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Comment by jonpurdy | Hacker News Reader

Very useful comment. I’ve had an A1 Mini for a year now and it has been my favourite purchase in years. Like when I got my first mobile phone, I feel like I’ll have some sort of 3d printer for the rest of my life. Bambu made it super easy and inexpensive for this to happen.

I’m completely against bullying and attempts to lock out open source software from using 3d printers directly; if they locked out OrcaSlicer from direct control I’d have a big problem with that.

But trying to interact directly with Bambu’s private infrastructure/APis seems reasonable for Bambu to block. I think a cease and desist might backfire on Bambu but i don’t think it’s unreadable. (Didn’t watch the video. Just getting context from parent comment. )

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It's not like you have a choice, the printer doesn't work locally unless you enable LAN mode, and then it only works locally. Bambu make you pick either "closed servers" or "the mobile app doesn't work" for no reason.

I'll chip in to this developer's legal defense fund because I want to be able to do whatever I want with my printer, and "I can't do what I want with my printer" is a bigger problem for me right now than "the developer made a TCP connection on my behalf to a server he didn't own".

But we’re geeks, we can run tailscale on the local lan and access it anywhere, no? Obviously that’s not for everyone, but that’s workable for savvy users, no?

Yeah man I don't know, if the argument is "it's fine for Bambu not to make a trivial change to allow openness because I can set up a home Linux server that runs 24/7 with OpenVPN and iptables", I'll say this is the reason everything's closed now, because geeks like us didn't shout about it until the last of our hacked-together spit-and-duct-tape solution stopped working, by which point it was too late.

I don't accept any "it's fine because you can hack around it". If it needs me to choose between their phone app working or privacy, it's not fucking open enough.

On the one hand, I agree with a lot of what you’re saying here.

With that said, I don’t think it’s reasonable to describe setting up Tailscale as similar to “Linux server that runs 24/7 with OpenVPN and iptables”. Sure, you could go that route, but a Tailscale setup is extremely simple and lightweight. A raspberry pi is plenty if there isn’t already a system running 24/7. I personally have this set up on my router.

I point this out while still sharing the general sentiment of negativity towards Bambu here.

Given that you do need a machine that runs 24/7 to run Tailscale, I think it's very reasonable to describe it like that. Sure, maybe you can install it on your Windows machine, and figure out all the networking bits that will get it to talk to the printer, but for the average person that might as well be sorcery.

Have you set up Tailscale and have you set up OpenVPN from scratch? Because these two things are not alike. That’s why I’m pushing back a bit.

I find it difficult to imagine equating a raspberry pi in a closet with “running a server”. Is it technically a server? Sure. But it’s not as if we’re talking about running a power hungry rack.

Bottom line is: there are very cheap and simple/easy options for maintaining a private connection to your home stuff.

> and figure out all the networking bits that will get it to talk to the printer

With something like Tailscale this is already figured out. My mostly non technical brother does this without issues.

This is entirely separate from whether or not you should need to do so for Bambu printers, which again I agree the answer is ideally “no”.

There's a wonderful Home Assistant integration that has all the monitoring features one could want.

> But trying to interact directly with Bambu’s private infrastructure/APis seems reasonable for Bambu to block.

Even if they have taken away other routes that used to exist so that this is the only way?

I've also been very happy with my A1 (bought ~18 months go), and have since bought a U1 (which has networking problems of its own, but is otherwise a great upgrade) alongside it. Unless Bambu changes its tack significantly I'll not be buying another of their machines or more of their materials¹.

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[1] well, maybe the light grey PLA as I've not yet found anything similar enough easily available in the UK, and it is perfect for prints that I want to look neutral or for some scifi ships & similar…

> Even if they have taken away other routes that used to exist so that this is the only way?

I’ve only been in the system for a year so I don’t know about the history beyond that. Based on some downvotes + your comment I will look into it further.

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