Hacker News Reader

Comment by tssva | Hacker News Reader

My daughter is an architecture student and needed a 3d printer to help with making models for her studio class. She had no desire to learn the ends and outs of 3d printers. She wanted something easy to use and reliable. The Bambu Labs printer I bought her has been just that.

View on HN

i tossed my ender 3 for this reason alone. it’s just not worth the headache. it’s like the physical manifestation of vim, endless ways to tweak it and you could get lost with the tool instead of getting anything done. and i don’t even have a replacement, i’d rather have nothing than have a headache inducer

I’m about to toss my ender 3 s1 pro. The damn print won’t adhere to the bed. Z-probe calibration, temp towers, bed leveling, wash the plate, use a glue stick, turn the fan down, increase flow rate. I’ve tried it all. Still get spaghetti when I try to print a catamaran toy for my kid.

Ironically I started using orcaslicer recently. It seems cool. But I really just want a working printer. Probably getting a bambu in spite of the angry noises online.

If you don’t print anything proprietary or private, sure go ahead. You can let them intercept your 3d files all day and not be worried when you encounter models they decide they don’t want you to print with your printer in the future. (And trust me, that is ABSOLUTELY what is coming; monitoring everything you print and blocking you from printing anything they — Bambu or Government — deem you shouldn’t be allowed to print.)

That is my issue. I’m not printing guns or anything unsafe. I also don’t know what could happen in the future; it’s not like we get to govern ourselves (unless you buy into that lie). So given that, I’d rather stick with something that won’t have the capacity to stop me from using it later, for any reason.

The developer mode everyone loves to point out only came after massive community backslash to the fact that they made you unable to print without the Cloud. It wasn’t something they planned to add, it was an afterthought added only to quell the complaints and negative press which they can easily take away later again with an OTA firmware update (and have already demonstrated they are willing to).

You might call that noise, I call that a legitimate concern on being able to use the product I bought and paid for in the future. It’s good to be informed of what the “noise” is really about, since people like to marginalize concerns they dismiss or don’t understand. Best of luck with your purchase!

Ok but if this is your argument, you could have pointed out that thanks to Bamboo labs the Chinese 3d printer companies had to radically change their product designs to the point where you can get good printers from other companies rather than lash out at Bamboo Labs. If you don't like them then it would be better for them to fade into irrelevance. I just don't get this obsession. I personally would rather buy a Snapmaker U1 because it is a better printer architecture than dual nozzles.

That you characterize it as obsession says more about your pre-established opinion that it is irrelevant, than what the facts are. Good for you, buy what you want? What were you hoping for there?

I ended up getting that Bambu X2D right after I wrote that comment, and what do you know, the catamaran printed on its first try with the same filament that I was using before. I did set up developer/LAN mode and integrated it with Home Assistant and it's great (for now). If they stealth patch out LAN mode while my printer is in LAN mode I will eat my words, tolerate the cloud nonsense as long as I can, and replace it with another printer if it gets bad.

But for now I have a fantastic printer for the price. Prusa was my second choice but you can't get X2D-equivalent functionality even if you were willing to do everything possible to upgrade it.

> She had no desire to learn the ends and outs of 3d printers. She wanted something easy to use and reliable. The Bambu Labs printer I bought her has been just that.

Where is this coming from? You absolutely need to know the ins and outs of a 3D printer. Nozzles wear out, build plates wear out, components need to be regularly cleaned properly and lubricated, you have to keep filaments dry, certain filaments can only be used with certain components, you constantly tweak slicer and temperature settings, ... The list goes on.

3D printers, including Bambu Lab printers, are definitely not easy to use nor are they reliable. They're maintenance heavy. Sometimes you have to do a print multiple times because it'll fail for a myriad of reasons. Maybe you oriented it wrong, maybe your slicer settings are off, maybe it didn't have proper supports, maybe the filament is messed up, ...

The most common failure in my printing experience is just plain old dirty bed, especially when human hands interact with it. That takes operational discipline especially if you're printing lot of models over time.

The maintenance needed is minimal, and Bambu make it easy to learn in their wiki. It even sends you reminders to lubricate the Z-axis (the others don't need it). I've never had a clogged nozzle on my bambu printers but that is also clearly documented.

I've been doing 3D printing for 15 years so I've been through all the heavy maintenance printers. But most of that knowledge I don't need anymore. First layers are always perfect as long as the bed is properly grease free. The only knowledge I still really need is the design for 3D printing, like overhang orientations, seams etc.

That hasn't been my experience. Bambu's documentation, including the guides and wiki, is disjointed and inconsistent. You'll often find contradictions between pages or information that isn't appropriately fleshed out. Sometimes bits and pieces on a topic are spread across several wiki pages and guides. You'll also find that there's now an increase in AI slop in some of the introductory guides (e.g., tons of emdashes and sentences that don't seem to make sense).

Having the printer give you reminders to do something doesn't mean that maintenance is minimal.

Outside of Prusa - how would you compare Bambu's documentation against it's competitors?

In my experience, having owned 2-other printers prior to an X1C - there is absolutely NO comparison - EVERYTHING was community, Reddit, forum or random YouTube guidance from non-manufacturers.

I honestly get that, architecture is such a time intensive degree. It is drilled into you to produce results more than to care about the process.. and to spend more time on exploration and resolution than on learning.

I do think though, that a little learning and understanding of your tools is such a useful thing practically and creatively speaking, but also ultimately time saving.

Slow, as they say, is fast.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com