A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)  

RE:

Step data can be edited in almost any CAD program (if geometry changes are necessary). However, special software, such as Meshmixer or similar, is required to change the geometry of STL data.

This is the main reason why I prefer Step data. These can also be exported as STL data (after geometry changes) anyway.

wbr,

Karl

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

You just don't have enough experience modifying STEP files in CAD file.. (and the context here are mechanical/function types of parts, not artistic, sculptures or figurines).. The video in: Using STL/STEP in FreeCad. has a good explanation of modding STL vs STEP files. Think of an Excel spreadsheet. Typically when people want to print your spreadsheet, you should send a PDF doc, not an excel, for they may not have EXCEL to view/print the doc, but everyone (cross platform) can print a PDF. So the PDF is like the STL.. You can't easily edit a PDF.. you can do some things.. but they can be difficult. To make something cross platform and editable, you might export from your Excel a comma delimited file. That can be imported in most spreadsheet programs, modified and then a PDF created. So the comma delimited file (like STEP) is not a true source file, but it is somewhere in-between and allows you to easier edit features of the model.

Posted by: @thejiral

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.

RE:

Thanks for the video. I think we have had enough analogies, the issue is not that I have no idea what a Step file is vs an Stl file. My issue has been so far that all the things that make the Step file better than an STL file didn't work tremendously better for me in Freecad than working with an imported STL file after creating shape from mesh.

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

Well, if you should ever want to add a piece to an existing model that needs to perfectly line up with a circular hole on a surface or that needs to be centered on a surface, the problems with STL should become obvious rather fast...

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

If you create shape from mesh, you can reference the edges and faces just as well as with a Step file. Granted, creating a shape from mesh can be resource intensive.But if you have decent hardware, its not a big deal for most files.

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

Does anyone remember a #1 company named Nokia selling 430M cellphones each year that were solid enough to take 30 minutes in a dry tumbler?  And on comes a Cupertino-based company that is fine with their phone screens cracking at the first drop because they redefined the game to usability and functionality through the internet and apps.

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

You forget that Apple already had a huge user base due to computers and laptops and they integrated phones into that ecosystem.

Nokia had just phones, and was mainly extremely popular in EU, while Blackberry was pretty strong in USA.

Still, all three were actually massively wasted by Samsung mobile, so a lot of people migrated from Nokia Symbian to Android devices and Samsung was on Android.

RE:

Apple didn't have any leading marketshare in computers or laptops at that time.. I don't think that had anything to do with iPhone sales.. It was mostly just due to better design.. better integration of apps and of voice/data/text. Compared to the Microsoft phone product at the time, it was light-years better in design. (remember Windows CE). In some ways, I think you are seeing a much stronger engineering and integration for non-tech users out now in 3D printer products. Prusa no longer has years to iterate its XL and MK4 to get it to perfection; as they could do with the I3 design. I still just can't believe they missed the mark so much with their Internet connectivity for their new fleet of printers.. Enterprise logins, public certificates, all modern encryption should all be possible in their current hardware platform and firmware could take advantage of this over the next few years.. all that functionality doesn't need to present right now.. But their current hardware is so limited that it is requiring lots of resources to keep it working.. They had to develop a whole new binary gcode system just to get connectivity speeds up to acceptable levels. And this new gcode system, which may eventually prove beneficial, will cause its own set of user issues that Prusa support are forced to deal with.. That effort could have been better served in other functional improvement areas. And very soon, they are going to need to change their hardware to address these limitations if they ever hope to integrate into organizations with every-increasing TCP/IP requirements and restrictions.

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

Thanks for this post! (Idk if this comment will link to your post. It's the one about $/lb and you gave some extremely beautiful examples of other cases like the air conditioners and competitor POs).

That was incredibly interesting to read!

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Also, I guess I'm definitely a bit late to this topic, but I'm kinda a Bambu simp now. I had an Mk3 since 2018. Picked up a Voron2 a year ago. Recently, I was looking at the XL. But after shopping around and seeing the Bambu CEO's interview with Stefan, went with an X1C.

Couldn't be happier! I am shocked by how seamless the machine is. And it's beautiful. A complete work of art...
On top of that, it is an engineering marvel. Speeds are totally unmatched. Features are jam-packed. And print quality is top-notch. The cloud print and monitor tool has been tremendously useful. God I love good design.

