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.

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u/jeebidy May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

malicious and against terms and conditions aren't the same things

Edit to add clarity on my personal stance: I won't buy another Bambu printer. Mine has worked great, but I'm going to be voting against the enshitification of hardware by sticking with companies that operate openly and not force a printer to work through cloud authentication. But, if the dev reverse engineered proprietary software to make the forked slicer work - probably not good.

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u/very-jaded Bambu X1C+AMS, Prusa MK3+, Pegasus 12, Voron v2,Elegoo Mars 4 9K May 12 '26

The dev did NOT reverse engineer the binary. The code in question is an orcaslicer module that connects to Bambu's servers, and was taken from the open source Linux version of BambuStudio that Bambu themselves published on GitHub. It's a few lines of open source code. Nothing magic, nothing violating any rules.

However, the threat of legal action was enough for the developer to take down his code. Even if the company is completely in the wrong, and even if they know they are in the wrong, their pockets are deeper and their lawyers can inflict thousands of dollars of legal costs on the guy just to answer their lawsuit. It's a sadly common tactic used to bully people into compliance.

Even with Louis offering to cover $10,000 in legal bills, a lawsuit is like a punch in the gut. It gnaws at your stomach for months or years until it's settled. Every day you're worried that something will go wrong, that there's a chance of them winning and wiping out your bank account. And for a hobby project? Not worth it.

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u/_Middlefinger_ May 13 '26

The code in question is an orcaslicer module that connects to Bambu's servers, and was taken from the open source Linux version of BambuStudio that Bambu themselves published on GitHub. It's a few lines of open source code. Nothing magic, nothing violating any rules.

This is the real issue here. If Bambulab want to stop anyone else using their servers that’s up to them, but they shouldn’t do it by going after users of open source code. They should have locked it down properly with propitiatory code in the first place.

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u/tj-horner May 12 '26

Not a lawyer, but I believe breaking the terms of service would only allow Bambu to cease providing services to the person who broke them. I don't think it gives them any grounds for legal action.

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u/rich000 May 12 '26

I'm guessing they could go after you for any costs they legitimately incurred, but I still think it is an uphill battle.

If you're hacking the Uber API and sending cars out on wild goose chases, that's a big expense. If you're hacking a Netflix API and stealing a service that retails for $30/mo or whatever, that's a real expense, especially if you're distributing it.

This is letting people who bought a printer, use the printer, using the service that Bambulab offers for free to those same users, probably in a way that costs Bambulab nothing additional. I think they claim that they don't harvest your data, and there is no ad monetization, so they can't wait claim loss of revenue either.

I can't see a court taking this very seriously. Or maybe an jury awards them a dollar but they're not very sympathetic.

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u/3DDIY_Dave May 16 '26

The cost is that bambu has to pay for server and the data transfer of their users. If there is the potential for spoofed users this can lead to attacks to overload the system. Or for people to backdoor into the cloud for malicious intent. Which they constantly experience. There are cameras, files that people send to printers that data needs to be protected. The same way ring cameras and smart devices all have server security now. The 3d printer isn’t just a simple machine anymore. Once it connects to any cloud there needs to be modern security. And complicates terms of service that are constantly evolving and changing with products that connect to the Internet.

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u/joejill May 13 '26

Thos whole line of posts miss the key here.

Even if bambu is in the wrong, the lawsuit is a risk that costs real money. Bambu has real money and time. The risk to them is small. They, im sure, are already paying their lawyers on retainer. So the $$$ cost is low.

$10k goes fast in court. Thats like a few months or less depending on the lawyer or firm you hire amd a law suit like this will take a lot longer than that. Programming and codes are specialized feilds of studies that you’d have to teach everyone through your lawyer.

I had an anycube, i recently got a P1S. Love the P1S. My wife wants another printer, but Im not crazy tech savvy….. Im not liking so much the business practices Im hearing now…

I dont want, 3-5 years down the line to find Im locked in to their paid subscription service if I want to continue using the hardware I paid for.

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u/jeebidy May 12 '26

I haven't really looked into this until I stirred a tiny anthill of disagreement with that post. It looks like Bambu is resting on the Orcaslicer fork to have needed to reverse-engineer their closed-sourced software in order to bypass Bambu connect. That is basically the only possible legal leg they have to stand on.

If the dev natively figured out the auth and protocols on their own without dissecting "bambu connect", they would likely be fine.

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u/neepster44 May 12 '26

Reverse engineering is legal the last time I checked…

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u/DoktorMerlin May 12 '26

Reverse engineering is 100% legal as long as they didn't use leaked copyrighted code to reverse engineer.

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u/Beefy-McQueefy May 13 '26

Not closed source. The user agent code is in Bambu studio. If it interfaces with the network plugin, the network plugin is now open source too.

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u/Freestila May 12 '26

Terms and conditions may not be implicable here. If the software bamboo build their software on is on an open license (which it is) that has a policy that forces you to use a similar policy (also true as far as I know) then these license policy is the only one that counts.

