Local-only octoprint is feeling better and better.
Friends don’t let friends buy proprietary cloud locked printers.
Proprietary cloud locked anything, really.
What I wanna know is if that was a bug or a feature.
Edit: also wanna…. Where my Mario midi to gcode guys?
I want that script too, please!
Makes me very glad that my printer has a power supply with a big clicky hard-cutoff switch that only gets turned on when I intend to use it.
If you set up octoprint (or any form of networked printing) and don’t mind the horrors of potentially killing an OS (that you can easily reflash and that won’t have an issue if it isn’t a knockoff sd card): I love that my anycubic and its pi running octoprint both just go through a smart plug. When I want to do a print I turn it on from my phone/HA, wait like a minute, and I am good to go with a camera pointed at the print bed for monitoring. And then turn it off when I am done.
You don’t even need a pi for this option. I’m running octoprint off an old android phone and it works great.
Yeah but now you have a smart plug in your house.
Is the smart plug company going to turn it on in the middle of the night? You’ve just moved the problem from one closed, proprietary technology to a different closed, proprietary technology.
Not all smart plugs are proprietary. You could even make one yourself with an ESP-01, a relay, and open-source firmware like ESP Home if you know what you’re doing to make it safe at that kind of voltage. If you’re overconfident in your ability to make it safe, then you’ve still got an untrustworthy smart plug at the end of the process, so it’s not necessarily a good idea, but it’s not proprietary.
Hmm that’s a good point. Never seen one for sale that I trusted though, and I did have a good look at one point.
There are many that can be reflashed with open source Tasmota firmware. Sonoff is one of the popular ones.
IKEAs Trådfri plug can be adopted into anything that supports Zigbee. Works out of the box with Zigbee2MQTT. No flashing required.
Don’t use wifi smart stuff. My house uses zigbee, so you have to be physically close to interact in any way. That really narrows down bad actors.
I’ve got my smart plugs on Zigbee, through Home Assistant, so they’re not on the cloud. But that did require some research so I could get the right devices, because it’s a bit of a minefield trying to find smart devices that don’t need to be cloud based.
These printers come with that too. Just most didn’t have it turned off overnight when this happened.
They should have it turned off because the Bambu lab printed have been tested and shown to draw much more power when idle compared to other printers. It’s not much but overtime it adds up.
Same :)
I really want a X1-C. A colleague has one and loves it. But I can’t deal with closed source and mandatory network.
I want a p1. but the nature of proprietary hardware in general and now stories like this have me rethinking it. I’m tired of having to constantly fuck with my ender 5 pro.
Could you consider a prusa mk 4? It’s set and forget, not as fast as Bambu but no slouch. Support is excellent, open source and parts readily available.
I really liked the enclosed case and everything that came with the p1s. I saw some flashforge units on Amazon but haven’t put much research into it. The ams looks great to be able to do multicolor prints that, afaik, other systems can’t touch.
This is sorta where I’m at. It’s not an apples to apples thing I get that, and while I don’t have a Prusa their standing in the 3d printing community is straight up legendary I know.
Wish it were a hair cheaper, because $1,300 assembled with enclosure kit (to make it as close to, say, X1C as possible) is still a bitter pill when only $200 more gets you abrasive printing ability, larger build volume, faster still, 4 color MMU, etc.
There is the quality angle, and the angle that a Prusa is conceivably infinitely repairable…which is a big deal. Just wish it were a few hundred cheaper to sort of compensate or allow for some of those upgrades.
The other way to look at it is that
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I upgraded my prusa for years to every new model released for much less than the cost of a new printer. They provided upgrade kits for sale.
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I made my own enclosure, works great. Downloaded the parts and followed a guide. Prusa one looks nice though.
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My PSU had some potential issues 6 years after I bought it and they still sent me a replacement free of charge.
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The prusa slicer software has filament profiles built in that work perfectly on the printer with no testing. They are adding them constantly. There’s something nice about not having to do test etc.
- With prusa you don’t support the China and all fucked up shit their government does.
Those are definitely good points too for sure!
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I will say that the mk3s I’m using honestly just works, I’ve done some tweaks to improve cooling, swapped to a dragon hotend and all abs parts (and some enclosure upgrades I’ve put together), it’s stupid reliable and when things go wrong it’s often my fault. I swapped to a dragon literally because my hamfisted nozzle changes have ended up with a few wrecked thermistors and I’m done with 2 handed nozzle changes. They’re pricey but it comes with amazing support, great knowledge base (which is open to all) and a well vetted machine. I also like my voron but I bought the prusa originally to have something I can fall back to if need be.
