https://bambuddy.cool/

https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2026/06/we-can-still-stop-cali...

I bought a P2S, and then literally a few days later, the X2D came out. Thanks Microcenter, and your excellent customer service and return policy. The X2D is everything the P2S is, but with another nozzle.

Option B: cloud mode without Developer Mode

Starting with v2.0.0 the plugin can also drive a cloud-paired printer with verification left ON — no Developer Mode. This keeps the cloud features (cloud print dispatch, print history, MakerWorld) but is meant for advanced users, because it requires private slicer credentials that this project does not distribute.

Two things are needed:

1. Bambu's slicer credentials, which you provide yourself. Put slicer_cert.pem, slicer_key.pem and slicer_crl.pem in the plugin's config directory (or point at them with slicer_cert_pem / slicer_key_pem / slicer_crl_pem in obn.conf). The plugin uses the key to sign MQTT print commands and to install its app certificate on the printer. These are private credentials. This project does not ship them and gives no instructions on obtaining them — you have to find or extract them yourself, and you alone are responsible for ensuring your use complies with the applicable terms and law.

2. Two settings in obn.conf. Set block_cloud = 0 (the default 1 blocks cloud printing outright) and client_name = BambuStudio (the honest default client name is rejected by the cloud print API with HTTP 403).

With that in place you get signed MQTT commands, on-printer app-certificate install, cloud print dispatch, print history and MakerWorld — without touching Developer Mode.

What the default cloud_print = cloud_only actually uploads. Even in this mode the model itself normally stays on your network: for a print with a cloud record the plugin sends the .3mf straight to the printer over LAN FTPS, and only the record goes to Bambu — a project entry, a task entry (mode=lan_file) and a small config .3mf that print history uses for its thumbnails. That record is exactly what buys you the cloud extras: print history in Studio and Handy, and the ability to rate models on MakerWorld. The full model is uploaded to Bambu's servers only when Studio dispatches a pure cloud print (start_print), e.g. for a printer that is not reachable on your LAN.

You can limit even that: set cloud_print = try_lan_first or lan_only to print over the LAN without writing a cloud record at all, and cloud_hide_history = 1 to hide the cloud print history in Studio.

If you run neither Developer Mode nor valid credentials, the printer rejects every print / project_file command and shows on its screen:

MQTT Command verification failed err_code: 84033543

* 2022-05-29: Admitted it's based on PrusaSlicer [https://blog.bambulab.com/to-open-or-not-to-open-that-is-the...](https://blog.bambulab.com/to-open-or-not-to-open-that-is-the...) * "We would like to ask for the understanding of the community to give us some time *before we open-source* Parts 1 and 2, which is scheduled for the second half of this year." - admitted it's currently an AGPL violation

* 2022-06-29: Evidence. "GPL requires release of source the moment binaries are out. Many people have had the binaries for weeks. They are 100% in violation". [https://x.com/DreadMakerAdam/status/1542216014984876036](https://x.com/DreadMakerAdam/status/1542216014984876036)

* ???

* 2022-07-15: They only dumped it (with prior git history squashed) onto GitHub months after the initial release, after immense community pressure. [https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBambu/comments/1thfslw/comment/...](https://www.reddit.com/r/OpenBambu/comments/1thfslw/comment/...) [https://github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/issues/1](https://github.com/bambulab/BambuStudio/issues/1)

If you want to feed all your print activity to Bambu's servers anyway, why bother using an open source plugin in the first place?

https://github.com/linuxserver/docker-orcaslicer

It's excellent for monitoring and setting up automations around printer events, I use it all the time too.

Studio is fully release IIRC, it is that "external" part which is the issue.

The linkage between that and the client should be soft enough otherwise for the server side not to inherit the responsibilities of the client. Though if part of their claims attempting to defend their current position suggest that linkage is more direct, then they are taking aim at their own foot somewhat.

Speed is not why I set my printer up this way though. I live in a state that may ban 3D printers unless they include invasive surveillance, so I wanted to get a high end pre-ban printer in case that becomes law.

