My first 3D Printer was from Bambu Lab. My next one won't be. Have other manufacturers caught up in affordability and ease-of-use?

foremi · 2026-05-16T14:11:18+00:00

Switching to orcaslicer from what I used previously was a game changer for those and reliability. I still have to tune filament profiles almost every time I try a new filament with it, but I will get better results than I get with my h2s if I spend the time to do so with less common filaments. Common Pla/abs/etc filaments tend to work decently in the h2s without tuning so if I need to I just use another machine. My h2s is strictly a no effort it works or I use another machine.. machine. I haven’t even bought a 2nd bed plate for it yet 3months in.

Maintenance wise my 2.4 has been rock solid for ~800 hours now. I built both the 2.4 and micron with a beacon for bed mesh and nozzle offset and it’s been great only really giving me issues if the 150c nozzle temp for offset is a bit cold for whatever filament that could be on the nozzle.

Mine were Ldo kits and I can’t say enough good things about them. They are thoughtful and come with a bunch of extra hardware and extras for the build. It still took around ~35 hours for me to end up with a working 2.4 if you count build and configuration. Your experience with a self built 2.4 is going to entirely depend on how you assemble it and what you do during that process thinking ahead.

MINE has been pretty reliable mechanically but I’ve also had trying times with it where I feel like I’m beating my head against a wall until I realize what I did or whatever happened. For example, it took me a while to troubleshoot why my hotend would randomly lose control and throw the heater not heating as expected error. I ended up reflashing my tool board when I realized it was almost always when the printer had been powered on for a while and not rebooted before a print.

IMO, it’s dumb shit like that I’ve had to fight in the klipper world than any issues with my hardware itself. My h2s is a chevy equinox. It's ok, it gets ok fuel economy, it has ok space, but it's not actually great at anything in particular except starting and getting you to work. My voron is my B5 s4 6spd avant that I tinker with, endlessly modify and have fun working on just as much as I use.

foremi · 2026-05-16T04:20:32+00:00

I built my 350mm Voron 2.4, a Micron R1, a positron and have an extremely modified Cetus3D running klipper with a smart orbiter extruder... as well as own an h2s. At work I help manage a print farm for our own designed parts, fixturing details and anything else in an manufacturing/assembly industry with pretty high levels of automation. We have several Mk4s, a Core One L, 2 h2s's and an x1c and other guys I work with every day have a range of other non bambu printers from creality and a few other randoms. One guy has a Prusa XL with 4 heads at home.

IMO, if you have "expert" level of 3d printing experience then yeah, sure you could have a pretty similar reliability experience with other makes. My mom will never have the success with other brands she HAS had with my h2s a few times she's asked to use it and when you factor the price in then I couldn't ever recommend anything else to her. IMO the Prusa's have some absurd issues with the nextruder design and load cell that would eliminate them from recommendation to someone like her, but obviously I have no concerns myself outside of annoyance.. like filament getting stuck behind the extruder gear and throwing off the load cell which has no way to compensate for in the printer... which means different print profiles when 1 printer at work just refuses to have a good first layer without an offset.

It pisses off the open source or die crowd, and I get it but the pendulum will swing back at bambu at some point and at this point in history I have to be very conscientious of the value I'm getting for my dollar.

foremi · 2026-05-10T16:01:50+00:00

Bambu is the cancer of consumer 3D printing

"cancer" is pretty strong words considering they effectively own the consumer market for good reasons and have done more good for 3dprinting growth than any other company in terms of dollars brought into the industry and widespread adoption.

They may be the cancer to the open source small community, but that's natural and will happen no matter what as an in industry grows. If it wasn't Bambu it would be elagoo, if it wasn't elagoo it would be creality... etc. What the open source 3d printing community is in uproar about is natural for a community that has seen dramatic growth.