Another vote for the Mk4. I’m very happy with mine, and I think that some people who lash out against it need to consider that not everybody wants a speed demon. Some people want good support and high uptime.
From what I read the Bambu’s have excellent support and uptime as well
Not OP but recently I was in the market for a printer. I was looking at the Bambu P1S and Prusa MK4.
I’m all for open source and really wanted to support Prusa but the MK4 costs an extra $100 (more if you don’t build it yourself), doesn’t have an enclosure, and the MK4 has a 7-8 week lead time while the P1S ships next day
I’m not proud of it but I got the P1S
Yeah but the Prusa is made in Europe and the Bambulabs is made in China.
I’d happily spend an extra $100 to support a European country over china. Fuck china.
Yeahhhh, I ordered a MK4 kit back on May 2nd, it JUST shipped out on Wednesday.
I’m excited. I got the prusa as we have two MK3’s at the lab I work at, so they’re what I’m familiar with. I’ve got all of the parts for the Ikea Lack enclosure on order, I’ll be making it as soon as I print up the parts.
I have a Creality K1, I am able to load files to it with a thumb drive. There is a really terrible app for it, and it can be hooked up to wifi, but… I haven’t done any of that. I slice the model, save to a USB stick, and plug the USB into the printer.
I’m half tempted to pin this post as the poster child for the brand.
Ooooph. Owning both a modded to the nines Ender 3 v2 and a vCore 3.1, there’s a part of me that wants to add the simplicy and MMU functionality of the X1C to the mix at some point…but this is uhhhhhhh scary. No thank you lol!!
Really? “nightmare fuel”?
Some people have a really low bar for considering something a nightmare.
There may have been a nonzero chance of it starting a fire, since the article describes some printers as “tearing themselves apart”, which could conceivably have included wiring damage or hot things landing outside the printer on flammable material.
Also, since it seems to have been printing copies of previous prints, um, well . . . some people do print sex toys. I can see how explaining that one to your eight-year-old or your mother-in-law, if they find it first, could be considered a nightmare.
Nonzero, but realistically, what chain of fuckups would have to happen to actually cause a fire here? Maybe if you left a tin of hairspray inside the chamber along with some paper or rags or something, even then, you’d be insanely unlucky.
The ‘tearing itself apart’ seems to refer to s simple collision, printing when there’s an object on the bed. Obviously not good, but it was just a normal print otherwise.
Yeah it could be printing something private, but if you’re using a liklihood * severity assessment, it’s hardly worth mentioning.
Obviously not arguing that this is a good thing, but I think people are being a bit hyperbolic. Fire risk should be no greater than during any other print. Damage to the printer would be a concern, but usually the printed part will simply dislodge. I don’t know if it has any kind of crash protection?
So yeah its bad, and they need to do more to prevent this. Equally, it’s a rare issue with a pretty low risk profile, that should be easy for consumers to mitigate against by simply switching it off
We’ll, considering things can heat up quite a bit with printers, I wouldn’t want mine turning on randomly. I’d rather heat my house using central heating, thank you.
Nothing a Wi-Fi controlled power outlet can’t fix. If the printer is turned off it can’t suddenly start printing.
OK, but the fact that this is a thing that can happen should be making everyone think twice about buying from this manufacturer.
It isn’t GOOD. But if you aren’t leaving your printer running 24/7 (which you shouldn’t, if only for power reasons), it isn’t a massive issue in practice so long as the conveniences outweigh the risks.
I WOULD be concerned with the window between a print finishing and waking up though.
I bought from them knowing about the cloud service. These printers are fine for one off purchases, but I would never buy one if I were to set up a print farm. The parts are all reasonably priced, just don’t know how long that will last or they may discontinue the model and stop selling parts for it.
X1 Carbon owner here. I’ve had absolutely zero issues with my printer and was not affected by the their recent fumble. I’ve had mine for over 6 months but under a year, & print most days out of the week. I love open source shit, but honestly, in my experience, if you want a set it and forget it, fantastic build quality & speed printer I’d recommend the X1 Carbon in a heartbeat. I’ve heard their slicer is a rip of Cura, I don’t know much about that though, but it’s worked very well for me. All’s I’m saying is that not everyone is having a bad experience with them, but I also can’t see the future. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
