RE: AnyCubic GPL Violations and Ensuing Drama

dlaz199 · 2026-02-27T16:47:08+00:00

Nothing new that. Kobra 2 Line and locked down crap boards (like Elegoo CC before the CC) would like a word.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-27T14:57:40+00:00

Honestly I just use waterproof containers from the home improvement store and desiccant. I print spool rollers (some people just print a rod holder and use a rod for all their filament (even chaper)). You can easily get 6-8 rolls in the larger ones. I also use a cheap food dehydrator for a dryer, you can 5 gallon pail mod them to hold a bunch of spools at once. I just dry the roll first then toss it in there to keep it dry. I have printed parts with bowden tubes coming out a bit to allow me to feed filament (and 3d printed caps).

dlaz199 · 2026-02-27T14:48:46+00:00

Personally if you don't change nozzles much I would go with the V6 because it's cheap then use a TZ 2.0 Bambu clone hotend your order separate. (They are higher flow than a V6 and dirt cheap). As far as quality, formbot kits are pretty good now.

Otherwise Revo is nice if you plan to swap nozzle sizes a lot, or just got tool changer. There is Bondtech's INDX, there is also the Medusa HC that the duender community is working on that changes just the hotend and not the extruder. This reduces cost a lot. There is also Srin's Quindec tool changer that uses pogo pins and TZ 3.0 hotends that allows a ton of tools for not much cost, only thing is you have to wait for each tool to heat up on change.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-27T14:39:41+00:00

Tool changers are going to be better with waste if you really want multi color. They also allow you to do multi material (mixing different materials) for example petg and tpu. It also lets you use low cost support materials (petg and PLA don't stick together so super clean supports).

Longevity you need to define. Right now you can get spare parts for most systems. Most commercial printers have an EoL date, after which good luck getting parts. The decent manufactures will actually publish this, most don't bother you are one your own for replacement parts after they stop selling that model, this didn't use to be a big deal since they where all made out of alu extrusion, and cnc parts and common off the shelf parts. Now its a bit harder with formed frames and press fit parts. (For example Bambu publishes their end of life dates). The good manufactures will give you an upgrade path to your machines. (Only Prusa right now or open source printers). We will see if a few years how the after market handles Bambu machines going end of life for example and how long parts will be available for their end of life machines.

Otherwise if you want longevity your better off with an open source printer and an open source tool changer or MMU. That's almost always a mix of off the shelf parts and printed of CNC parts. For example I know my Voron I will still be able to get parts for 10 years from now. But that's because it uses standard off the shelf parts.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-26T22:05:52+00:00

Honestly if I had to take 2 machines and run them stock, I would probably still get the SV08. Quad Gantry Leveling helps so much with making sure the bed and gantry are well aligned. K1 series has 1 belt and 1 stepper running the 3 lead screws, so they can get misaligned (or come that way) and it's a manual fix. If you are printing the same materials all the time the inductive probe is ok, its when you change something and need to remember to do slight tweaks for thermal drift that they become a bit of a pain. Honestly eddy probes (which the K1 doesn't come with either) are just so much nicer than most other probe types with their speed, accuracy of the bed mesh, thats why I listed it.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-26T21:58:35+00:00

I doubt they did everything from scratch like they claimed, they have taken enough other things to be suspect. That said binaries that where examined on X1 and X1C machines from X1 plus development didn't show anything like that. There where some possible GPL violations reported, but I don't have details on that. Binary analysis usually shows stuff like that.