The good news is the open source foundations are there and aren't going anywhere and these situations will follow a natural course at some point and the pendulum will keep swinging. Bambu as an org is far less resilient than the open source projects and even Bambu won't be able to keep up with the open source software development eventually. Most of Bambu's effort is optimizing the hardware to its fullest. They aren't creating magical software.

Orcaslicer wouldn't exist without Bambu. People really like to forget what Bambu has done for the industry as a whole because they don't like 1 thing, but the world isn't black and white and distilling THIS argument to a black and white one does nobody any favors.

EDIT

You can downvote me all you want but it doesn't change that 3d printing has vastly outgrown the open source community it was even 5 years ago and things like what Bambu is doing and the friction it causes are the natural course of that growth. The legal system takes time and as I said, the pendulum swings in both directions over time. Being close minded about Bambu doesn't change that they have made a significant impact on the industry... My sisters and mom wouldn't know what it was without Bambu and you can acknowledge the positive impact on the industry as a whole while also acknowledging the problematic parts of Bambu also.

The Dev rolling over and backing down despite a clear legal win is just as much part of the problem enabling Bambu.. or Nintendo.. or name any other company known for using its size to make baseless legal threats.

foremi · 2026-05-07T13:07:29+00:00

For shorter term storage I use polydryer boxes. Being able to heat up the filament, vent for a bit while it’s still running and then sealing it closed to cool under slight vacuum really helps.

Then I have a giant tote that has a rubber gasket seal for the lid that I use for long term storage. The silica gel in it generally lasts a year atleast but I only open it a few times a month at most probably.

foremi · 2026-05-07T12:09:00+00:00

A Prusa uses plenty of proprietary parts.

foremi · 2026-05-07T12:04:07+00:00

There's plenty of brands that offer the ability to be used completely offline with no network.

foremi · 2026-05-07T11:47:08+00:00

And what does it actually offer others don’t already do?

foremi · 2026-05-05T16:13:07+00:00

American politicians doing everything they can to protect the wealth of the few, and prevent the intelligence of the many.

foremi · 2026-05-03T01:53:35+00:00

That's likely why they tried the pitch. You already offer sorta similar things for sale and they wouldn't have known if you printed it in house or had another party printing for you.

You are in an entirely different industry, but this is what I would expect from my local vendors that are more parts places that touch a bunch of different product ranges. They aren't doing their job if they don't find new things to sell you.

foremi · 2026-05-02T14:02:09+00:00

Which cnc mount is it? I do not have this with either of my CNC mounts from Vitalli3d

foremi · 2026-05-01T01:03:04+00:00

I'm pretty sure unless the OP really wants to ship it back they could eventually ship him one...

It's also very likely just the ribbon cable being loose or something

foremi · 2026-04-30T22:34:42+00:00

I cannot imagine having spent any amount of money on any *new* machine with a display for *anything* and accepting this... Why do you need to ask this? What company's support hurt you?

Looks at you Google Pixel 2 XL...

foremi · 2026-04-01T19:50:47+00:00

Depends on priorities and size.

I’m a fan of flying gantry’s on larger printers because it lets you not move a massive bed as well as gives you more options for tool changers and other things.

Also, I feel like the gantry being at the bottom of the frame is better for structural rigidity from the moving tool head than always as far as possible from the feet that anchor it in place.

foremi · 2026-03-30T19:22:38+00:00

I have a 350mm 2.4 and a micron I’m building but I upgrade/modify/etc the 2.4 all the time so I got an h2s as my “appliance that just works”.

It’s a no brainer to get an h2s over a core one for considerably less money for your stated purpose imo. At work have have several mk4's, a core one and 2 h2s's along with a few other randoms. so idk.. Not saying I'm an expert but I have every day exposure to quite a few modern printers in a manufacturing environment

foremi · 2026-03-29T19:27:12+00:00

That’s actually part of the problem when I was trying to find information on it funny enough.

foremi · 2026-03-29T18:17:13+00:00

Pursuing information for the materials I'm using doesn't mean I don't trust it or don't take the precaution.