I really do hope Prusa can up their game. The hacked and cobbled together design philosophy is not befitting of such a big company. XL's 5H concept is pretty innovating in that nobody else offers a mass market tool change design (to my knowledge), and I am genuinely a huge fan. But comparing Prusa to Bambu, I don't think there's any catching up that can be done. The level of engineering at Bambu is a world apart from the Prusa approach. Short of replacing the entire engineering team and scrapping the production line, I'm not sure how Prusa could hope to step up to Bambu's level.

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

Beyond printing capabilities, there's also the whole story of sustainability and ethics. And that is a fundamental difference between Prusa, created by passion and manufactured in Czech republic, and Bambu Lab, managed with skill but mostly taking advantage of the (more than questionable) Chinese industry.

By the way, I actually came across this comparison because, I've got a Prusa i3 MK3 since 2017, and it still works great. Now I'm in an internship in a Fraunhofer research institute, where they recently bought a Bambu Lab P1S. And although it's impressively fast, the print quality is a bit disappointing. And what really annoys me is that it does a 5 minutes long calibration before every print... 🙄

I admire Prusa for it's reliability (my printer is over 6 years old, as eaten kg of filament, and still going), but mostly for their open source mindset and their honesty.

I hope people are going to look more and more beyond what companies tell them, because our current biggest problems (as a specie) are not going to be solved by more technology 🙏, but rather by making whise use of it.

RE:

Just for reference regarding the calibration time of the Bambulab printer, a little screenshot. It can be disabled, by unchecking boxes every time or by changing the g-code. But as such, it is what annoyed me the most, as it doubles the time of little test prints. Ah, whatever, I just wanted to say it.

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

Bamboo hasn't established a presence anywhere. They set up offices to collect mail. Look at the YouTube video of the guy that went to the Austin office and it's basically just an empty room. They do some shipping and Logistics out of Los Angeles but so does every other Chinese company on Alibaba or temu.  And as far as the language barrier good grief I've never had problems communicating with prusa. Bamboo you have to wait 2 weeks to get a reply and is there any language more foreign than Chinese versus czech?

I hated my experience with my p1p. Especially since it had a tool head issue and a screen issue that took 6 months to try to troubleshoot until eventually I gave up and filed a chargeback. Donated the printer to Goodwill and went out and bought them MK 3.5 upgrade kit and I've been pretty happy with that. Speeds are quick enough in the print quality is way way better. And when it arrived with a dead Wi-Fi module it took like 3 days to get the replacement with one email. Now that's refreshing. China company only cares to get your money

Posted by: @seattledavid

I wanted to cut through the hype regarding Bambu Labs and get to some "facts", especially with the new Bambu A1 (Mini) and the Prusa Input Shaper software now being released.

So I took a relatively complex (150 x 150 x 100) technical model and sliced it for all of the mainstream models, also with layer heights of 0.15 through 0.35 and also comparing 0.4 and 0.6 nozzles.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The "Executive Summary" is that with Input Shaping, the Prusa models are relatively competitive against the Bambu products. Bambu is generally (but not always) a little faster than Prusa. Bambu is much faster at smaller layer heights (0.15) and Prusa is faster at higher layer heights (0.35).

It's also noteworthy that when you compare across all layer heights and models, switching to a 0.6mm nozzle yields surprisingly modest reductions in printing time, averaging only about 7%. This was a great surprise to me. There are even a few cases where the 0.4 prints faster than the 0.6, which I cannot explain (is the slicer mis-calculating?)

Layer height is roughly proportional. Compared to a "standard" later height of 0.25, here is the print time difference: (again, broadly across all models and all nozzles):

• 0.15 Layer: 167%
• 0.20 Layer: 123%
• 0.25 Layer: 100%
• 0.35 Layer: 68% (roughly a ⅓ reduction in printing time.)

It is clear that Input Shaping is the salvation of Prusa as it keeps them in the game. There is a reason that Bambu promotes smaller layer heights (such as 0.15) because that is where the difference is greatest between them and Prusa. (Bambu's management is clearly very smart, arguably more-so than Prusa's.)