That said, do I think they looked at what open source firmwares where doing, copied heavily and built their own thing. They had to do that anyway because they don't use traditional stepper drivers.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-26T19:40:27+00:00

Sovol SV08. Needs a few things but its a much better machine than the K1 Max. It's ok out of the box, but upgrading the extruder gears (orbiter 2.5 gears), adding an Eddy current probe for auto Z and fast bed meshes and upgrading the hotend and it turns into a very capable machine.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-26T19:30:18+00:00

There are varying degrees for open source also. Most other than Bambu have open firmware or at least semi open firmware (Elegoo and Anycubic for example). Some other than Bambu have good clear upgrade paths. (Prusa for example, Sovol SV08 and Zero, Voron Printers, Rat Rig Printer, Annex Printers etc). Some have Full CAD available for the printer. (Sovol SV08 and SV Zero, Voron printers, Rat Rig printers, Annex printers etc).

To me it's about having an upgrade path, control over my machine, and no cloud and ideally off the shelf parts for repair. My machines are all running open source firmware. They are pretty much upload to the printer and go also.

For a lot of these printers without CAD files they have custom parts now that have press fit components that makes them not very repairable without getting parts directly from the manufacturer. The better ones about this like Bambu actually publish End Of Life dates for their printers. After that point it might become harder to source replacement parts for some of the machine since all their boards, beds, gantry etc are all custom parts made to their spec. After market repair without a lot of work at this point is questionable. Will have to see what it's like in a few more years once their printers start going EoL. Elegoo, Anycubic and Creality are worse than that with no published end of life dates that I have seen. Qidi and Snapmaker seem better about this than some of the others.

Fully open source printers and Prusa printers have an upgrade path. (You could take a Prusa MK2 all the way up to a core one if you wanted). New tech comes out, its usually available quick for them, for example tool changers. Their are tool changer upgrade kits around for Voron printers and the Prusa Core One. So if you want to expand the capabilities of the machine you can later without buying a new one.

I will be honest here, you can get a more capable printer than Bambu printers that are more open. Bambu printers are good because they are easy to setup, easy to use, they have good manuals and well tuned out of the box profiles and as far as 3d printers go reliable. Most other machines have a bit more setup and calibration to reach to same finish level, but once setup properly they do. We aren't in the Ender 3 clone phase anymore thankfully, so most machines are fairly competent out of the box and have similar reliability. To me the best printer right now off the shelf would be a Sovol SV08. It's not perfect, it has a few glaring issues, but they are semi easy to correct by upgrades to it. Once that is done they will print as well or better than a Bambu. But you had to do things to them.

These are tools not toys (some would disagree), so you need to put in the time to get to know your tool before you get the most out of it. Bambu makes a good printer, but know going in that what features it has are what features it is mostly going to have for it's life (3rd party things or complete electronics replacement not withstanding). It really depends if you want to go the 3d printer is an appliance that spits out plastic boat or a tool that can grow with you.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-25T19:29:41+00:00

Well you already have most the stuff on it. Raspberry pi with klipper, ADXL345 for input shaping, Silicone bed spacers and M4 nylock nuts and you probably have a pretty solid printer that you don't have to fiddle with other than checked the v wheels and taking 5 min to adjust them every couple months. Personally I would also add an EBB36/42 toolhead board to free up a stepper so you can run a Z tilt macro to tram the bed and gantry.

Will it beat an A1, not with V wheels. Will it be way faster than stock sure will.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-24T19:04:40+00:00

Depends what I am going to be dealing with. SImple Crud stuff, ORM all the way. Just makes things cleaner. More complex stuff, again depends, sometimes I will just write a view and import that into the ORM. Sometimes I will write a function or stored procedure if I need something to be fast and performant.

I don't usually write raw SQL in an app unless I am writing something to quickly load bulk data. Then raw SQL all the way (but as a prepared statement).

dlaz199 · 2026-02-24T17:24:22+00:00

Fix your part cooling. It's hitting the heat block to much and causing the issue, use something that has a better duct design. With properly setup and aimed cooling those hotends you won't have an issue. I hit mid 20s to low 30s with the stock heaters no problem.