It is selfish and short sighted, and it leaves their future impoverished, but in the moment they "got a good deal."

Bambulab is far from the first player enter the market, or even the "budget" segment, but they still somehow captured it. Only till recently the others begin offering something that can compete with bambu's machine.

Turn out the demand for a good 3d printer, that you only need to do very basic tuning, and does not break your bank account, is very high. Who could've guessed ?

But Prusa is only engaged in self-harm.

Or they can pay statutory maximum copyright violations of $120000 per copy violated.

Per copy.

There's a confusing part of the article where he says that what he believes is a violation is something that a judge isn't going to care about. I don't know if he's implying that the judges aren't capable of interpreting the AGPL properly, or if he's admitting that the legal argument isn't as solid as they thought it was when they started. It's a confusing thing to say next to the broad claims about violations.

But is there anything to stop reverse engineering the physical printer itself, improving on it by 10mm build volume in each direction, and releasing that?

It won't be a copy of the Bambu printer AND it can run the same software, truly freely.

Without the networking plugin you cannot monitor your printer or send prints to it remotely. You can copy files to a flash drive and print that way.

I do believe that the GPL will eventually be broken. However, it won't be broken in ways such as happening now. It'll be broken when some company is able to show the court that they were doing a lot of things to ensure they weren't going to violate the GPL. And yet a rogue employee, unknown to the rest of the company, violated it despite being told not to. I don't know exactly what the courts will decide in this case. It's still going to come down to the copyright violation. However, it likely won't be a source code release. The GPL will hold up, they will just say the written requirements are to much and ??? . But again, this will only happen after the courts take a very detailed look at all the things the company is doing to ensure they didn't violate the GPL in the first place, which means we are likely looking at many, many years before the first such case. Anyone who isn't aware of the GPL and taking a lot of active effort to ensure they're not violating it, they won't be able to pull off this defense after the fact.

IMHO that kind of stuff would have to go through the WTO but unfortunately Trump gutted that one already way back in his first term.

While the ecosystem was open few people cared about the network plugin, and apart from that plugin the Bambu Studio slicer is open source. Similarly there was little interest in calling out the suspected violation of their online slicer - it's probably just a headless variant of Bambu Studio. But when Bambu started closing their ecosystem and claiming that user agent headers are DRM everyone got justifiably upset, and this is a just outlet for that

The Bambu printers, at the time of their release, were an incredibly superior pieces of hardware and software that was priced very very well and, this was a really big deal, worked fully right out of the box.

It was a pretty clear choice in either dicking around with the tools, or actually using the tool to make things. They caused a huge shift in the industry because it was silly to NOT buy a Bambu, if you wanted to actually make things.

I love open source software, but I also know that a team of focused, dedicated, high skill, engineers, who are financially motivated with big paychecks, to do well, will often do a better job making something proprietary than a bunch of volunteers doing it for fun, on the weekends. Ffs, we didn't get a half ass implementation (thanks to shite 8 bit boards everyone was using) of motion/vibration compensation in all the open source firmwares, a tech from the 1960's, until right before Bambu's release. It's still not available in most. Pressure compensation was still relatively new.

I honestly don't want another maintenance hobby. I just want something that works and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.

This would be a lot more convincing if the stolen part were the great part, as happens in music.

That is not what people are asking for.

I understand Snapmaker has been getting some good press lately (especially the Snapmaker U1), and it would be cheaper than the equivalent Prusa and they are more open than Bambu (so far) in their deals with open source.

My only personal experience is with Prusa (and I'm a happy customer). Their machines are also built to be serviable, which matters for print farm style usage, I have heard that a Bambu just doesn't last more than a year or two in that environment. Prusas just keep going as long as you lube the bearings every now and then.