For those imagining that switching to a Bambu printer will slash printing times by 4x, sadly, this isn't going to happen when compared against Prusa's Input Shaping enhancements now rolling out.

Here are the actual numbers for the same model, according to the slicer forecasted printing times: (Percentages are comparing the Bambu configuration to a comparable configuration of the Prusa Mk4)

So where is the Bambu strategy likely to head against Prusa?

• The new entry machine, the A1, is clearly designed to bring first-time customers into the Bambu fold. It is a gateway machine, and by capturing first-time customers they will naturally upgrade to Bambu's larger machines. This is probably why they introduced the A1 in advance of their upcoming "XL".
• Bambu has a super cost effective and convenient filament switcher. This was a strategically wise move since the MMU2 was an unreliable, horrible, miserable device that developed a poor reputation. Whether the MMU3 can overcome this is dubious, because of price and reputation.
• Bambu software and hardware seems to be well tested, and this will lead to a good reputation. Prusa has had an excellent reputation, but in the past year or two there has been a "reality distortion field" in Prusa Management. Prusa's new software and products are buggy, 80% feature complete, and they have lost credibility by announcing the XL two years before being available, and some of the Mini's features were years late in being delivered. Prusa seem to have fallen victim to not reasonably delivering what they have announced (late, buggy, feature incomplete, and under-performing) while Bambu has (so far) delivered precisely what they have touted.
• Bambu's senior management is all from DJI (the drone people) and so they have experience in manufacturing at volume, producing superb products, delivering value, and they have access to Chinese manufacturing supply lines. In contrast, Prusa has a "Not Invented Here" (NIH) syndrome in its management and so they tinker and do somewhat hair-brained seeming things like trying to manufacture their own printed circuit boards, rather than doing what Apple and Bambu and the whole tech industry does by farming PCB manufacturing out to people who are truly skilled at it.

STRATEGY SUMMARY

1. Bambu has a sophisticated, experienced management team that is very intelligent.
2. Bambu is a spin-off of DJI, and they have consumer-product manufacturing experience.
3. Bambu fully understands where their products excel over Prusa and that is the messaging that they are delivering.
4. Bambu products are somewhat better than Prusa's, but it isn't the 4x better that they have been able to spin.
5. Bambu delivered what they promise. They are clearly prioritizing building their credibility, realizing that Prusa has undermined their reputation somewhat.
6. Bambu will deliver an XL printer. Reliable sources have confirmed this. This means they will align perfectly with Prusa's product mix.
7. Bambu has established local presence in many countries while Prusa remains a foreign company and customers must struggle with customs, duties, and language.

PRUSA CHALLENGE

• Regain credibility. Stop over-selling stuff. Deliver on time (like they did with the Mk4.)
• Tweak their product line to be competitive with Bambu. This may mean improvements and (minor) price adjustments.
• Start delivering 100%. The mindset where it is acceptable for software to be perpetually 80% complete or in "beta" must change.
• Improve product messaging. Bambu is very sophisticated in their messaging while Prusa is geeky and often off-point.
• Start innovating again. To be honest, Prusa has been very very slow at innovation. Bambu clearly recognized this.
• Analyze the whole Prusa XL fiasco as it perfectly illustrates the problems that are endemic within Prusa.

So that's my opinion of the Prusa/Bambu situation.

 

 

 

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

Here is the difference I see between the Bambu and Prusa.  Keeping in mind that I've only recently ordered my first Prusa and it isn't here yet.  It's just my own personal thoughts with nothing real strategic going on from me.  

Let's look at the P1S and the X1C.  One can take a bed to 90 and the other 100.  The X1C has lidar, better networking card and camera.  When you buy these printers you get that printer and that is all. There is no upgrade paths.  You just have to replace the printer if it isn't enough.  Even if you needed 10c more on that bed.  Too bad, P1S isn't going to be allowed to do this with their OS.  

I do have a P1S.  It works for me.  I was able to compare prints at Microcenter from both printers.  Lidar didn't seem to make any functional difference after carefully comparing prints from both.  But some people swear by it and maybe it does work for them.  IDK.  What I did know was this box printer would never improve beyond today. You can't even connect a PI to it.  