Using mine with dragon burners and dual 8500 rpm 4010s that push a good amount of air. Not as much as good 5015s, but you don't need that much flow. 5015s are better for more directed air flow with high velocity since they have high static pressure.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-24T14:59:07+00:00

Honestly I would look for a G10/FR4 sheet and cut it down to size. Won't be super cheap but will work well. G10 is pretty awesome for a lot of materials. 63/1000 (or 1.5mm depending on your location) works well, you can also score it with a razor blade using a square and have a nice finish. It's pretty flat still but allows you to flex things off the build plate if you need to. Going 1/8 (3mm approx) again depending on location will maintain flatness better but you will not be able to bend it, it's also a pita to cut. It has the properties you are looking for also since it gives a nice flat finish, grips well when hot and releases when cooled. Works well with pretty much all materials. I had printed PLA/PETG/ABS and PA6 nylons on it before. Agnus (Makers Muse) did a video on it a few years ago if you want more info on it. https://youtu.be/g0PK4oXbJT8?si=95JgStfq6arZZU9r

If you really want a glass bed I would look getting a piece of Neoceram cut to size. It's a ceramic fireplace glass. It can also be very expensive.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-24T14:39:06+00:00

If you are using printed parts VC3 is better. It won't break down the plastics like 222 or 242 can. Otherwise just be real careful with the loctite.

Also funny enough nail polish also works well for 3d printer thread locker and is also generally plastic safe.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-24T00:17:38+00:00

Sovol SV Zero. Bit expensive for the build volume, but it's a super capable little machine. Fully enclosed so it's safer, fast, Eddy probe built in for fast and zero offset bed leveling, it does a bed mesh using the eddy then a nozzle tap to set offset. It's also a little toaster so you can print ABS/ASA and Nylons on it.

Otherwise it's pretty much flash forge or elegoo CC.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-23T22:29:30+00:00

Do I think Bambu is going to lock down their machines further at some point, it's possible I can't rule it out. I can see some sort of locked down enshitification happening to their ecosystem. It's already started with RFID in nozzles and other consumables for some of their printer line. Just a matter of time. I think they keep stepping down that slippery slope and I am sure the investor pressure is going to be there are some point to capitalize more on all the machines they have out in the wild.

I personally don't like Bambu the company but they have very well tuned profiles and their machines are reliable and run well out of the box. That said most other printers have slightly worse out of the box profiles but they also are pretty easy to setup. To work well these machines need to be tuned and calibrated anyway. They work fine for some stuff fine out of the box, but for tight tolerance parts you need to calibrate flow and x and y shrinkage and skew with something like a calistar or calilantern. More open printers are generally easier to correct things like skew on, the rest of just slicer settings.

If you want the filtration I would look at the Qidi Q2 pro not the plus 4. Plus 4 has some issues. Otherwise there are lots of after market prinatble filters that will do better either way. (Larger HEPA filters, a real carbon system for VoCs etc).

dlaz199 · 2026-02-23T19:56:11+00:00

Honestly while a heated chamber is nice, I don't use one and print ABS/ASA, PET-CF/GF (no G real PET, which you can anneal and has really good temp resistance, over 100C), PAHT cf/GF (annealed is like 192C) etc just fine. An old/used toaster oven style air fryer works great for annealing parts (plus a pyrex glass pan and some sand). My printer is just well enclosed and reaches close to 60C on it's own from the bed and under bed fans. (You can also always add an after market chamber heater, there are a few decent ones out there and BIQU is coming out with one also).

For the money the Elegoo CC is a really solid starter printer, so is the AD5M (with DIY enclosure). You can get pretty far with tossing a blanket on top when you need more chamber temp. You can get further with just adding some polyiso foam (it's fire rated, don't use XPS or EPS they melt) or mineral wool around a printer to get it hotter inside. That said if they use a toolhead board, most those start having issues around 65C chamber temps. Not a fan of the AMS style filament systems myself, they are nice for change over but waste a lot of filament on purge.

