Bambu really alienated their entire customer base. I have quite a few of their printers for my business but will be looking elsewhere from now on. Most others in the business will also. Trust is key. When you are investing in equipment for your business. Same with John Deere. It's very shortsighted.
I wanted to pick up a printer this year and the Bambu p1s was at the top of my list. I’ve been fiddling with 3d printers for a decade and I want something that is just going to work and not break the bank. Any suggestions on a comparable substitute?
I really like the two Elegoo neptune Max's I have (there are smaller models in the line also). I've also been eyeing the new Creality printers if you need an ams
I'm a bit surprised that nobody mentioned prusa as a replacement?
FMU that's where Bambu originally copied from!?
My short dive into 3d printers stopped once I was highlighted to the micro plastics pollution they create in the air, but still I would've gone for a prusa, already because all parts are free soft- and hardware.
Prusa is not even fully open source anymore, bunch of excuses.. and definitelythey have a pricing god complex...
Bambu still the best machines to date, especially if you consider price. If you do not upgrade NOTHING changes - and its only planned for the X-series as of now. People are being too hysterical.
> I'm a bit surprised that nobody mentioned prusa as a replacement?
Prusa has a pricing issue, I don't think there's another way to go around it.
I've been in the market for a 3D printer, and Prusa is rarely recommended for entry / mid-range printers (at least where I've looked).
I don't know about the high-end range, but a lot of content about high-end stuff still revolves around Bambulab X1C—those content creators could be paid for, of course, even though many claim they aren't. Just seems like Bambulab printers are really good for the price.
Now I get that Prusa is positioning itself as a local manufacturer in EU, and they are just a representation of the cost of making products in this setting - and I'm ok with this! I won't pay for it because I'm not their target customer, but I support it 100%.
I can't understand the thinking in the boardrooms of these companies.
You're making a good product, but by no means something unique and irreplaceable. And then you pull nonsense like this one. Why? Don't they understand that they're just shooting themselves in the foot?
No, they don't understand. Or at least, the people making the decisions don't. They are far removed from the customers who try get the most out of their product. They probably are _aware_ of all the use-cases, but they only see it as something they can add as a feature for the enterprise segment. It's another future USP.
Let's hope they notice that their foot now has a hole in it and is bleeding all over the place.
They did feel the need to respond - so perhaps someone in there feels their maket share threatened.
But overall, what number of future printers and other recurring revenue do they expect to sell to production workshops, corporate, or low-tech users or other users which might take what they are sold "no matter what"? This is not a new problem. Do you / do we know the distribution of customers between the more advanced customers that may care and switch and the ones that won't even hear of the thing.
See also, printers, PDF or photo editing software, operating systems, all the way to mainframes. Realistically, advanced fans are rarely a significant share of the profits. And that's a problem of course. And for some companies it absolutely does come back and hurt them (IBM's competition did in the end succeed, and linux runs on most servers.)
If anything, for 3D printers, the competition is already here - much easier for the people who care.
Someone mentioned "App Store" during a meeting, probably accidentally. It's a known killer, the tech world equivalent of sneezing while carrying an infectious disease
This was the play all along - roll up the competition and then shore up all the profit once dominant enough.
I bet there are plans for new firmware $-unlocked pay-to-play features, making the AMS "more compatible" with Bambu filament (or eventually only Bambu filament for the next round or two of printers) and facilitating a lot more paid transactions and model purchases on Makerworld and taking the customary 30% cut.
The dominant enough part is questionable though! There were the go to... but that was based on a calculation price, quality, lack of hostility. People were already factoring in the cloudness of it and it just came ahead. Now other options will look better even if more expensive. They are the iPhone 1 not the 3S yet.
The installation of X1Plus had to be the most easy, fluid and professional third-party firmware deployment I have EVER done.
The ONLY pain points were the interactions with Bambu - first the authorization pages where you have to request using 3rd-party firmware kept cycling through their warnings and acceptances (trick to complete was opening the link using "Incognito/In Private" session), next you have to either upgrade to latest official firmware (if you are not there), then jump through several downgrades to get to the rootable version of the firmware using the "Bambu Handy" app.
So far, so great - 36+ hrs printing, no issues. I have now got it fully working in LAN-mode. Home Assistant dashboard setup - but there is also someone working on a "Bambu Companion" phone app (it's in a TestFlight open beta) - which works well in the local LAN, and if you configure a secure tunnel through your router (Wireguard, Tailscale, OpenVPN, etc.), it works perfectly remotely as well.
My only complaint with LAN-mode is that both Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer "forget" the printer when the software is closed - they don't forget the "binding", so it is a "1-click" process to re-add to the Device tab, but it is a little bit of a hassle.
Bambu really alienated their entire customer base. I have quite a few of their printers for my business but will be looking elsewhere from now on. Most others in the business will also. Trust is key. When you are investing in equipment for your business. Same with John Deere. It's very shortsighted.
I wanted to pick up a printer this year and the Bambu p1s was at the top of my list. I’ve been fiddling with 3d printers for a decade and I want something that is just going to work and not break the bank. Any suggestions on a comparable substitute?
Prusa recently released a CoreXY printer that should be comparable if not more robust and capable. It is also much more open: https://www.prusa3d.com/product/prusa-core-one/
Twice the price.
What are you comparing to?
The X1 + AMS is pretty price comperable to the Core One + MMU, and is pretty feature-matched.
