I have no regrets with my fine European Prusa printers.
This is a risk with any item that requires software to function. Companies can change software licensees, lock-in buyers, and even open source can flat out abandon a project.
I just bought a Bambu Mini to sit along side my trusty 6 year old Mk3s+ and this pisses me off to no end. I was expecting my mini to simply be abandoned rather than suffer a lock-in AND then abandonment. So, I guess I won't be updating my firmware nor will I run anything through their cloud. I was thinking of uploading a few designs to their cloud. But that ain't going to happen now.
I was looking at a mini, someone recommended Bambu. I might just stick with my old ender 3 pro until it stops functioning.
Well this is... disappointing. I picked up an A1 at the end of last year because it "just works", and I was tired of fighting my Ender 3 instead of actually printing with it. I'm extraordinarily happy with the quality of the printer itself, but I'll be refraining from updating the firmware I guess, as I don't allow it to use cloud services, and it lives on my LAN as the only means of management.
I wonder how easy would it be to swap the controller for something more open like the BTT boards? That way you'd get the nice design and an open platform. I'm not sure how much of their wiring could be repurposed for this though.
I just got their new 3d printer and was having a great time with it... Won't be updating firmware or buying anymore products with them until they fix this
I'm still on an ender 3
Well, I don't own my own printer yet, and I plan on buying Prusa because they're (still mostly) open-source and respect the user, even though every Tom, Dick and Harry tells me to get a Bambu printer because they're three times cheaper and better.
This is why I won't get a Bambu printer.
They're not open source anymore. You can't be mostly open source, you either are or are not.
IMO they started exactly the same path Bambu goes (though Bambu has a great head start).
I admit this is speculation, but I got the impression that Prusa is moving away from open source because they're salty about other companies cloning their products and selling them much cheaper than the "original" parts. Proprietary parts, patents, etc. is of course worse for the user than a fully open ecosystem, but he isn't necessarily going full anti-consumer.
It's certainly possible. They are pretty explicit on it though, at least.
"For some products, we do not release the full PCB manufacturing layouts, as we do not want to support manufacturing of untested clone boards. "
https://www.prusa3d.com/page/open-source-at-prusa-research_236812/
Found the blog post that I was thinking of, with a little more about Prusa's relation with opene source. https://blog.prusa3d.com/the-state-of-open-source-in-3d-printing-in-2023_76659/
This may sound like a dumb idea. But cant we just fork there firmware and flash our own? It runs klipper under the hood which means its a gpl license?
--edit there is X1plus firmware which is opensourced
They have their own closed firmware I think. So someone has to create a new one from scratch for each product.
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