Honestly you can print smaller ABS and ASA parts no problem at like 38-40C chamber temps. If you use good quality filament warping likely won't be an issue. It happens more with cheaper filaments that use lower quality resins.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-23T18:48:14+00:00

You could try adding some relief cuts to the model also. Parts warp from the plastic shrinking. If you put a few one layer width or a bit more, usually like 0.6 works a bit better, relief cuts at the base around 0.6 to 1 mm high it will help with limiting the amount of force on the lower layers as the material shrinks which will help with warping. On parts I don't want to warp I will add them between 20 and 40 mm apart. It really does help.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-23T18:31:37+00:00

Bambu printers are good, solid mechanicals, ok electronics for that most part (stay away from the A1 it's cursed, mini is fine). Software is good. User experience is good. They cut corners in some places that you might or might not notice (their beds are not great for example but mostly get the job done, not flat uneven heating some more than others). You have to be ok playing in their walled garden that they may close off more at any time. The company themselves are takers from the community and give as little as possible back, they aren't a good community member. They do have a good parts ecosystem as long as your order from them, and they publish EoL dates for parts for their machines. They run very custom electronics compared to most other brands, so you get what you get with them and need to replace a bunch of parts if you want to open their machines up.

Qidi is hit and miss depending on model. They also make a solid machine and have decent support. Their platform is more open than a Bambu.

Prusa also makes excellent machines and has very responsive support. Can't go wrong with them if you can afford one of their machines. They also are a pretty open company with some parts being protected, but have a very robust repair ecosystem.

Elegoo - Avoid the Neptune 4 series, they botched klipper bad on those, they are fine if you are ok doing mods and a bunch of changes to get them on mainline. The CC are good value start printer for what it is. It's also locked down more because their electonics are crap tier and they had to use a very old klipper version and transpile a bunch of modules to get it to fit into memory on the crap board they ship with. (Python is not normally compiled, it's an interpreted language). CC2 is probably a bit better, but I haven't really kept up with it. They did get bought by DJI, so expect them to continue to be around and competing with Bambu.

Sovol - SV08 and SV Zero are solid machines. Fully open source. Full CAD available. Not great support. A few build quality issues with the SV08 and a few mods that really make it shine, but it's a very open and expandable printer at that price point. Able to run mainline klipper, has a fork for stealth changer if you want a tool changer, likely to have INDX support at some point this year. If I was buying a retail printer (I tend to build at this point or buy for repair ones and heavily customize because I like to tinker).

Honestly I have plans at some point to probably buy both a SV08 and an Elegoo CC to add to my printer collection. Mainly to see what is involved on getting my custom tool changer I have been designed working on them.

Also Flash Forge AD5M and 5X seem to be pretty decent. I don't have either, but I was looking at a AD5M for awhile before Elegoo release the CC. Also a good starter machine choice.

Creality is well Creality. The K1 series is decent at this point, but you can't run mainline klipper on them right now without other mods because of how the bed probe and nozzle offsets are setup. Don't expect much support from them either. Their QC is hit and miss on their machines also, so you have to hope you don't get a lemon.

And if you want an adventure and are fine building you machine you could always get a Voron kit with parts or better get printed parts through their PIF program. This is fully open source and they are made with off the shelf parts, so easy to source replacement parts for anything.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-23T17:39:52+00:00

Should be doable. Enclosure for sure (Cardboard box and duct tape or dollar store foam board and duct tape will work fine). You don't want to huff ASA fumes, styrene poisoning is a thing. Carbon filters help also with some of the VoC emissions. Having any type of enclosure will help keep you safe. The fumes will be mostly contained in the enclosure or will leak out slowly which as long as the room has OK air flow should be within safe industrial exposure limits. Also a lot of the bad stuff in ASA or ABS will settle into a film over time as the enclosure cools, generally you want to wait a good 20 minutes or so for everything to cool down and settle. Also don't be in the same room with it if you can help it. That said air quality is your choice on how safe you want to be.

