EDIT NOTICE: I accidentally wrote “A1 Mini” in the meme instead of just “A1” out of habit. There’s no proof for the Mini to also be affected yet. My bad, sorry. It’s the A1 that might burn your house down.
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21 minutesDepends on what you want, and how much you can afford. Personally I hate the idea of my printer connecting to the internet, so I’m still very happy with the Creality CR-10 that I bought 7 years ago. You can buy very similar models new for like $300. Less if you’re willing to settle for less build volume, and even less if you’re willing to buy used off of Craigslist or similar online marketplaces
- _stranger_@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
Get one of those old timey sheep stomach water bladders and fill it with molten plastic, then just go to town like you’re icing a cake.
Or buy a different brand
Avoid
- BambuLab (the usual backstabbing of big corpos)
- Creality (recently went IPO and strongly pivoted towards AI)
- FlashForge (also apparently AI stuff)
- Anycubic (cheap shit)
Recommend
- Sovol (especially for tinkerers, but bad customer support)
- Snapmaker U1 (good price / performance)
- Prusa (The best with a backbone and EU-based, but pricy af because of it)
- Qidi Tech (Rather affordable, not too bad apparently)
These are my personal opinions and what I heard over the years.
- fishy@lemmy.todayEnglish2 hours
What’s the deal with flashforge? I can’t find much except that they’re integrating some kind of AI modeling software with their studio program?
- InputZero@lemmy.worldEnglish6 hours
I agree with your take on all of them except Anycubic, if you can get them for cheap. By that I don’t mean the forever sale on their website. I started with a used anycubic that I got for less than $100.00 USD. While it does suck it let me see if I actually wanted to spend more money on this hobby or not. I’m already looking into getting a Prusa someday but for now it’s enough. So there is a spot for Anycubic, it’s entry level for printing curious.
- RattlerSix@lemmy.worldEnglish2 hours
Agree 100%. My first printer was a cheap Kobra 2. I had a lot of problems with it and I’m not sure if it’s because of the printer or because I was changing settings without knowing what I was doing.
At any rate, I wanted something better and didn’t want anycubic, but Kobra 3 with AMS was only $299 at the time so I got one. It worked great. I started on some large printing projects and ended up getting a second one for $299 to spread the workload around.
I have about 600 hours on both and they’ve both been great. I have a Snapmaker U1 but I’m going to keep using the Kobra 3s for basic prints as long as they last.
I have quite liked my resin anycubic. Not sure about the filament style they make but they seem to know how to make resin printers.
- LastYearsIrritant@sopuli.xyzEnglish8 hours
I follow a lot of 3d printing news and I agree with these recommendations.
- OilyArena@lemmy.mlEnglish4 hours
IIRC it was just a bunch of people that didn’t understand how a resistive heater works and that you shouldn’t reach far inside a 3d printer while it’s running.
- ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish5 hours
AFAIK they did have some issues on the first of their 3rd gen printers, and only for 110VAC models, 230VAC models were unaffected. And they recognized the issue when it was discovered, fixed it, and shipped replacement parts for affected customers.
The current printers you can buy from them are their 4th gen, haven’t heard anything like that for these. They’re technically open source, but they make their own weird forked klipper version instead of just using vanilla klipper.
- Echo Dot@feddit.ukEnglish4 hours
It’s getting as bad as picking a Linux kernel. No matter what you pick, there’s always something wrong with it.
- Muffi@programming.devEnglish10 hours
Prusa or nothing. Just s shame they are so damn expensive, and refuse to make a Prusa Mini v.2
- 2 hours
Just bought a used, but very well calibrated MK3S last month as my first foray into 3D printing. I love this thing so far.
And it doesn’t know my wifi network or password. I save files to an SD card, plug that into the printer, and print. No apps, no printer connecting to the internet to verify registration, no sending my files somewhere outside the home when printing.
Might run it through a MK3.5 hardware upgrade in not too long, which is another cool thing they do: give you an upgrade path for older models (like mine) to use newer equipment from newer models.
- Ramenator@lemmy.worldEnglish9 hours
I’m actually really happy with my Snapmaker U. Not only has it been rock steady at printing and quality, they actually open sourced both their firmware and slicer. And flashing a custom firmware is as easy as copying it to a USB drive and plugging it in
Right?! A Mini+ refresh that pushes down the costs without sacrificing performance (very much doable I think, they’d have basically zero R&D cost for that) to hit the 249€ mark would most likely sell like hot cakes, simply because it’s both rather affordable and Prusa! Especially right now.
