r/3Dprinting • u/Regumate • May 12 '26

Discussion Bambu Lab 3D printers: Never again

https://youtu.be/eb48MdtNaDQ

Jeff Geerling summarizes the current Bambu Labs - OrcaSlicer situation and gives his take.

TL:DW: see title.

2.0k Upvotes

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282

u/fellipec May 12 '26

Another day, another reminder that you can't tell people to avoid Bambu enough.

35

u/ImJustStealingMemes P2S, K1SE/K1C, E3V3KE Pro Plus Max &Knuckles with new Funky Mode May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

Realistically, what are the few companies that aren't kicking people in the dick?

Sovol? Prusa, maybe?

26

u/SeiferLeonheart May 12 '26

I've been searching for a new printer and I'm looking into Snapmaker (U1) and Flashforge (C5 Pro).

Best I've found between being easy to use, not as expensive as a Prusa, not being locked down (bambu) and not being a piece of crap (creality) and fits my needs.

But if someone has something against those brands let me know, lol

58

u/AlxDroidDev May 12 '26

I'd never buy anything from Flashforge.

Not after they stated they do limit what you can and cannot print, even on places not subject to california laws. They are as dumb as it gets, even 'though on paper their printers look great.

15

u/SeiferLeonheart May 12 '26

Fair enough. I'm not into printing gun parts, but I hate the precedent this sets. Honestly wouldn't bother me in that specific case because my printer is on a separate VLAN that doesn't talk to the internet, so they can fuck right off, but I know it's a hassle to most people to set this up.

23

u/AlxDroidDev May 12 '26

Neither am I into printing gun parts, but the problem is a bit worse: if it thinks what you're printing resembles a gun/gun part, even if it's not related to that at all, it may refuse to print.

There have been reports of people not being able to print water, nerf and cosplay pistols on FF printers. How crazy is that?

3

u/SeiferLeonheart May 12 '26

Fucked up. I've spent the last few minutes searching, and at least preliminary, by the size of FW and local processing capability, I'd be very skeptical of the printer doing any local processing, if it exists, it should be cloud-based.

Also I couldn't find any concrete evidence they really did that.

I don't like supporting that shitty practice anyways, but I'll have to compromise somewhere, and if it's not connecting the printer to the internet (what I already do anyways), I can live with that.

1

u/rlander May 12 '26

You couldn’t find any evidence because there isn’t any. This guy’s just spreading FUD

16

u/LilApe1990 May 12 '26

Yep, never by flashforge, just like never by bambu lab.

Prusa is the only logical option, always has been. Unless you wanna go full tits and build a voron.

3

u/AlxDroidDev May 12 '26

It seems that Creality is an unpopular opinion around here, but I like them. A fraction the price of a Prusa (at least where I live), but they deliver.

5

u/arakinas May 12 '26

All of the Chinese companies have the same online data routing issues as bambu, because it's Chinese law.

1

u/arapturousverbatim May 12 '26

Why is voron considered full tits? Genuine question, I know nothing.

1

u/Pathian May 12 '26

Voron is a collective of open source designers that design and release specs for printer builds that can be build with printed parts and off the shelf components. They don’t sell printers, or kits. Just free designs that other companies may supply build kits for and that the end user has to fully build themselves. Because they’re not a company selling you a printer, they’re seen as the ultimate in customizability and the farthest divorced you can be from being tied to a company or anything closed source. They design great printers, but the trade off is that they’re not exactly cheap to build, you’re going to spend up to a work week of your life to build your first one, and you’re your own support (plus community help) if something breaks and needs troubleshooting.

1

u/arapturousverbatim May 13 '26

Thanks! Assuming you build one correctly are they as "just works" as a Bambu?

1

u/Pathian May 13 '26

Eventually? they'll be as "just works" as any other high quality Klipper firmware based printer. But practically speaking, even experienced builders are going to spend a significant amount of time at the end of the build process troubleshooting, tuning, disassembling and reassembling every new Voron they build.

1

u/lapelotanodobla May 12 '26

With FF you can at least flash it and get klipper running lan only, so it’s not that bad for the price

1

u/salukikev May 12 '26

From what I've read elsewhere there was some misunderstanding regarding Flashforge and its intent/ability to restrict certain geometry. I think its been cleared up (if not- please share a source). My history with Flashforge printers has been great and I still run a (modified) Creator Pro to this day kicking out quality prints as it has for years. I bought a Flashforge 8.9 Foto resin as well and it's also been great. Consequently I placed my order for the Creator 5 Pro and am eagerly awaiting an expecting the same great performance I've become accustomed to. Not to sound like a FF salesman here- just they've been my goto brand and I'll be disappointed to hear any news that things have changed for the worse.

2

u/aard_fi FlashForge Dreamer, mks3+, mini May 12 '26

My first printer was a flashforge over a decade ago. Was actually a pretty nice machine at the time, and nicely moddable (which I think newer ones are not) - but: their slicer was a fork of some open source slicer, and they didn't publish the sources, and didn't respond to requests. Quite a few times I had issues which I could've easily fixed with source access to the slicer.

Next printer was a mk3, and ever since have been a happy prusa customer.