It's questionable whether those two companies care that much about piracy, they make most of their money off enterprise, right? For a while I heard it theorized that Adobe and Microsoft largely let people get away with it, since it still keeps them in the ecosystem and therefore makes them likelier to use those products at work. Versus Bambu which probably still sells mainly to random hobbyists/home users

And the saddest thing is that Bambu knows this. They know that people who give away software are not a serious threat to them. And it is especially galling that the value they have extracted out of that software will pay the lawyers that keep you from preventing them from continuing to extract that value and keep it for themselves.

[1] "Media reports have also indicated that Bambu Lab has shipped more than 1.2 million units, claiming a 29% global share." -- https://kr-asia.com/bambu-lab-nears-usd-100-billion-valuatio...

I did a presentation[0] on this about a month back. If we want these situations to stop we need to work to inform the public and work towards getting people that care in positions of power.

[0]: https://www.scottrlarson.com/presentations/overcoming-survei...

Unfortunately that seems to increasingly be the status quo these days, look at US companies and their attitude to IP when it suits them to ignore licenses for LLM training purposes.

I think a valid view (not saying it's right) of this is: "some dorks in a country I don't inhabit gave away valuable code. I'm going to use it and I don't particularly care about what they think about it"

How much do you care about Chinese law? does that make you sketchy?

The person you're talking to is missing that point because they're starting at "freely copyable", while the actual default is that code is never published at all. GPL is compromise to push source code 90% of the way to "freely copyable" because the alternative is usually 0% copyable.

I'm not a lawyer, but my understanding of the GPL is it's meant to block this kind of behavior. Certainly it's against the spirit of it.

I would expect a court to compell a defendant to either comply with the license or cease distribution and possibly pay damages for unauthorized distribution... But I don't know that there's a good way to figure the damages and US statuatory damages likely don't apply because who registers their copyrights for open source code (or deposits copies with the Library of Congress)?

Infringement by a rouge employee, acting against policy, may be reason to limit punitve damages and stick to actual damages... But if it's an actual rogue employee acting against policy, I would expect the company to cease infringement, begin compliance, or negotiate for an alternative solution once notified about the issue anyway.

Though I would caveat my assertion by saying that if the specific form factor of the A1 Mini (which is a nice thing) matters to you, and it well might, there’s probably no alternative for that single machine, to be fair.

But I would still choose something else.

Personally I think the “just works” 3D printer is largely the result of cognitive bias. It’s a machine tool that melts plastic: I don’t think this is the appropriate territory for “just works”. But that’s just me.

https://www.cato.org/blog/biden-administration-continues-be-...

But IIRC the plugin itself contains code covered by the open source licenses, either that or being directly linked the way it is is considered sufficient for the requirements of the license to apply.

You are right to say Prusa is more of a hobbyist machine while Bambu is closer to a consumer appliance. But within the hobbyist spectrum Prusa is more on the light hobby side these days. My first printer was a Printrbot where I was hand-entering G-code to move the nozzle around and level the bed. Prusa is a dream compared to that.

I like Prusa as a company (and the guy), and I like the community around it. The machine is simple, keeps working, parts are available, and you can understand and repair it if you need to.

That is more than just a theory, their own documents (I can't remember if they were leaked or officially released as part of the big anti-trust case) stated that this was essentially their policy for poor eastern counties: if they wouldn't be paying for it anyway MS preferred them to use it rather than something else (like Linux, or something locally created, etc,).

It was less openly ignored in the case of students, or people using work licenses (or just pirate copies) at home, but the above and the lack of enforcement would indicate it was ignored for that reason.

$750 vs $1,750 is not a bit more...

[0] P2S with AMS vs Core One + MMU

I wanted the Prusa to be just as good, which is why I started with it. I wanted to support the open ecosystem, but not at the expense of not getting to do what I actually set out to (print things nicely). It's a shame! Maybe I was holding it wrong (but again, with the Bambu, I didn't have to worry about it).

Not sure if Bambu was already hated back then for stuff like this. At least not that much, it just wasn't super open sure.

At this point I get a new printer for free every few months because of makerworld and their weird point system, so until I actually do any business with it I have no real reason to change my platform right now.