I do hope they work on something. The fact the website apparently only offers the Mini+ Enclosure Bundle by now might indicate they’re emptying shelves, though they’ll never sell those off at that ridiculous price (500€ semi-assembled).
- Muffi@programming.devEnglish2 hours
For real! I love my Prusa Mini so much. I mostly do electronics, and the print volume is perfect for the small enclosures I need to print for that.
But after having played around with the MK4S, I really do miss a lot of the new features. I met Josef Prusa at Open Sauce last year, and tried my best to convince him that they need to do a v2.
- 11 hours
Not as much relentless marketing as it was just the cheapest and easiest enter to 3D printing for me TwT
Too bad I already used it and it’s outside return time anyways
Just be safe, alright? There should be info out there if it’s an A1 about removing the dangerous part (seems to be optional). And make sure to take those devices offline via LAN-mode and blocking their internet access in the router.
- WolfLink@sh.itjust.worksEnglish17 hours
I’m in the corner with my Ender 3 that barely works and is a pain in the ass but hasn’t had a recent controversy because it’s old.
You might want to try those total conversion projects. There are a few that take parts from one or two Ender 3 and turn the machine into a modern CoreXY machine.
- elucubra@sopuli.xyzEnglish10 hours
Irbis has a 2 ender3 to1 corexy for little money con ersions. Guy is a genius
- mellibird@feddit.onlineEnglish13 hours
I love/hate my fucking Ender 3. I love it cause I got it for free and it’s my first printer. But boy have I just wanted to take a hammer to it at times. Though, I can use any software I want, no internet connection, and it’s been forcing me to actually understand how that dang printer works. And fuck, when I’m ready to go down that rabbit hole, I can mod it out. I can’t beat that flexibility.
- Tikiporch@lemmy.worldEnglish16 hours
You shouldn’t give a fuck of your choice of 3D printer’s manufacturer is controversial.
HP and Dell suck a fat one, but I don’t give it a moments thought when I’m printing out hollow Earth leaflets to hand out at the mall food court.
Hollow earth? What sort of new-age conspiracy is that? True believers know the earth is a turtle.
- 14 hours
At least you’re not a flat earther. Etidorpha, am I right?
- 17 hours
Get that bitch a direct drive upgrade and print a dual blower mount for it and it’ll never let you down again
- Tja@programming.devEnglish12 hours
I’m in the other corner with a P1S still on firmware 1.7 putting like 16 hours of print on it a day (mainly my wife printing decoration and trinkets). It’s just th internet finding a new rage bait. The printers are fine, the company is dumb for generating controversy (maybe negligent for the fires). This too shall pass.
- OwOarchist@pawb.socialEnglish22 hours
Anything highly advertised is always some sort of scam and/or shitty, overpriced product.
Anything you see advertised more than once is a product to avoid. Especially if you see those advertisements on youtube.
- kingblaaak@lemmy.worldEnglish21 hours
100% - this goes with VPNs, why would I buy that is posted everywhere, such a giant target for an attack.
I’ll do my own research and come to a conclusion on how i spend my money.
Oh no, mullvad started advertising a bit 😱
Only print ads though IIRC
This is why I’ll never use NordVPN. Their ads are everywhere, which makes me not trust their product.
Besides, the most popular products are the most targeted by malware, hacking, adware/spyware, etc. Lesser known security tools are generally better, as long as the product itself is quality.
- Rolivers@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish14 hours
I didn’t even know they advertised so much because of my adblocker at the time.
I block ads too, but a bunch of YouTube channels I follow slip in their own custom-made ads in their vids, and like 70% of them were NordVPN. I couldn’t escape it for a while.
- Tja@programming.devEnglish12 hours
Quality products have quality, as long as they have quality. Yeah.
- CosmoNova@lemmy.worldEnglish18 hours
At the very least when the brand is sponsoring Youtubers to the degree Bambu did. It‘s a huge red flag.
- pHr34kY@lemmy.worldEnglish13 hours
I have an A1 mini. I had no idea it was being pushed by influencers.
I genuinely thought it was the “Brother laser” of 3D printing.
- Tja@programming.devEnglish12 hours
It is okay. Don’t believe everything you read on lemmy. It’s not the brother laser, it’s more like the iPhone Mini. Unfortunately closed system, hated by lemmy, but enjoyed by normies.
In this case though, I don’t think it’s “shitty and overpriced” given the pricepoint. Of course that’s subjective, I’m speaking more from an average person’s viewpoint. I know people who started with the A1 and it was fine. The company is just garbage.
- 21 hours
I reaalllly want to upgrade my MK4s but the prices are still fucked by tariffs. That INDX system looks amazing.