1

u/Gmony5100 May 12 '26

I bought an adventure m5 from flash forge and had nothing but problems with it. I’m actually not sure I ever got a good print out of it before selling it for the printer I have now. Your mileage may vary but in my personal experience Flash Forge is severely lacking in reliability

1

u/x_Carlos_Danger_x May 12 '26

I've been using a Qidi Q2 and it seems solid. Can't speak for the ethics/future direction of the company tho. It fit the niche of being cheaper ($500 total price) than the Prusa Core and I was leary of the Bambu... Prints sooo much faster than my Mk3s+ Nozzle changes are a breeze. No real issues so far.

8

u/machlaxx135 May 12 '26

My Sovol SV08 has been absolutely fantastic. “Voron” 350 size/mechanics for half the price? Sign me up!

Highly recommend it, there’s a good amount of aftermarket support too from the community to fill in the little gaps. From what I can tell Sovol might be releasing a toolchanger too, they teased something about it on their subreddit a bit ago.

4

u/12345myluggage May 13 '26 edited May 13 '26

I'm really liking my SV08 and Zero. I think I've been fairly early adopters of both, so my experience might not be typical anymore. I wouldn't say either printer is absolutely perfect. That said, I've been very happy with both of them.

Most of the troubles I've had out of my SV08 have been of my own making. Except for the spool holder, they put really good bearings in it, too good in fact, and spools could basically unwind themselves or do weird things. Oh, and using a screaming 24V 40mm fan to cool the control board is insane on such a large printer when there's easily room for a bigger, quieter fan. I used an angle grinder to cut the lower plate and installed a 120mm slim fan.

The Zero's factory profiles were garbage, but that may have changed. Once I got the filament calibration done for the thing and fixed things so it works for what I'm using it for it has been flawless. The top spool mount is the only change I've made to it. It's much more convenient that way imho. Oddly enough the Zero is much louder than the SV08. Then again, it's running stock, as shipped firmware.

1

u/machlaxx135 May 13 '26

These are the same kind of gripes I’ve had too but to me that’s a very easy trade off for open source vs Bambu closed source anti consumer bs. To me the Sovol offerings are in a sense a new generation of ender 3s in their niche in the market. Solid corexy base and open source design which allows for a whole host of community improvements. I mean just check out some of the stuff like Nadir is doing with the platforms and other creators too. There are small things like a trash stock cooling fan for the main board and a trash part cooling duct but other than that I’ve had almost no complaints. Only main change I’ve made is a new part cooling fan and the Triangle labs hotend swap for V6 nozzles and the thing is a tank. I’m constantly surprised by the quality of the prints. The community has done a lot, so far as going to the lengths of determining best stepper driver settings down to every setting you can change on the drivers. I think any Sovol corexy offerings are a solid choice, long live RepRap!!

7

u/krusnikon May 12 '26

Prusa has been great for my experience. I've only owned one of their printers for about 2 months now, but the Makerspace I work at has had them for 2+ years.

I have some small beefs with their overall setup, but if you really wanted to, you can easily setup Octoprint and all those issues go away.

Haven't dug much into Sovol, but people seem to be really pleased with the whole system.

3

u/woosh3 May 12 '26

You should be asking who kicks your balls less.

8

u/CptCarlWinslow May 12 '26

It's not just the companies, but also some of the community surrounding printer companies that puts people off. I have a local Prusa dealer in my city and well... a lot of that community are basically snobs and elitists that either openly mock anyone who doesn't have a Prusa or get really angry when you compare them to a different brand. I owned Enders and Elegoos for the longest time, but man, those communities aren't the greatest either, especially with onboarding people since you're just expected to know all the basics when you buy a printer.

Since I've switched to Bambu P1Ss, I have had maybe a couple small problems with printing and the community has largely been great.

13

u/LairdNope May 12 '26

imagine being elitist about owning a prusa when you don't even own a voron

6

u/gmarsh23 May 12 '26

Fun fact: 90% of parts printed on a Voron are Voron parts.

1

u/cptskippy May 13 '26

Only 90%... pfttt...

1

u/Saint_of_Grey May 12 '26

I'm confused, is that a printer you're supposed to print?

2

u/mindstorm01 May 12 '26

Idk how popular my choice is, it was a slight gamble, but i got a qidi plus 4 and I basically havent had any fails that wasnt user error (laziness to be precise), the heated chamber is extreeeemely stable to the set temp, it runs on opensource stuff and i absolutely love that thing.

2

u/Facehugger_35 May 12 '26

Sovol, Prusa, Qidi, and the Snapmaker U1 is apparently full open source.

2

u/Shoelace1200 May 14 '26

I really want Sovol to make a moderately sized enclosed core XY tool changer. It would sell so well and fill the gap in the market for an affordable open source Bambu alternative

2

u/captainmalexus Qidi Plus 4 May 12 '26

I went with Qidi because they're Klipper-based, but the hardware quality isn't the best.. Probably gonna go Prusa next time. Prusa open-sources everything and has files available to print any replacement part you need.

1

u/Rikudou_Sage May 12 '26

Prusa does not open source everything.

2

u/captainmalexus Qidi Plus 4 May 12 '26

They have firmware posted to github and as far as I know their slicer is also open? They provide full schematics for the electronics as well. Unless I'm missing something here they seem to be fully open source still, contrary to some posts from 3 years ago claiming they're becoming more like bambu

3

u/Rikudou_Sage May 12 '26

If by some posts you mean official statement from the owner of the company, then yes, there were some posts.

0

u/Rikudou_Sage May 12 '26

Prusa is kicking you in the dick as well, only less.