends out there. No single company could fulfill the diverse needs of the 3D printing community. Using a closed filament system would mean that a printer is crippled from day one." ( https://blog.bambulab.com/to-open-or-not-to-open-that-is-the-question/ )
Bambu is simply doing what Prusa Research should have been doing.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Rumor? Maybe. Legitimate concern? Absolutely.
At a my moment, Bambu Labs could at change the rules at anytime. The closed system makes it a little riskier to own. That being said I own a number of them and they run side by side with my Prusas. They have their strengths and weaknesses - Just like Prusas.
I hope 2024 is not the year for Bambu's subscription model.
Don't make up gossip. It's impolite and not helpful to anybody. This issue is dead, Bambu is an open filament system:
"Filament: It would be very stupid if it were not open.
"Everyone showed their concern when they saw RFID in the system, asking whether the filament is a closed system. We believe that it would be supremely stupid to make a closed filament system. There are so many materials, colors, surface finishes, compounds, and blends out there. No single company could fulfill the diverse needs of the 3D printing community. Using a closed filament system would mean that a printer is crippled from day one." ( https://blog.bambulab.com/to-open-or-not-to-open-that-is-the-question/ )
Bambu is simply doing what Prusa Research should have been doing.
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Chuck H
3D Printer Review Blog
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
I have read all the discussion on the topic and I am surprised that no one has brought up the topic about the professional use of 3D printing.At the home level I think Bambulab is a preferred choice for most users. The Multicolor opens many doors for creating personal projects at the home level.But if we talk about professional use to have a farm of 20-30 printers it evens out.For me Bambulab is an Artillery 2.0.The Artillery refills of the full or semi full Hotend were the same price as Bambulab currently. Now they are worth 3 times as much. Reliability is the most important thing, my 14 MK3S+ work 500-600 hours per month. In a year and a half I have only changed one nozzle. The thought of having to change the Hotend 3-4 times a year is something I can't go back to. The consumable I have changed the most has been the Hotend thermistor (6 times), the bed thermistor (1 time) and an Einsy plate that came defective. My experience with Chinese made machines is the complete opposite. The repairs were weekly, I could never have more than 3 days all the machines working.If one takes a tour of the Bamboo Telegram groups they look more and more like Artillery and Creality.A priori it's great that a part takes half as long, but I'm not going to be there to put another tray to work. There's more to do in a 3D printing business.This Black Friday I got more Prusa printers for my farm, although I was tempted to Bambulab.
Being in Europe is also a plus point for having Prusa as a supplier.It's a lot of personal variants to get one printer or another. As they said above, it is very difficult for one brand to absorb all the market share. But Bamboo is doing things right, like Artillery and Creality back in the day.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
For a desktop printer at a consumer price point, production speed is not even close to ease of use, reliability, and useful integrations in terms of importance as decision-driving factors on a purchase. The exact price isn't that important. I would not knowingly trade a couple hundred dollars for days wasted on troubleshooting over the useful life of the product. If product volume is the bottle neck of your business case (and not design), then I would imagine there is some industrial-class machine that is more appropriate, anyway.
My own unsolicited opinion, if I were playing Chief Strategy Officer, would be to focus on good production QC, user documentation (technical, tutorial, and discoverable "how do I..." ), discounts/partnerships with schools, and facilitating user extensions for software integration. I think some or most of this has already been well done. The only moonshot I would consider is adding structural analysis to the slicer that's accessible to students and hobbyists but still useful. Knowing where/how a part could fail before printing and adjusting a couple setting to mitigate that would be a big help in bridging the knowledge gap between experts and novices.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
... The only moonshot I would consider is adding structural analysis to the slicer that's accessible to students and hobbyists but still useful. Knowing where/how a part could fail before printing and adjusting a couple setting to mitigate that would be a big help in bridging the knowledge gap between experts and novices.
In my opinion that is a task you have to solve during design (loops) and hast to be included in your CAD tool. I think the Slicer is far too late.