- 4 hours
Can’t say I agree. Prices are higher from them for a reason. My experience with multiple brands of printers, while anecdotal, has shown Prusa to be a better product than the other printers I’ve purchased.
- bus_factor@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
No, for practical reasons. I wasn’t able to secure the preorder for Founder’s Edition, and the current delivery estimates would have it arrive when I’m traveling. I’d rather not have a $1000 investment sitting on my porch while I’m not home.
- Gaja0@lemmy.zipEnglish17 hours
Printed a fidget gun for a guest’s kid with the heating block replacement a just bought. It feels great to print again 😎
As much as I’m distressed to see the current situation with Bambu Lab I wouldn’t consider it “falling for relentless marketing”. They are/were genuinely ahead of the curve.
I’ve owned 3 different 3D printers before my P1S in the nearly decade I’ve been 3D printing (I got my first in 2017) and Bambu was the first to actually deliver on being “plug and play” when compared to the competition.
I’m hopeful the situation when my P1S kicks the bucket has changed (it may already have but I’m not in the market so I haven’t checked). But for now I’m just not updating the firmware.
- 21 hours
Both of my Qidi machines have been plug in, load filament, and print. My current X-Max 3 also provided a rather polished out of the box experience with an on-screen guide and everything. I would much rather have a Qidi than any Bambu machine at this point.
I’m a little disappointed that they’ve apparently recently abandoned their homegrown fork of Prusa Slicer in favor of a home grown fork of Bambu’s slicer, but here’s hoping Bambu’s current litigious fuckery will cause them to rethink that strategy. Still, their stuff is open source enough that there’s nothing stopping me from using any other slicer with it if I felt like it. Or, indeed, any other firmware.
- ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish14 hours
Unfortunately they’ve discontinued the xmax 3, and the newer ones are slightly less open. I would have liked to get a second xmax 3, i got mine for €500 on sale it’s been an amazing deal, absolutely insane value for money.
That’s a little hopeful to hear. When I was researching my purchase I had considered a Qidi machine but the reviews were inconsistent at the time. This was back early '24 though. I think my Microcenter warranty on the P1S is running out soon.
- HelloRoot@lemy.lolEnglish22 hours
https://consumerrights.wiki/w/Bambu_Lab_A1_NTC_thermistor_fire_and_meltdown_hazard
both I think?
But it seems to only affect low voltage grid countries if I understand it correctly
- TheTetrapod@lemmy.worldEnglish20 hours
I read high voltage has it worse, because the ac adapter circuit has a lot more work to do, so it runs hotter.
- HelloRoot@lemy.lolEnglish20 hours
V * A = W
The device operates at a certain wattage. If the voltage is lower, you need more amps to reach the same watt. Amps is what makes conductors hot.
Example:
200V * 1A = 200W
100V * 2A = 200W
To quote the link above that you didn’t read so I had to re-read to make sure I’m right:
The issue stems from the difference in standardized voltages between regions, with the US running on 120 volts, compared to China’s 220 volts (where bambu is based). This requires almost twice the current for the same total power draw in the US compared to most other regions, contributing to higher temperatures being reached due to Ohm’s law.
And about the ac adapter - it’s not the cause of the burning issues. And if they specc it for china’s 220V, it should work fine in most of europe.
So it’s bambu fault for not thinking about those countries that want to do things differently from the rest of the world
(Most of the world operate between 220-240v, the most notable exceptions are north america, the most north part of south america, Japan and i think israel)
I just received the A1 for a birthday gift. I’m hoping it was manufactured after Q3 2025:
Bambu Lab stated: After reviewing field data, we determined the benefits of NTC-based inrush protection were outweighed by potential downsides under rare surge conditions. As a result, we implemented a design change in Q3 2025 to remove the PTC from the circuit.
Fuck, I have one from 2024 that’s been sitting in a box until I had the time to get into 3d printing (like yours, it was a gift). Guess I need to buy a fire fighting ball thing for it when I finally get it set up.
Don’t set it up, not worth your house, your life or the life of your love ones. Fire is no joke.
- 16 hours
Doesn’t this only happen if there’s a power surge? I feel like I heard that somewhere but have nothing to back up my claim. In that case just put it on a surge protector and it shouldn’t be bad?
Man, with this news you may wanna sell it and buy another model/brand before getting into it.
If Bambu just removed the part someone with a soldering iron should be able to do so as well. Although selling a printer as “broken” means getting 50€ at most…
Sorry, I think that’s my bad. Made this meme between stuff and added the “mini” out of habit. Can’t find any proof for it being affected as well.