It's an easy thing to avoid the costs associated with complying with FOSS licenses because they FOSS people don't come after you. So instead of having a person on staff who is making sure the company is compliant and updating the web site with source as it changes etc etc. You just don't do any of that and not only do you save money not paying that person you don't have to bother the web site people every time you do a software update. So from a manufacturer's perspective it's a win.

That said, Chinese vendors selling to Chinese customers following Chinese law. All good. Chinese vendors selling to US customers and not following US law, that's bad. I don't see how Chinese law would be part of that discussion.

People want to pretend LLM vector search compaction output isn't copyright and trademark violation. We are in the Napster phase of the market exploitation.

On a positive note there is nothing left of value to steal/scrape, so the problem will likely eventually be self-correcting. =3

What makes them particularly sketchy is the hypocracy: they fully understand the concept of IP and they are using/abusing it to try defend their semi-walled garden.

The US does not respect the EU's Protected Designation of Origin laws because they have more to gain by ignoring them. China has more to gain by ignoring US IP laws.

That community is where open source tech tends to come from.

Any import block would be on the hardware, not the software. And the software would need to be released for other territories anyway.

The other printers are basically custom designs by this point & you need to fix things sometimes - like recently erosion of the filament eationg away enough of the idler arm to slip from the forwarding wheel. But I don't mind, because I can easily fix all of that with either 3D printed bits or easily & cheaply available common parts.

I don't mind because I know I can fix ynathing on those printers! No issues like with 2D printers with closed firmware that worksa against you to print secret dots, only accepts locked down blessed overpriced consumables & fails to print if only one color runs low. Not to mention the bloody thing is basically unfixable & any drivers already suck + they will drop support on a whim anyway.

Seriously, would rather fix the 3D printer after every print than to deal with the level of bulshit common on 2D printers - and ot seems to me that Bambu is trying to achieve exactly that!

I wouldn't say "50%" is slightly more.

(I don't understand people who build print farms from Bambu Lab machines at all; I do get using Prusas.)

However I've seen so many non technical people having fun with 3d printers at a pure hobby level at this point it's hard to not recommend Bambu in some way.

Bambu shook the industry because it was better in all ways that mattered if you actually wanted to make something.

[1] https://www.fabbaloo.com/news/prusa-research-unveils-mk4-inp...

[2] https://www.3docity.com.au/blogs/3dprinting/corexy-printers-...

[3] https://toms3d.org/2025/02/11/finally-prusa-takes-on-bambu-c...

[4] https://www.reddit.com/r/prusa3d/comments/x3m76q/did_you_reg...

How does that work?

It is for the UK but no doubt m'learned friends in the US can command even higher fees.

Try grabbing a KC for five days, civil/commercial with all the trimmings. That will set you back £105,000.

Obviously the impoverished KC won't pocket all that lolly. There is VAT to pay and staff costs and stuff.

A KC is one of these: https://kcappointments.org/ for obvious reasons they used to known as QCs

Court fees, fees for accessing case law, experts, paralegals, etc.

You pay the lawyer and a big portion of that goes towards his costs for additional labour and everything else. A lawyer grossing $2m/year isn't bringing home anything close to that.

That said $250k for a single lawyer for 6 weeks seems high.

When linking, symbols pointing to addresses are involved. The main program calls functions in the library, and you end up with a whole program. On the other hand, a bootloader just does its thing and then jumps to a fixed address in the main program. The main program doesn't call anything in the bootloader. (Note, the Linux kernel has a special clause that explicitly allows the userland to programmatically interface with the kernel.)

I realize this sort of depends on the microcontroller toolchain. I'm familiar with a few, but not much with STM32 stuff. If the toolchain is dumb and implements the bootloader in a way that resembles linking, i.e. making it possible to resolve all the symbols in the bootloader from the main program then it could very well make the bootloader subject to the GPL.

This is why hobby printers continue to be a time sink, while my Bambu just works. It's a tool, I shouldn't have to fix it after each use.