Ended up getting an open box Bambu p1s from Microcenter for $500 today.
I've heard a lot of people recommending the K1 as a similar substitute.
https://www.creality.com/products/creality-k1-3d-printer
I might check it out too, while I like my X1C...Bambu might be overstaying there welcome in my house.
General consensus that I’ve heard online is that the K1 is nowhere near the same league - cheap unreliable clone would be the most common description.
I think the K2 will be much closer
I own a K2. It's much better than the K1, and pretty close to Bambu in terms of quality (I own several Bambu machines)
And the K2 just came out...
I really like the two Elegoo neptune Max's I have (there are smaller models in the line also). I've also been eyeing the new Creality printers if you need an ams
... Well, not their entire customer base - according to Slant 3d the scuttlebutt is that Bambu sold over a million printers last year...
I'm a bit surprised that nobody mentioned prusa as a replacement?
FMU that's where Bambu originally copied from!?
My short dive into 3d printers stopped once I was highlighted to the micro plastics pollution they create in the air, but still I would've gone for a prusa, already because all parts are free soft- and hardware.
Or is there anything else I'm missing?
Prusa is not even fully open source anymore, bunch of excuses.. and definitelythey have a pricing god complex...
Bambu still the best machines to date, especially if you consider price. If you do not upgrade NOTHING changes - and its only planned for the X-series as of now. People are being too hysterical.
> I'm a bit surprised that nobody mentioned prusa as a replacement?
Prusa has a pricing issue, I don't think there's another way to go around it.
I've been in the market for a 3D printer, and Prusa is rarely recommended for entry / mid-range printers (at least where I've looked).
I don't know about the high-end range, but a lot of content about high-end stuff still revolves around Bambulab X1C—those content creators could be paid for, of course, even though many claim they aren't. Just seems like Bambulab printers are really good for the price.
Now I get that Prusa is positioning itself as a local manufacturer in EU, and they are just a representation of the cost of making products in this setting - and I'm ok with this! I won't pay for it because I'm not their target customer, but I support it 100%.
I can't understand the thinking in the boardrooms of these companies.
You're making a good product, but by no means something unique and irreplaceable. And then you pull nonsense like this one. Why? Don't they understand that they're just shooting themselves in the foot?
No, they don't understand. Or at least, the people making the decisions don't. They are far removed from the customers who try get the most out of their product. They probably are _aware_ of all the use-cases, but they only see it as something they can add as a feature for the enterprise segment. It's another future USP.
Let's hope they notice that their foot now has a hole in it and is bleeding all over the place.
They did feel the need to respond - so perhaps someone in there feels their maket share threatened.
But overall, what number of future printers and other recurring revenue do they expect to sell to production workshops, corporate, or low-tech users or other users which might take what they are sold "no matter what"? This is not a new problem. Do you / do we know the distribution of customers between the more advanced customers that may care and switch and the ones that won't even hear of the thing.
See also, printers, PDF or photo editing software, operating systems, all the way to mainframes. Realistically, advanced fans are rarely a significant share of the profits. And that's a problem of course. And for some companies it absolutely does come back and hurt them (IBM's competition did in the end succeed, and linux runs on most servers.)
If anything, for 3D printers, the competition is already here - much easier for the people who care.
Someone mentioned "App Store" during a meeting, probably accidentally. It's a known killer, the tech world equivalent of sneezing while carrying an infectious disease
This was the play all along - roll up the competition and then shore up all the profit once dominant enough.
I bet there are plans for new firmware $-unlocked pay-to-play features, making the AMS "more compatible" with Bambu filament (or eventually only Bambu filament for the next round or two of printers) and facilitating a lot more paid transactions and model purchases on Makerworld and taking the customary 30% cut.
The dominant enough part is questionable though! There were the go to... but that was based on a calculation price, quality, lack of hostility. People were already factoring in the cloudness of it and it just came ahead. Now other options will look better even if more expensive. They are the iPhone 1 not the 3S yet.
But they're not dominant by any means. They are pretty good, I was seriously considering buying them to replace my AnkerMake (got it as a gift).
So even setting the ethics aside, it's not going to do any good.
I wont be getting rid of my x1, but I will have to try out x1plus and contribute to their oroject now.
https://www.crowdsupply.com/accelerated-tech/x1plus-expander
The installation of X1Plus had to be the most easy, fluid and professional third-party firmware deployment I have EVER done.
The ONLY pain points were the interactions with Bambu - first the authorization pages where you have to request using 3rd-party firmware kept cycling through their warnings and acceptances (trick to complete was opening the link using "Incognito/In Private" session), next you have to either upgrade to latest official firmware (if you are not there), then jump through several downgrades to get to the rootable version of the firmware using the "Bambu Handy" app.
So far, so great - 36+ hrs printing, no issues. I have now got it fully working in LAN-mode. Home Assistant dashboard setup - but there is also someone working on a "Bambu Companion" phone app (it's in a TestFlight open beta) - which works well in the local LAN, and if you configure a secure tunnel through your router (Wireguard, Tailscale, OpenVPN, etc.), it works perfectly remotely as well.
My only complaint with LAN-mode is that both Bambu Studio and OrcaSlicer "forget" the printer when the software is closed - they don't forget the "binding", so it is a "1-click" process to re-add to the Device tab, but it is a little bit of a hassle.
I didn't know about the hardware part. I installed x1plus this weekend after hearing about this and it was smooth.