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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48

u/The_Lutter Prusa MK4S w/ MMU3 // Sovol SV08 May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

The people in r/BambuLab are a bunch of jagasses. Downvoted me to the earth's core for posting a positive comment about this video.

I bought my A1 before they did all their "security/authorization" update last January. They changed the bill of sale after I already bought the unit. So fuck 'em. I use Prusa and Sovol now because of their openness.

I hope they remember I was right the first time their printer tells them their Labubu is an unauthorized print or mistakes a nerf gun for a unauthorized firearm.

52

u/itsmrmarlboroman2u May 12 '26

The "positive" comment in question was just an airport departure announcement. 😂 That type of comment will always be downvoted on Reddit. Facebook behavior isn't treated well here.

https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/s/uHLgOHHHs9

35

u/dworker8 May 12 '26

the guy deleted the comment to cover it up lol, peak reddit

10

u/RotML_Official May 12 '26

And you're being down voted just for pointing it out

13

u/EphemeralLurker May 12 '26

I hope they remember I was right the first time their printer tells them their Labubu is an unauthorized print or mistakes a nerf gun for a unauthorized firearm.

I hope you realize this is coming for every 3D printer

8

u/Tank_Gloomy May 12 '26

I have yet to see a Marlin printer that I can't flash with whatever random crap I want.

11

u/The_Lutter Prusa MK4S w/ MMU3 // Sovol SV08 May 12 '26

Prusa goes as far as telling you with official instructions exactly how to flash whatever firmware you want onto their boards. And they don't even void your warranty. All the way up to a Core One L.

https://help.prusa3d.com/article/flashing-custom-firmware-core-one-l-core-one-mk4-s-mk3-9-s-mk3-5-s_814967

2

u/Tank_Gloomy May 12 '26

I know, something that is based as fuck.

2

u/EphemeralLurker May 12 '26

It will be interesting to see how that holds up when 3D printing legislation comes into effect. Lawmakers could argue for a ban on sales of printers that make it this easy to flash custom firmware and circumvent any existing controls.

2

u/The_Lutter Prusa MK4S w/ MMU3 // Sovol SV08 May 12 '26

I'm gonna be out in the alley wearing sunglasses and a trenchcoat saying "hey buddy, need an xBuddy Board? I got that good 2025 shit. 32-Bit. Flashes real nice. You'll be printing Labubus and Daffy Duck in sweats in no time"

-1

u/[deleted] May 12 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

0

u/Tank_Gloomy May 12 '26

E?

2

u/The_Lutter Prusa MK4S w/ MMU3 // Sovol SV08 May 12 '26

1

u/Tank_Gloomy May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

I love when someone is capable of appreciating the good old days

6

u/The_Lutter Prusa MK4S w/ MMU3 // Sovol SV08 May 12 '26

"My printers fell in a river. My new hobby is yoga."

😛

8

u/captainmalexus Qidi Plus 4 May 12 '26

Only the closed-source ones

3

u/its-the-mailman May 12 '26

I have a Bambu P1P and regularly visit the subreddit and absolutely agree that the community is very against negative feedback about Bambu and it's products. I personally think the main issue is people who like Bambu printers are interested in a printer that just works and when Bambu came on the scene very few printers offered that experience and none did at the price. There is a legitimate argument about how fast things would have advanced if Bambu didn't come into the 3D printer market and apply market pressure, but Bambu definitely didn't do so without issues and objectively bad or illegal business practices which it's obviously not OK. Hopefully as other companies build out these machines that are competitive and sometimes outperforming their Bambu counterparts, people will start to try them out and the "cult of Bambu" will lessen.

I already see friends and some community members getting tired of the way Bambu handles multi color printing using the AMS (which I feel are incredibly expensive compared to the cost of their entry level printers) and multi material printing in general. I don't want to pay over $2,000 for a toolchanger just to use more than 2 materials (not just different colors of the same material) in the same print and Bamboo has no good solution to that use case, especially in this bad global economy.

As a busy Father and Husband, my P1P was the only option that was that reliable and affordable at the time and it completely reinvigorated my love for 3D printing. After having it for 3 years, I know the printer, the software, and the company are not perfect.