Best regards, Clemens
Mini, i3 MK2.5S, i3 MK4, CClone (Eigenbau)
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Clemens, the design software can't be aware of parameters like shell thickness and filament orientation, which come from the slicer. The type and manufacturer of filament might be relevant. Unless you can import your .3mf into your FEM program, then I don't know how you're supposed to do that analysis other than making notes and going back and forth between programs. I'm also making a big assumption that useful structural analysis software for this use case is even available. I've not explored that space. I suspect most printer operators just use intuition. I can't imagine a 15 year old who got a model off thingaverse and is borrowing an FDM printer at school doing that kind of analysis. I would doubt hobbyists or light-commercial users are either.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
I think when a "closed filament system" is a major talking point against BambuLabs for some, then there really is no point in discussion. There is zero chance Bambu is going to close down other filaments.. It would be like using the argument that if Prusa added binary GCode to all their existing printers then they could drop support for regular GCode thereby shutting out competitors who may not upgrade their firmware. Both arguments are equally (un)likely. Reliability is the one area that Bambu has not proven, but that can only be done at the end of a 3-5 year period; and so that characteristic has yet to be determined and can only be estimated.
There are significant geographic advantages to Prusa in the EU that are not present in North America. Each will continue to have as much market share as they can handle for years to come.
Rumor? Maybe. Legitimate concern? Absolutely.
At a my moment, Bambu Labs could at change the rules at anytime. The closed system makes it a little riskier to own. That being said I own a number of them and they run side by side with my Prusas. They have their strengths and weaknesses - Just like Prusas.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Why does Bambu need to encrypt the log file which can exceed 700+MB? What could they possibly be collecting that needs 700+MB of data? Video would be a guess, but why would video be considered useful? And the CEO has outright said they will never allow the user to access its unencrypted contents? It's my data, I should have to right to choose what I send.
FYI the new EU Data Act (confusing name, has nothing to do with the protection of personal data) foresees that consumers get an access right to such data, so Bambu should not be able to uphold this strategy, in theory at least.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Clemens, the design software can't be aware of parameters like shell thickness and filament orientation, which come from the slicer.
But that‘s what should happen, IMO – CAD designs should be parametrized in respect of perimeter thickness and layer height, at least, and the hobbyist community should ditch mesh formats. For me, the funny thing is that people love discussing open source, but the dominant way of sharing 3d models in the community is closed source – STLs are the equivalent of sharing software in executable form.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
One additional note:
I think Bambu is an exceptional competitor to Prusa. Prusa has many competitors, such as Creality. But Bambu is fundamentally different. This is why discussing them vs Prusa is interesting.
Until Bambu, companies like Prusa offered very little actual innovation and advancement was slow. All of the machines were copies of copies of copies of each other. Beyond the fact that there are two main FDM designs (bed slinger and CoreXY) the machines worked and looked the same.
It is clear that as Bambu was forming, they sat down and created a prioritized checklist of consumer desires and pain points. Bambu saw that 3D Printing was a large market that was being poorly served, even by leaders such as Prusa.
Bambu's products are not all things to all people. But they are all things for most people. They seem to have all of the features consumers want, plus are (apparently) reliable, print higher quality, and offer greater value. This is: Bambu is consumer focused, and driven by carving out the main market opportunity. Steve Jobs of Apple made a remark that success is not only what you put into a product but also what you choose not to put in.
Bambu's machine was also designed from the ground up to be manufactured using mass production methodologies. (Have you seen the videos of their factory...extensive use of robots for materials handling, automated testing systems, and traditional Chinese quality control.) So Bambu likely has a cost advantage over Prusa and is likely to have consistent quality that doesn't depend upon the attention of a kid with a screwdriver assembling their printers as a side hustle.
In contrast, Prusa seems to have nobody skilled in industrial engineering designing their products. When my XL arrived I was just shocked by the sheer complexity of the device. Even the sheetmetal work is crude: it has unnecessary folds, excessive and unnecessary parts, and lacks the typical stampings that would be pressed into sheet metal to add rigidity. It's a "home-brew" device that hasn't been designed with manufacturability from the start. From little things like a lack of lock-tite on metal-to-metal screws to sloppy clearances, the XL looks like it was just a bunch of afterthoughts added on top of one another.
