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Comment by ChiefNotAClue | Hacker News Reader

Prusa Core One Build Volume: 250 x 220 x 270 mm Price: 1199 USD assembled, 949 USD kit

Bambu Lab P1S Build Volume: 256 x 256 x 256 mm Price: 699 USD assembled (549 USD during sales)

The nice features of the Prusa Core One is that it comes with an ethernet port and an integrated NFC reader. However, the bed camera, chamber filter, and hotend accelerometer are all "optional addons." All of those come standard on the Bambu Lab P1S.

At that price, the Prusa is a hard sell. I'd rather get two of the Bambu printers, or one printer combo with AMS.

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Had to choose between a Prusa and a Bambu Labs for a school 3D printer. Bambu never got back to us when we reached out about tax exemption. That on top of their proprietary aspects sealed the deal for me. Prusa MK4+MMU3 has been more than satisfactory, even with the abuse of high schoolers and their optimistic print aspirations.

What are the proprietary aspects?

as far as I know, you can't flash a different firmware on the printer

Mandatory cloud connection for the initial setup (although you can use it in LAN mode afterwards).

BambuLab has a proprietary firmware.

So far, full open source and standard parts have been the standard for consumer-level 3D printer since the RepRap project, and especially for Prusa.

But it is not the case for BambuLab, except for its slicer, but I suspect that's only because it is a derivative of... PrusaSlicer, which is AGPL. Because BambuLab makes great 3D printers and is therefore very successful, the community worries that it will set a precedent and that 3D printing will become more and more locked down.

2D printing is an abomination because everything is proprietary, trash-tier drivers and HP begging for ink subscriptions. I have decided to commit to open source 3D printing. I was thinking of Voron as a next machine but this Prusa looks pretty nice.

A lot of people are willing to pay just for the fact that it's open source and moddable.

A lot more people are willing to pay for a printer that just works. Without the accelerometer and nozzle pressure sensing most of the advanced calibrations are probably off the table.

I go with prusa any day, repairability is very nice with their machines. Plus more of my money goes to a company that's in Europe and actually maintains the most important part of the 3D printing ecosystem: the slicer.

Most other manufacturers just slap their logo on top of cura or prusaslicer (or violate their licenses).

> Most other manufacturers just slap their logo on top of cura or prusaslicer

Isn't PrusaSlicer just Slic3r?

https://help.prusa3d.com/article/general-info_1910

Slic3r doesn't really see much development anymore, with the latest release more than 5 years ago.

https://github.com/slic3r/Slic3r

PrusaSlicer has added a lot of features since then. Even Bambu's slicer is built on top of PrusaSlicer.

It was based on Slic3r, however I urge you to diff the sources to see how much has been rewritten and extended. Plain Slic3r is too far behind both PrusaSlicer and Cura nowdays.

Maybe in the very early i3 days, but now Prusa's lane is being a workhorse, and even had a moment where they were trying to distance themselves from being fully open source on electronics despite the marketing speak here

People who want to tinker go with stuff like Vorons or Enders

It is not open source anymore: https://blog.thea.codes/a-reply-to-josef-prusa/

let's not exaggerate

so far as I can tell, all of their software remains freely licensed on github, but not 100% of their PCB designs

> You can also find a thriving ecosystem of low-cost derivatives like the Ender series. In many cases, if not most cases, these clones and derivatives contribute basically nothing back to the original project and, at the surface, appear to add dubious value to the ecosystem as a whole.

What an unnecessary jab at the Enders. This person needs a serious financial privilege check.

In the third world the only printers that are affordable are the clones and the Enders, the "good" stuff is usually marked to 2x the price on top of 2x import tariffs because Prusa and Bambu Labs don't have official channels here.

Why would they care about a lower regional pricing for third world countries when they are selling as fast as they can produce? Screw poor people.

How could someone reporting in the industry be so blind about this.

If that's your priorities then I highly recommend you to jump directly to the VORON printers.

Truly open source and moddable DIY printers.

But can you actually buy a Voron? I mean fully functional and ready to use.

For what I understand, Voron only publishes blueprints, and the process of building a printer is quite involved. You can find part kits, which is a good thing considering that you need a good 3D printer (like a Voron) for the 3D printed parts, but assembly is on your own. It may be a bit much to ask for someone who wants a 3D printer more than a hobby, though I admit that these often go together.

With a Prusa, you have the option of buying one that works out of the box, but you can still tinker with it. Or you can get an Ender3 or one of its many offsprings for cheap, these are moddable, often built using standard parts and open source software, and mostly work out of the box. Not the best by far, but you will have a better idea of your upgrade path (Bambu, Prusa, Voron,...), if you want to upgrade.

That's true, the tradeoff is that you have to build it yourself. I personally think that's a fair trade if you're already on the mood of modding it.

Once you need to replace a pully or belts, you'll soon (well, in a several hours) realize that Bambu printers are not made to be serviceable (apart from basic service).

Core One looks a lot more suitable to production. More rigid frame, more serviceable. I’d buy the Bambu for hobby, but I’d rather have one Prusa than two Bamvu for a workhorse.

It's much more comparable to the X1C then P1S. Especially the Ethernet port is a feature of the X1E which costs double the prusa core one

If both printers are the same on speed, quality and reliability (and we'll have to wait for reviews to test this) prusa will be ahead again because of repairability

The X1E and P1S are atrocious in this regard. We had one X1E having to be returned to manufacturer for repair and a P1S being thrown away since repair was not worth the cost/effort

I'm also unhappy with the Bambu's closed access so I am interested in (another/upgraded) Prusa. Bambu restricts PC network access to a closed source plugin for their slicer. They ship a LAN mode for their printers which is completely incompatible with their remote control phone apps, requiring adding your printer to their cloud service. Without that, I can't do something as simple as remotely starting a print job that I've already loaded into the SD card.

Prusa provides an easily accessible web interface running on the printer.

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