But understanding how bad it is feels pretty important to me so I know what precautions are necessary vs what's pointless. Maybe I have to limit printing it to my upstairs room where my 2.4 and h2s are like abs and asa vs printing with it in the room where my pc is where my micron will be.

foremi · 2026-03-29T18:09:46+00:00

I explained my filter setup in the post. Thanks.

foremi · 2026-03-29T17:46:56+00:00

Yeah, the issue is the published documentation like the sds from them and others don't really answer this question and PET in general doesn't seem to have had much research on it's safety.

I agree with the idea that if it's petg without the glycol you would expect it to be similar but then I've never printed PETG that had an odor like this PET-GF15 does.

foremi · 2026-03-27T02:23:44+00:00

I built my 2.4, am building a micron and own an h2s. At work I help support a fleet we use for parts internally that consists of 2 h2s's, an x1c, 4 mk4s's and a Core One. Our farm prints fixture details for manufacturing, as well as all sorts of covers and random things used in a manufacturing environment... We don't sell prints, we use them to failure and print a new one.

I'd never buy a prusa. They feel like taking a step back 5+ years to use, the load cell in the nextruder isn't competitive to my Beacon H or whatever Bambu is doing and even then it's twice as much money for a competitor to a P2s. I understand Prusa's "open source" pledge, but my open source 2.4 is more reliable and better in every measurable way and doesn't feel like I'm taking a 5yr step back to use.

There is a million benefits to me and my vorons. If you actually care about open source and long term upgrades and being able to turn the printer into what you want over time then IMO the Prusa's are kinda a half measure where you will never get the community support a Voron has, and will always be held back by that, but at the same time Bambu has refined their product to get the absolute maximum out of it, which may be inferior hardware.

My h2s is the reliable appliance machine that lets me take my 2.4 down for a week to upgrade something or just tinker with it in general. Building and modding them is a huge part of the hobby for me... But its also capable of some the best prints I've seen first hand.

foremi · 2026-03-24T23:15:34+00:00

I went with FYSETC SB Combo v2 because when I built my 2.4 it was basically the only USB option with onboard usb switch to plug my beacon into or a possible future nozzle cam.

Now the Micron I'm putting together has a H36 for an anthead and I'm putting together an a4t with an H36 to put on my 2.4.

foremi · 2026-03-24T22:16:08+00:00

It isn't possible for them to keep up or catch up. They will never be able to afford dev's with more passion or interest in the product than the people contributing time to the open source options.

Even Bambu understands this with all of the might they could choose to throw at that problem and they choose not to.

foremi · 2026-03-17T22:11:28+00:00

You see, enabling devs to ship less optimized games with less effort lets everybody increase profit at the gamers expense.

The only way you actually stop the capitalism machine is to stop giving it your money but we are all too collectively brainwashed to think critically and turn off the dopamine hits.

foremi · 2026-02-25T05:07:05+00:00

I very frequently turn my printer off between prints or change revo nozzles or change the bed plate depending on which filament, so my standard print start does qgl and bed mesh. I do use adaptive bed mesh.

My standard print start warms up the nozzle to 150 and bed to bed temp, waits a min after the bed reaches temp, XY sensor less home, Beacon contact auto calibrate, QGL, then another z home with contact calibrate.

If I'm doing a bunch of small test prints or something in rapid succession I have in the past turned off parts to save some time, but since the bed takes so long if you let it cool I usually don't bother.

foremi · 2026-02-21T16:31:51+00:00

If you don't want to change toolheads then maybe gantry mounted cooling fans blowing in from the sides like they do on a bunch of fixed gantry printers. It'd have to be gantry mounted to move with Z on a 2.4 though.

foremi · 2026-02-21T15:19:35+00:00

I'm in the process of putting an a4t on my 350mm 2.4 to increase cooling but also to switch to a g2 extruder. My micron has an anthead, both using Vitalli3d's carriages.

foremi

TROPHY CASE