I'm not sure Prusa even HAS an engineering department, I'm still waiting for a XL after 2+ years and at the same time I'm glad I didn't get stuck with one of the "prototypes" they are selling. I just sold my MK3(great machine but slow), and My MK4(OK machine but primitive), and now running A1 and P1S Bambu machines they look and operate very very nice. I'm hoping Bambu comes out with a IDEX XL before Prusa says mine is ready because I don't want a science project, I want a machine that doesn't need Prusa's excellent support and fixes in the pipeline.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Clemens, the design software can't be aware of parameters like shell thickness and filament orientation, which come from the slicer.
But that‘s what should happen, IMO – CAD designs should be parametrized in respect of perimeter thickness and layer height, at least, and the hobbyist community should ditch mesh formats. For me, the funny thing is that people love discussing open source, but the dominant way of sharing 3d models in the community is closed source – STLs are the equivalent of sharing software in executable form.
What file format does maintain the parametric consistency and information and is widely compatible with all sorts of CAD programs?
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
STEP files are much more compatible for editing than STL (across varying CAD software, but they have no timeline history), but some designers prefer to keep some of their designs somewhat hidden by posting only STLs.. and it is a bit more work to export a STEP in some programs.. But this is off-topic. I believe Prusa Slicer will import either STL or STEP formats.
What file format does maintain the parametric consistency and information and is widely compatible with all sorts of CAD programs?
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Correct me if I am mistaken but step files do not contain parametric information either. You can not simply change dimensions of some part and everything adapts accordingly when you import some step file, can you?
The disadvantage of step files is that they can get much larger than stl files for complex models. They are better for exchanging cad files but in Freecad I have to say it does not seem to make such a big difference if you import stls or step files. Things may look differently with other CAD programs though. Prusa Slicer is indeed fine with both formats, generally speaking.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE:
I doubt you'll ever get a common data format among any of the CAD programs. But STEP files are an order of magnitude easier to modify than 100s of thousands of tiny triangles. I've made significant mods to RC car/truck projects where the author has provided STEP files from ONSHAPE that would not have been possible if I only had access to the STLs. The object is converted into basic shapes (characteristics) that you can delete or add on. You get solid walls that you can more easily create a sketch on .. and its boundaries are more defined. If someone has used a really fine resolution, you might run out of memory importing STLs. In my experience modifying CAD files in Fusion 360 there is no mod that I've done that would not, or is not, easier using a step file. It certainly would be better if there were a common parametric and historic record of creating an object.. but doubt it will happen in the foreseeable future. Any CAD file, STEP or native formates like Fusion360 will generally be larger than STLs (unless you get millions of triangles), but Fusion has choked several times on even simple mods on some STLs that have large precision, where I've never found that happens when modifying any STEP files. I have no experience in using FreeCad so I can't speak to its use. Fusion is free, but has a learning curve that takes time. I've modified probably about 100 Step & STL files and that has been my experience, but I am quite inexperienced in the CAD world in general. For some CAD programs that work in meshes more natively the experience may be quite different. But many CAD programs for function parts like solid form bodies.
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Saying the STL file may be smaller is a bit irrelevant, as previous poster likened it to executable code. An executable file can be modified with much hair pulling and experience, but the larger source file (STEP, FUSION, etc) is what you want to edit, to create a new executable (STL)
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
Maybe I don't know what I am doing or Freecad isn't such a great tool in this regard but i fail to see how importing a Step file instead of an Stl File makes anything much easier there. The source code analogy seems wrong. The source code is the project file from the CAD program of your choice. The problem is people use all sorts of programs with all sort of engines. Step files might be the best choice for export but they are not source code.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)
But I have to agree with Crab - if I can decide STL or STEP - I will allways go for the STEP file. I prefer working on a Raspberry Pi which is not a real workstation. Modifying STEP files is much easier than starting from a mesh of triangles you have to get a solid from. Working with the STEP file is less resource intensive and much faster (I am doing all my work using FreeCAD).
Best regards, Clemens
Mini, i3 MK2.5S, i3 MK4, CClone (Eigenbau)