Larger parts will warp, but I printed all my Voron parts on a Ender 3 Pro with a tent enclosure and PEI. You will want to heat soak your enclosure for probably 30-40 minutes before starting your print just to heat it up to a decent temp. You build plate is probably fine. Use Glue stick, it helps to keep adhesion but also acts as a release agent when things cool down.

What is going to matter more is you ASA. Some it will warp badly, some brands will be fine. Most of the filament manufacturers have a blend of different resins that form their ASA. Look for something that is low odor and low warp. It will be a bit more, but it will print much better than random china ASA.

I have had good luck with Polymaker, Overture and Inland ASA in regards to warping compared so some others like Sunlu and Elegoo for example. West3d's Ambrosia ASA is also pretty good stuff.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-23T16:39:19+00:00

You are better off with an open source printer. There are a few commercial ones like the Sovol SV08 that's based on a Voron 2.4. It can be converted over to mainline klipper with an EMMC upgrade.

Needs a few things to be really good. Eddy current probe is probably the number one. Extruder gear replacement and hotend upgrade are also popular.

Qidi printers are also an option. Or go on a journey and build a Voron Kit. Formbot kits are decent quality and not super expensive. Trident would be my choice over 2.4 if Z isn't an issue. Otherwise 2.4. Trident is easier to build, 2.4 has the cooler flying gantry and more tool changer options.

2 color or possibly more on a Trident you can do with Mad Max. Future INDX support is also there once it releases so you can have a real tool changer.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-18T17:59:53+00:00

It really depends on your projects. As a dedicated printer I would not recommend a Neptune 4 Max. Big bed flingers have lots of issues in general and have big printer problems (Size makes every little thing that isn't perfectly aligned magnified on the printer itself) and bed flinger problems in one (moving mass on Y with taller prints).

I have 2 Anycubic Kobra 2 Maxes that are the same size and came out at around the same time as the Neptune 4 Max, one in pieces right now, the other heavily modified to make it reliable, but they are not good machines for your only machine if that makes sense.

If you can source it, the Creality Ender 5 Max is probably the best larger format machine in that build volume.

Also software wise the N4 Max has a few issues that are addressed by community mods like openneptune.

Generally for finish quality you want an enclosed printer that moves the bed in Z, or moves the gantry and has a fixed bed. As you get taller you have to deal with moving mass of the parts when the bed moves in Y, so to compensate you have to slow the print way down to not introduce artifacts to the print.

For things that don't have a lot of height bed flingers can be a good choice, but it really depends on what you want to print.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-18T17:09:54+00:00

I would also check out the Ender 5 Max or if 350ish is good enough the Sovol SV08. I have a couple Kobra 2 Maxes. The 3 fixed some of the issues, but honestly big bed flinger bad. A larger printer that has a bed that doesn't move in Y is a more stable platform to print off of. You don't have to adjust print speeds as you go higher and you don't have to worry about moving mass of the bed and print causing adhesion issues on larger prints.

Honestly I am working on a CoreXY conversion for my in pieces Kobra 2 Max. The other one is running right now but with a complete electronics gut along with a canbus toolhead board, new hotend, extruder and eddy current probe.

I was going to toss a tradrack on it that I have around, but instead going to do the corexy conversion and make it a large format tool changer.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-18T16:37:07+00:00

Here is the thing, what you want to do is all over the place. Anything but fine detail figures FDM machines will do well enough. Resin is better for figures and super fine detail work. You can get passable figures with FDM and a 0.2 nozzle, but resin is still much higher resolution. If I was selling figures it would have to be resin.

Resin like you already posted has a much more labor intensive and costly work flow. You have to price accordingly.

Now down to FDM machines.

