I got a P1S as a Christmas present for me and my wife. For now, my plan is to block its internet connection and stop using the Bambu app altogether. When/if it his stops working for me, what does the community recommend as a replacement for newbies like me, or future newbs who haven’t made this mistake?
Now that this is shipping, I’m hoping it gets more exposure and reviews online:
Unfortunately an heir apparent isn’t readily… Apparent in my eyes. All have tradeoffs. To be fair, Bambu did too but hid it better from most consumers.
Qidi isn’t terrible, and they have a decent track record. Their use of klipper is a big plus as well. But multi material is still a promise with no release or reviews, and they have had some duds in their history.
Prusa is an obvious option, and previously wore the crown. They’re a good bit more expensive, but perhaps that’s the cost of a highly ethical company that is deeply invested in the community. MMU is well understood and works great, but isn’t integrated in their latest printers yet.
Voron is amazing but absolutely still not for beginners. Besides that they lack for absolutely nothing. Some kits are approaching the user friendliness of pre built, but care and feeding is generally a more technical endeavor.
Creality is a good place to start generally, but lacks for features.
Long story short, if a friend approached me and demanded a recommendation, I’d push a casual user to Qidi, a demanding user to a Prusa, and a tinkerer to a Creality with the understanding I’ll be printing voron parts in a year or two
I’ve been wanting to build a Voron for ages, I’ve modified an i3 clone from anycubic to such an extent it’s not reflective of it’s original quality at all. But I find the cost and technical challenge a little too high. Recently Sovol brought out an inspired by and using open source basis copy of the Voron 2.4. Sovol SV08. It’s looks quite reasonably priced, but it’s still a big chunk of what I would have spent on the Voron budget, and only needs reassembly out of the box not a full build. I’m just not hearing enough of how they run to be inspired yet. SV08
I have an order for a P1S that hasn’t shipped yet but am now considering cancelling it and buying a Creality K1C. Anyone have thoughts on that as an alternative? It seems their multi material thing is coming out soon
TBH I’d cancel independently of what printer you get as replacement. Only way to reach these companies is by cutting into their revenue.
The sad reality is that we are going to see more and more printer companies building up walled gardens. There is money in models and the end goal is going to be one model site per slicer per manufacturer. There will still be the open source build your own printers but… there is a reason everyone recommended a Bambu over one of those.
As of right now? Qidi are pretty awesome in the semi-proprietary space and have a good track record of releasing the g-code macros required to interface with their printers (e.g. chamber temperature controls). Time will tell what they do with their multi-material solution though.
Yeah this sucks, I just bought an a1 mini with AMS, I love it. I do have it in LAN Mode with no internet and I still use bambustudio since I believe that is open source no? Lets hope they reverse this but I don’t see them doing that. Hope I can still use the printer without upgrading the firmware or somebody is able to make open source firmware for the a1 mini…
Man I hate tech space right now, every company grinding out as much money as possible anyway they can because “security”…
Try out OrcaSlicer. Same UI as Bambu Studio, actually open source and has more features. Can even login to your Bambu account to sync your filament settings.
Wait I missed something. What happened with bambulabs?
Might be this?
Oh that’s not very poggers.
Definitely not poggers enough.
Just like you, I switched to LAN mode and I’m using Orca anyway. Gonna wait for it to blow over, it’s still a great printer for the price but next one will most likely be Prusa. I’m still happy with my A1M+AMS, it’s a great introduction to the hobby as far as I’m concerned. It’s disappointing to see Bambulab behaving that way, I hope they change course.