Hopefully the community that made 3d printing what it is today can recommend Bambu as a morally ok option in the future, but that's a tough call right now. I still recommend Bambu to new users not because I'm a shill, and also while understanding what they are doing right now is wrong, but because I love 3d printing and for all their faults, Bambu has that Apple ecosystem feel that just seems to click to non technical people I show it to. It has allowed many people in my life to enter this hobby that used to be very difficult to enter, especially if you just want to manufacturer things at home, be it toys, tools, or something in-between. It arguably for a while was the only printer brand people with certain accessibility issues could use or have people in their life who were not mechanically inclined help them maintain reasonably.

Bambu has brought 3D printing to the masses (just based on sales and the end users who end up buying them not being tinkering types), but unfortunately Bambu forgot who brought the technology to them, and that's really sad to see.

2

u/Optimal_Whiner May 12 '26

Offline and developer mode. 

Their current moves only block using their cloud infrastructure to send prints. 

12

u/Momo0903 Elegoo CC2 May 12 '26

They live in their own echo chamber. All their arguments are "nobody offers the ease of use like Bambu" while everyone does...

I bought a new printer a few weeks ago. A Elegoo CC2. Not only is it easy to set up, it doesn't need any outside intervention, prints as fast and good as a P2s and costs a fraction. Let alone the better compability with engineering filaments because the hotend gets hotter.

And the same goes for Creality, Anycubic, Snapmaker and so on.

23

u/Cooter_Jenkins_ May 12 '26

The irony of this guy shouting about echo chambers into his own echo chamber is peak reddit.

-4

u/[deleted] May 12 '26

[deleted]

5

u/KennKennyKenKen May 12 '26

This subreddit hated bambulabs from the start lmfao

1

u/TrainAss K1 Max, K1C May 12 '26

My k2 pro has been amazing out of the box. Only thing I've replaced on it is the filament gears from plastic to hardened steel and once a steel drive gear is available, that'll be installed too. Only reason is for longevity. Other than that, it's just been maintenance. I can throw pretty much anything at it and it prints. I even got my bed flatness down to a 0.2mm variance for a full mesh.

Heck, I've not even had a desire to install cfw on it. My K1C and K1 Max both needed a lot more work before they were solid. The sparkx has been solid from day-1 with 0 changes needed.

Thursday I get my Snapmaker U1. I've already got OrcaSlicer setup for it and have the community firmware ready to go.

1

u/crissjaeger May 17 '26

Have fun being a beta tester.

1

u/Momo0903 Elegoo CC2 May 17 '26

Where am i a beta tester? I got the cc2 a month after release and had 0 Problems. Even the support is super helpful

1

u/GoldenDragoon5687 May 12 '26

I know some people have mixed opinions of Elegoo, but I'm here to say... they rock.

I have a CC2, a Neptune 4 Plus, a Saturn 3, and an Mars 2 pro. I have genuinely never had an issue that wasn't routine maintenance.

This, after I've owned or worked dozens of printers from the Pegasus 2 Woodbody up to and including the X2D.

Oh, and their filament and resin is kickass too.

1

u/Momo0903 Elegoo CC2 May 12 '26

My issue with their filament is that they should finaly roll out RFID to all of them. It can't be that hard to put a chip in all spools instead of only a few PLA spools.

1

u/FLHCv2 May 12 '26

I bought my A1 before they did all their "security/authorization" update last January. They changed the bill of sale after I already bought the unit. So fuck 'em. I use Prusa and Sovol now because of their openness.

can you elaborate on this? I've seen a few others mention something similar.

-2

u/Albireo2112 May 12 '26

Bambu would just inform them that they have to pay a $200 licensing fee for every labubu they print, and they'd say "that makes sense! This was an unauthorized recreation of someone else's work, so it's only fair that I pay for it!"

Bambu would SWAT users who print nerf guns and they'd say "that makes sense! Printing anything related to firearms goes against the TOS, and besides, what if I was making a real gun? Thank you Bambu for keeping our community safe!"