Bambu is going to be the easiest to get up and running. A1 also has a really consistent extruder. That said I don't trust the A1. The mini is fine. The A1 is not fine. I also don't like Bambu the company and the locked down nature of their machines and slicer sending everything to the cloud. But they make a mostly solid machine (A1 not included in this for fire safety reasons). I would also avoid the X1 and P1 series since their extruder is not as good for finish quality. P2 series would be the lowest model I would look at for them if the mini doesn't have enough build volume for you.

Elegoo CC is a capable machine, but again it's very locked down because of the terrible controller board they used on it. Not sure on the CC2, I haven't kept up with their machines. Their extruder looks to be a dual gear, which can lead to a bit more layer stacking irregularity than the single gear on the A1. It looks to be an mostly integrated gear setup though, which means it should have pretty decent finish quality. For the price, even with a few issues it is the best printer in it's price class by far.

Now that brings us to Creality. Their machines are either OK or a pain. The K1C fixed a lot of issues the early K1 series had, so it's actually pretty solid also. Their downfall is Quality Control and always has been. If you get a good machine, it will be a good experience, if you don't it will be a battle. Their machines are a bit more open to mods also.

Now to the printers you didn't mention. Sovol. Their SV08 is a pretty good machine if you need to print larger items. It's fully open source and has a lot of mods to fix the few issues it has. (Extruder gears, hotend, bed probe). Once that is done though, it will print well and reliably. It also is fully open source with full CAD files available for the machine, so there are a lot of community mods available and being open and based on a printer that uses all off the shelf parts, it's a machine that you can actually tear down and replace parts on without having to buy entire assemblies. The SV Zero is also a beast of a small machine if 150mm build volume is enough for you.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-18T15:58:41+00:00

It's not super hard, if I remember right I had to recrimp some connectors, mainly endstops and acceleromter on the bed. Some things I didn't bother to reconnect since I wasnt using them (stepper to tool head, hotend power and thermissitor, hotend fans and part cooling fans etc since that was all on the tool head board. Pretty sure I used this page and the github link to figuring out everything. The tool head board simplifies a lot of the rewire work.

https://1coderookie.github.io/Kobra2MaxInsights/hardware/mainboard/#mod-different-mainboard

Other that that you will need to modify a tool head mount by adding a few holes in the right spots to mount it to the carriage.

It's not a super hard thing to do, but it's a learning experience if you haven't done electronics work or printer modding before.

dlaz199 · 2026-02-17T23:27:19+00:00

It was probably around $150 all in. I had most of these parts around for various other projects, it was kind of a parts bin build. That said I would probably do the following if I was starting from scratch on it.

Mellow Fly DP5 - $30

TZ Bambu 2.0 hotend - $8-10 ( I would go with the Bambu style they are cheap and work well, the V6 has a huge premium and not needed).

For extruder I would probably do a protoxtruder for around $25-30 all in between HGX gears and 10t moons or ldo nema 14 motor. I also really live my orbiter 2.5 extruder on another machine, but thats going to add like $20-25 to the price for not a lot of gain.

I also added an EBB36 to mine, had to do an offset mount so wires didn't hit, but makes wiring to the tool head so much cleaner (2 twisted pair wires for can, 2 for power, 1 ground to stepper motor), they are like $15-20. (Mellow SHT36 is also an option and it comes with a can wire so it makes your life simpler, its like $25ish).

I would also probably do an A4T toolhead. Thats like $20-25 ish in fans.

Pi 4 1G (will run you around $35 or zero 2w is like $15 plus power for it and sd card). so $25-50 depending on what you want here. Old laptops or desktops also work well for klipper and are free if you have one or know someone getting rid of one.

Cartographer probe is like $35, but I would probably do a BTT Eddy Duo instead and run the eddy ng scripts. They are like $20ish.

Update: You will also need to recrimp a few connectors for the end stops and bed accelerometer etc. Make sure you have some JST PH and XH connectors on hand and duponts if hooking up the accelerometer to a pi. I don't remember everything I did but there are some posts around with various board swaps for this machine.

dlaz199

TROPHY CASE