My current machine is a bit of a weirdo. A formerly basic Creality Ender 2 Pro (the cheapest possible small bed model) that I have had for more than four years, which has always been an unusually excellent machine for fine work, and now has a hardened steel nozzle in a faster heating/higher temperature hotend, mesh bed levelling, direct drive extruder, tidier cables (!), Klipper/KlipperScreen, and an even tighter calibration situation.

I am not at all bothered about pushing machine limits, and I am not an electronics or hardware tinkerer at all. Not my mindset. I don't print stuff for the sake of printing, and I'm much more focussed on learning CAD techniques.

The upgrades were done as a systematic plan to teach myself how the basic functions of a typical modern machine work on a much deeper level, so I can teach and help others. (Life plan changes)

And indeed only once I knew I have need of a larger machine anyway — not that I've bought it yet, for life reasons.

It's nice that it's a little faster, prints higher temperature materials better, levels more easily and more precisely, is now super dimensionally accurate, and my modestly-custom Klipper config has let me dabble with support interface layer swaps by smoothing over some of the details of filament changes, which is cool. In many ways it is like having a newer machine.

I still don't feel like a hardware or electronics guy and I'm not a performance tinkerer. The machine is upgraded, prints superbly, and now I just use it when I need to use it.

But what I have internalised is that I should be able to run my printer as long as I want, with what software I want, understand it and fix it if I need to. I absolutely don't want to tinker for the sake of it, but I also don't want to cross fingers and rely on a machine being great from the factory. If fixing it means changing it, that's fine with me.

If you are intending to print things for which quality and precision matters, then there is no substitute for understanding the machine more deeply, and that means a machine that will let you understand it.

This new understanding is really challenging my choice of what I buy for my workshop, because to some extent this window of deeper understanding is closing. There are, by contrast, many "off the shelf" machines that compete with (and outperform) Bambu machines at comparable and lower prices.

Prusa being "adequate" (and expensive) is partly why Bambu now has 41% of the market, while Prusa has < 3% [3].

[1] https://youtu.be/GE-lrRbU124&t=245 and https://youtu.be/GE-lrRbU124&t=524

[2] https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XruRPpODE6Q.

[3] https://www.3dprintingjournal.com/p/consolidation-has-become...

I have a Prusa btw.

Externalized costs are real. "Overpriced because it's built in the EU" implicitly argues that there are no fundamental differences between the labor conditions, environmental controls, and societal impact of the production process.

I come at this from the other direction. I was your stereotypical guitar-playing, photographer, software nerd; I would never have tried making physical things until I realised I wanted to make photography accessories.

(Also some of my experience with expensive machines has been very spendy inkjet printers.)

But I also want to teach (adults) and I have therefore developed a tendency to teach myself anything I am interested in at enough of a level that I could teach someone newer to it.

There are just too many sketchy things around Bambu for me to take them seriously.

I will concede I am using a budget Creality, and that almost none of the alternative players have the strongest reputation for open source ethics, so it is a narrowed field.

But I can see myself buying a Snapmaker, a Prusa, or a Sovol, on the budget fringes the newer Flashforge printers are shockingly good, and for the entry level I don't massively mind what Anycubic are doing with the Kobra X; it's not heavy duty but potentially has some applications.

I don't think I'd buy a Creality again. But it's in no way because of my experience with them or with the machine I bought or its upgrades; this experience has been in very significant ways a life-changing one.

I just don't think they appear to be better at doing the more closed products than they were at the dirt cheap stuff (industry-changing machines for which they catch undue shit), and they turn over new products too fast.

Where I am more challenged is CNC.

I definitely don't know how I feel here, because on the one hand I'd like a large-ish MPCNC or scrappy eBay CNC to rough out lap steel guitars and conversion necks; big coarse-ish-but-accurate woodcutting I am bad at by hand. And on the other hand, for the photography stuff in particular, I have definite applications for a Carvera Z1.

I guess the answer may be to do both. But the same process of assessment will be involved in this case.

I recognize that my neighbors could easily lose their jobs to the same forces that are causing me to buy a Bambu printer.