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Comment by danuker | Hacker News Reader

> not everyone feels that Prusa Research has made the Mini as “open” as its predecessors. Some concerned owners have pointed out that according to the documentation for the Buddy board, they’ll need to physically snap off a section of the PCB so they can flash custom firmware images via Device Firmware Upgrade (DFU) mode. Once this piece of the board has been broken off, which the documentation refers to as the Appendix, Prusa Research will no longer honor any warranty claims for the electronic components of the printer.

https://hackaday.com/2019/12/16/prusa-dares-you-to-break-the...

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Honestly that doesn't seem _that_ bad to me. It's a reasonable way of saying "hey, you're going off the happy path for this product and doing so at your own risk". This is an interesting gray area of consumer/hacker technology where bad software can destroy your hardware; there's probably difficulties in supporting warranty related breaks. Is the alternative to just replace parts every time someone bricks their hardware regardless of any/all modifications they've made? Maybe that's what they should do, but I can appreciate that that's a pretty tall ask, especially when the industry is still in it's infancy.

I wonder if it's entirely unfair in this case. Custom firmware for 3D printers do not only brick the hardware, but can do real environmental damage (such as burning down the house[1][2]), so I don't think this approach is entirely unreasonable. It's not that uncommon to see someone modifying firmware to print material such as PEEK which requires 400c nozzle temperature, so this appendix could even be their legal protection for such cases (IANAL).

[1]: The most popular firmware, Marlin, has a feature called Thermal Runaway Protection which turned off the printer when it detected temperature has reached certain threshold. Prusa printers have TRP enabled by default, but some manufacture doesn't.

[2]: https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/8ah96r/anet_a8_... this is about ANET A8, but flashing custom firmware with TRP disabled or with higher temperature limit may result in the similar situation (ANET A8 stock firmware don't have TRP enabled)

It might not brick the hardware, but it can get it to a state that makes it seem bricked to a non-expert user.

I think the fear would be that non-expert users would try to flash their custom firmware, run into issues, then try to get warranty relief claiming there is a hardware problem.

There would be no easy way for Prusa to tell whether the boot issue is actually a hardware problem covered by the warranty or a firmware issue caused by bad firmware being flashed.

They don't want to sign themselves up for having to assist users recovering from flashing their firmware.

This is fair.

Warranty and customer service abuse is one of the biggest reasons that shipping hackable hardware is a pain. For every 1 person who knows what they’re doing when they mod their device, there are at least 10 or more who will try to get customer support, refunds, or warranty claims going when they get in over their head after copy-and-pasting commands from the internet to mod their device.

I think it’s reasonable to expect users who modify their hardware to forfeit their warranty rights. The company making these devices shouldn’t have to warranty or support every untested, 3rd-party modification.

Even though I disagree with the notion of software changes nullifying a hardware warranty, that is a cute way to do it that I’ve never seen before.

Usually software can't easily destroy a device like a network switch. However on a 3d printer you can burn the whole unit into ash if you remove overheat protections. You may also be able to destroy stepper motors or drivers.

And this isn't even theoretical. Buggy 3D Printer Software has literally burned people's homes down in the past.

That's really bad design then.

Any design worth its salt should incorporate a thermal soft-fuse at the heater element that cuts power off if the printhead ever goes above the maximum temperature that any filament can handle.

Pure software interlocks are not sufficient. One might think people would have learned a lesson, nearly half a decade after Therac-25.

Last time I looked into this, there are no fuses in the required range available and I'm not sure they can be produced without significant R&D investment.

In the embedded world, software can absolutely destroy hardware in all sorts of ways. I've done it many times.

Loading untrusted firmware onto a PCB with high current outputs - like motor control - should absolutely void your warranty (for that PCB and anything connected downstream of it).

They’d have to prove that you damaged something beyond their instructions. And if it can be proven that their instructions could damage the product beyond the intended purpose or allowing flash access, they must honor the warranty. At least in the US.

Why does hackable hardware even offer a warranty in the first place? Is there some kind of legal requirement that you must offer a warranty?

Yes, as a direct to consumer seller located in the EU they have to offer a two year warranty on manufacturing defects.

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