Now let's look at the Prusa printer I've ordered.  A 5 head XL semi assembled.  They just charged me 5x more than my P1S.  Hit me with a 3 to 4 week ship time.  I'll be sent a box of parts that I'll have to put together.  And to top it all off, no enclosure.  Have I lost my mind?  Maybe, but no remorse yet.  So why did I do it?

I love it and I want it so I ordered one.  Prusa has been committed to giving a clear upgrade paths.  They aren't holding anything back from it.  It's a cross between a kit and a commercial printer.  Even fully assembled is not actually fully assembled, it's just assembled more than the semi assembled. 

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

I've had the Prusa for 4+ years now (MK3S/MMU2) and have had very few issues.  I still use it regularly.  I also have an Ultimaker (S5) which I got a good deal on at the height of the Pandemic and also use regularly.  These two do all I really need.

I am, however, 'Bambu curious', as it seems like whenever 3d printing is discussed, the name Bambu comes up, kind of like ~5 years ago when Prusa would always come up.

Our local 'makerspace' is now essentially a Bambu shop.  This is where I learned to print some years ago on the (now ancient) Taz machines, among some others.  They have just added two Bambu P1P machines and invited members to book blocks of time on them and see what they will do.  I'm tempted, but they are now in temporary quarters which are not very convenient to me anymore.

Bambu is sure getting a lot of 'buzz' lately, and if I give them a try-out I would sure like to see what that buzz is about.  I'm thinking of taking one of my .stls over there and compare the results to my two existing machines.

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

Posted by: @jsw

I've had the Prusa for 4+ years now (MK3S/MMU2) and have had very few issues.  I still use it regularly.  I also have an Ultimaker (S5) which I got a good deal on at the height of the Pandemic and also use regularly.  These two do all I really need.

I am, however, 'Bambu curious', as it seems like whenever 3d printing is discussed, the name Bambu comes up, kind of like ~5 years ago when Prusa would always come up.

Our local 'makerspace' is now essentially a Bambu shop.  This is where I learned to print some years ago on the (now ancient) Taz machines, among some others.  They have just added two Bambu P1P machines and invited members to book blocks of time on them and see what they will do.  I'm tempted, but they are now in temporary quarters which are not very convenient to me anymore.

Bambu is sure getting a lot of 'buzz' lately, and if I give them a try-out I would sure like to see what that buzz is about.  I'm thinking of taking one of my .stls over there and compare the results to my two existing machines.

You will most likely not be amazed. My guess is you have honed your current machines and filament. What makes Bambu stand out is its ease of use. Put a few things together. Plug it in and get a decent print. 

I do love how they have essentially bought in a new audience into 3d printing. It will greatly add to the models available on printables. Bambu's own maker area has rewards for boost and downloads. This has led to people stealing the designs of others to gain profits. Their customer service is most likely outsourced and just aren’t compliant enough to help. 

Creality has also thrown their hat in. Initial k1s had issues but they quickly fixed them. They have a k2 coming shortly. 

I’m a consumer. Competition is a win for the consumer. 

RE: A strategic view of Bambu & Prusa (including benchmarks of all flagship models)

I own two - P1P and X1C.  Not bad printers,  Subtle differences.  One being that the nozzles are not as east to change,  Repairs are more difficult and not as well documented.  That bring said, they do print very well.  

Posted by: @jsw

I've had the Prusa for 4+ years now (MK3S/MMU2) and have had very few issues.  I still use it regularly.  I also have an Ultimaker (S5) which I got a good deal on at the height of the Pandemic and also use regularly.  These two do all I really need.

I am, however, 'Bambu curious', as it seems like whenever 3d printing is discussed, the name Bambu comes up, kind of like ~5 years ago when Prusa would always come up.

Our local 'makerspace' is now essentially a Bambu shop.  This is where I learned to print some years ago on the (now ancient) Taz machines, among some others.  They have just added two Bambu P1P machines and invited members to book blocks of time on them and see what they will do.  I'm tempted, but they are now in temporary quarters which are not very convenient to me anymore.

Bambu is sure getting a lot of 'buzz' lately, and if I give them a try-out I would sure like to see what that buzz is about.  I'm thinking of taking one of my .stls over there and compare the results to my two existing machines.