I paid ~$750 for my 350mm Voron 2.4 kit (and, sure, 40 hours of my time. But look, you want to do 3D printing, 40 hours are just a small initial investment).
It really depends upon the target market. That's fine for hobbyists. But I use the Bambu X1 for small-scale prototyping in a company, and it has to be usable out of the box. We can't justify an entire week of labour for each printer we buy.
The Bambu has been ideal for that reason. Every material pretty much just works, and the quality is excellent. The cloud integration and janky LAN mode is the downside, and this current topic even moreso.
Yeah, I've got an A1 that I bought on sale. It's sitting next to a Prusa MK3S. I was doing prints for my nephews for Halloween and the A1 would do a print in 2h and PrusaSlicer estimated 9h for the MK3S. And I have, so far, not had a single failed print on the A1. They're rare on the MK3S too. But... the MK3S is "start the print and it'll be ready in the morning" and the A1 is "start the print and it'll be ready by lunch, and if you need to iterate you can have another one done by 3pm"
> But look, you want to do 3D printing, 40 hours are just a small initial investment
No. None of this crap. I want to 3D print. I don't want to service industrial machinery in my spare time. Why should 3D printing require spending weekends troubleshooting machines just to keep the thing working? I want to print models not play repair technician.
Vorons are fantastic printers and a fantastic kit if 3D printing itself is your hobby. 3D printing is a fantastic hobby. There's tons of fun to be had building up and dialing in a printer kit. A well tuned voron can be up with the best of the best 3D printers. If that's what you want to do go for it!
But for heaven's sake I want to print models, parts and other practical things. I have other things to do and problems to solve. My 3D printer is a tool. If I have to spend just as much time working on the machine as I do using to actually print things then I'm not interested.
Bambu is still the best game in town for a turn-key, just works printer. Prusa can deliver the same experience at double to triple the ticket price. A voron is not a replacement for a Bambu printer no matter how good the printers actually are.
>Why should 3D printing require spending weekends troubleshooting machines just to keep the thing working? I want to print models not play repair technician.
I’m sympathetic to your POV but the reason you should is that’s the price to keep things open.
Obviously many people don’t care about that. Fair enough. But then you should be prepared to deal with their shenanigans.
Prusa also does things like maintain and develop printables.com and PrusaSlicer (itself forked) which many of these closed printers fork with minimal changes.
People don’t care about this either. So again, get ready to deal with garbage when Prusa goes under.
I think it’s sad since the whole domestic 3D printer thing started as open source.
> I’m sympathetic to your POV but the reason you should is that’s the price to keep things open.
No, it's not, and the perception that it is hurts the cause of openness.
Open Source has every ability to be better, to Just Work, to not require constant debugging. Good Open Source systems manage this. The fact that 3D printers apparently have not is the fault of those printers, not any inherent quality of openness.
> Comparing Bambu to Voron is an absurd comparison
I politely disagree. I was in the market for a more modern printer, and it boiled down to either a BL or a Voron - in the end I decided against ease of use and in favor of an open ecosystem. I agree in that they are not universally interchangeable, but for some people either can be an option, each with distinctive advantages and disadvantages.
Both modern (pre assembled) Prusa and Bambu are very good at this. They guide you through the full setup process, automate first layer reliable, have decent stock profiles.
It's all just much less tinkering then 5 years ago.
It is. I have no interest in messing around with 3D printers and was annoyed by the fact that Bambu lab lied about the 15 minute setup time. It was more like 45 minutes, but after that I never touched the printer again and started printing instead.
Also, subtractive manufacturing is much harder than additive manufacturing, because you need to position the machine around an existing piece of stock and sequence your operations manually, instead of letting a generic slicing algorithm slice from bottom to top with an offset vs the intended printing location only being a problem if you accidentally print over the edge of the build plate, which is usually not possible mechanically.
it is not that. i mostly mean that for anything functional that needs to take a load you need at least petg or asa (abs is a bit old now), which require proper storage.
also there are so much stuff that are in open prs and issues for years that are not implemented for slicers.
There are countless firearm receivers that have been printed on pla plus, many with thousands of rounds on them. Sure they may turn into a puddle in a hot vehicle, but they are functional and definitely take a load. Pla + is actually preferred in that community over the others you mentioned, although asa is becoming more popular, along with filled nylon alloys.
"Take a load" = perform mechanically and or structurally at levels of force, temperatures, etc. at levels higher than the properties of PLA allow for.
Don't get me wrong here. PLA is a great polymer, However you can't really expect parts made with it to hold up when compared to other "engineering grade" polymers.
I don't think anyone expects PLA to be used for anything that requires structural stability. There's far better filaments for that application. Some of the carbon fiber infused PETG filaments for example are incredibly strong.
Not many people use 3d printing for applications that require extreme strength though, that's really not the goal many people are aiming for.
I do this for a living and people are always looking for more parts to run through the process and better filaments to see those parts end up performant.
CF-PETG is strong! For a bit more toughness and temp resistance, PA12CF35 is seeing a lot of use. Some companies out there have service departments to keep machinery running. They apply FDM more than you might expect. Alloy 910 for gears, Cf of various kinds for abrasive scenarios, like cardboard handling, in one scenario.
Well for example layer bonding is better compared to some other materials. It's just that load over time it will creep. And of course shite under temperature.
It can be a fantastic material for some functional parts.
But even if not, I don't see how it's invalidates that there are printers out there that are more or less set and forget.
Bambu printers, or at least the one in our shop runs ASA set and forget style.
It is a great machine though it does not always make the strongest parts, and single material builds is geometry limiting. Lack of chamber heat and one nozzle makes some things easy, but does not entirely avoid the trouble with higher performing polymers.
You're saying this yet anyone can buy a random Bambu and just print.
I've owned or used probably every major (and some minor) printer released in the last 8 years and for most people Bambu really will just be "plug and play" (and even if something goes wrong they'll hold hands as much as needed)
That does not match my experience. The printer I have has had parts break with light use, and a really poorly engineered z-axis homing which results in wildly inconsistent zero heights and a very high print failure rate.