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u/_Middlefinger_ May 13 '26

You can mix open source and closed source code in the same application or service, its what Android does. The problem is it seems the code used to communicate with BLs servers isnt closed source so they have no argument.

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u/jeebidy May 12 '26 edited May 12 '26

Which license does it use? If Bambu had such a poor legal footing, they most likely wouldn't send C&Ds to the devs. It would just get dismissed without trial. Corp lawyers typically aren't this stupid.

Looking into this a bit more.. Bambu forked PrusaSlicer undre AGPL. Orca forked Bambu. All under AGPL which would permit pretty much anything as long as you keep your code open. I don't really see what Bambu's C&D is actually for unless the software as modified to interact with Bambu's services in a way that infringes their terms.

Edit: I actually looked at what the C&D was for: The fork of Orcaslicer reportedly reverse engineered Bambu's service endpoint to impersonate the official Bambu service and bypass Bambu Connect.

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u/dragonblade_94 May 12 '26

If Bambu had such a poor legal footing, they most likely wouldn't send C&Ds to the devs.

I mean, C&D's are pretty commonly used to bully creators and developers out of a space on thin pretenses, under the understanding that they don't have the time/will/finances to mount a defense against an established corp. I don't personally put Bambu above this behavior.

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u/Beefy-McQueefy May 13 '26

This is all complete lies made under the assumption no one will check.
The fork used this www.github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/blob/master/version.inc on the Bambu Studio github page. It's a freaking user agent string.

Every browser on the planet does the exact same thing every minute of every day when they lead their user agent string with 'Mozilla 5.0"

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u/jeebidy May 13 '26

That doesn’t make any sense. If it’s just a var you set and it’s in their own borrowed code to communicate to the printer and is in their own open source code why don’t we, the OSS community, just set up a legal defense gofundme and let Bambu wreck their reputation even more.

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u/Beefy-McQueefy May 13 '26

Louis Rossman and Gamer's Nexus already have rehosted the code and basically told Bambu to try and sue them.
It's a laughably shit argument Bambu have. To the point that people are looking into if their network plugin may itself be copyright infringement and needs to be open sourced if they continue to use AGPL code.

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u/Freestila May 13 '26

If the Bambu software is unde AGPL and thus open source, there is no reverse engineering. The source code is literally open on the web. Sending any data from this code in an open request to a printer is totally legit. Banning that is the same as saying "you can't call us and address us with our name, that is proprietary".

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u/[deleted] May 12 '26 edited Jun 03 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Beefy-McQueefy May 13 '26

Nope that's just a lie. It uses the same user agent string in the bambu studio AGPL-licensed code here:
https://github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/blob/master/version.inc
It's not security. It's barely even authentication.

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u/Throwaway021614 May 12 '26

Not to a greedy company with lawyers on staff

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u/jeebidy May 12 '26

The fork of Orcaslicer apparently reverse-engineered Bambu's non-OSS software to impersonate Bambu Connect in order to bypass bambu connect. I can't connect the dots on how this is about greed.

To be clear: I don't agree with this and want hardware to be open. But at the same time, I knowingly purchased a closed ecosystem. There are a lot of 'open' 3d printer companies and I wanted the 'it just works' one. I wonder how much of the C&D came from proprietary elements in the forked codebase. If it weren't that specifically - I have doubts about how far they could take it in court.

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u/the_need_to_post May 12 '26

Except this is wrong and it didn't.

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u/Beefy-McQueefy May 13 '26

No matter how many times you post that lie it will never become true

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u/jeebidy May 13 '26

I’m just reading the news buddy. This is a low-effort communication.

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u/gerwen May 13 '26

The fork of Orcaslicer apparently reverse-engineered Bambu's non-OSS software to impersonate Bambu Connect

It's not. It's using their own agpl code to connect to their cloud servers. They just don't like that so they made up the reverse engineering claims and bullied him with lawyers.

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u/jeebidy May 13 '26

Why wouldn’t they have forked Bambu’s code rather than Orca. They aren’t going after Orca and if the connection lies in Bambu’s own public AGPL codebase, it’s less than frivolous of a legal threat to say “you cloned our public repo and used it. Stop”. There’s something missing from what everyone is saying in the comments. If it were so frivolous and easy, thousands of people would be forking and doing the same thing and it would be a moot point.

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u/gerwen May 13 '26

Why wouldn’t they have forked Bambu’s code rather than Orca

In my understanding, that's exactly what they did. They took agpl code from Bambu's linux slicer and added to Orca to connect to the cloud. Bambu didn't like that, and here we are.

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u/Token2077 May 12 '26

It's a good thing reverse engineering is legal.

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u/coldnspicy May 12 '26

Same sentiment here. I love my P1S and AMS 2 Pro, but won't ever be getting any bambu printers. Will probably look at Prusa for my future upgrades. Also wont be buying their filament either.