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Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

drewdevault.com

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Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#121

Post by lawn »

swells34 wrote: post #97
lawn wrote: post #25

> They have been struggling as of late, and came under criticism for making the firmware of their Mk4 printer non-free. One of the biggest reasons I didn't choose a Mk4 was precisely because they moved away from open source. If you're like me an values open source highly and is looking for a printer, the VORON printers are the way to go. They're DIY printers where you assemble them yourself, so they're not for you if…

https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware-Buddy Not open source? Odd, as I just read it's source code. Are you referring to licensing, ability to modify and compile yourself, or some else?

I'm referring to the hardware, a blog post has been shared several times in this thread.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#122

Post by SignalM »

Sorry this article is incorrect as it gets. Bambu could have done the same thing with Cura or any other slicer program and Cura and Prusa are built on other open source projects so to say if they kept the doors closed it would have helped is not honoring all of the engineering efforts that came before the big names capitalized on it. What has actually happened is that Bambu figured out the market isn’t people that like to tinker with their 3d printer - the market is people want to print things to tinker with. They focused on their market and made a ton of small features that add up to a user experience that is nearly as simple as it can be allowing you to do something as easy as print from your phone. While Prusa finds more places to put PRUSA BY PRUSA ORIGINAL PRUSA on their machines that look like 3d printed hacker machines Bambu made their machines simple with a minimalist design that actually looks good enough to show your friends without them wondering how long you looked at the matrix to get it running.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#123

Post by lawn »

ralusek wrote: post #20

Watch Naomi Wu on YouTube. Look beyond her jarring aesthetic, and you’ll get to see the process of building something from idea to prototype and even production in China, specifically Shenzhen. It genuinely makes me happy that a place like that exists, but sad that there doesn’t seem to be any place like it anywhere else; certainly not in the west. If you wanted to build a 3D printer from scratch, they have what are…

I checked out her channel but it seems she's been "vanished" by the government since more than half a year ago?

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#124

Post by the_mitsuhiko »

commandar wrote: post #91
kiba wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you talking about the xBuddy board? I haven't been able to find the repository on their github page. I took a look and found Adafruit reporting on it. If they're worried about cloning, I don't see how making it proprietary will prevent Prusa from being cloned.

Jo wrote an entire blogpost about it: https://blog.prusa3d.com/the-state-of-open-source-in-3d-prin... One of the big takeaways from this for me is that Jo doesn't really understand IP law. He talks about wanting a new license for open source hardware; the trouble with that is that a copyright license does not and cannot protect a hardware design. That's what patents do. That's not a defense of current IP law, just a…

The stated goals for that license also would not be open source any more.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#125

Post by swells34 »

lawn wrote: post #121
swells34 wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware-Buddy Not open source? Odd, as I just read it's source code. Are you referring to licensing, ability to modify and compile yourself, or some else?

I'm referring to the hardware, a blog post has been shared several times in this thread.

Ah, you have a quote right above that line stating it is the firmware that is non-free; hardware isn't mentioned. You might want to edit your original post so it is consistent with what you are trying to communicate.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#126

Post by mulmen »

Palomides wrote: post #80
mulmen wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but certainly the hardware is useless without ongoing software development, and we're back to the original issue Why is this true though? Are 3D printers still evolving so quickly?

All software requires maintenance, and there are continually ongoing software-driven print speed and quality improvements. That said, I could keep using the firmware and slicer software I have now until the hardware becomes unmaintainable (probably have to run it in a VM at some point), assuming no critical safety bugs.

The desktop software has to keep up with the shifting sands of modern operating systems. But I don’t understand why the 3D printer itself needs software maintenance. It is just executing something like GCode right? How much does that really change?

> All software requires maintenance

Is this a law of nature or our youthful incompetence?

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#127

Post by lawn »

swells34 wrote: post #125
lawn wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm referring to the hardware, a blog post has been shared several times in this thread.

Ah, you have a quote right above that line stating it is the firmware that is non-free; hardware isn't mentioned. You might want to edit your original post so it is consistent with what you are trying to communicate.

Ah, my bad. Unfortunately I can no longer edit the comment...

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#128

Post by swells34 »

kiba wrote: post #110
swells34 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honestly, as someone who's been in the 3d printing space for over a decade... Bambu Labs isn't a competitor to Prusa. There is no Prusa printer that is as fast, as reliable, produces the quality prints, as any printer from Bambu. I've used both extensively, the X1C since Kickstarter days, the Prusas for... just about ever. The only edge, the only objective property that Prusa holds over Bambu Labs is customization; P…

My experience did not match your. My X1C combo hadn't really work out of the box. I was able to get maybe 2 prints so far. That said, I am just an sample of one and the only reason why I bought it because my business need seems more pressing than waiting for Prusa to deliver the MMU3 kits.

I have maybe a few hundred prints on Bambu Labs printers, and I've had fewer than 20 failures, pretty much all from bad design choices on my part. They have been quick, reliable workhorses that just spit out the parts I need.

I did have an issue with one of them having a warped bed, which caused bad adhesion on several prints, but I contacted support, they walked me through some debugging, then just sent me a new one. It seems that early on they had a manufacturer that was putting out warped beds that weren't caught in QC, but they've dropped the manufacturer. Maybe you got one of these warped beds as well? You can diagnose that with a straightedge, a ruler, and a flashlight.

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#129

Post by sottol »

One problem is the inherent assymmetry. Bambu gets to trivially copy open-source innovations like automatic bed-leveling or the corexy motion system without man-years of research. Then they get to use the saved time to improve upon those designs or the user experience but don't return anything back in return (for the most part, their slicer spawned Orca due to the software OS license). But now the OS community is at a disadvantage if they introduce something novel and keep it secret as they have to spend countless hours catching up, whereas the commercial entity can in turn just easily copy the community's new innovations and is free to spend the saved time to innovate in other areas again.

It would be nice if there was something like the GPL for "designs" or mechanical systems like automatic bed leveling where companies would have to open source their hardware and software implementation details in turn for using the "idea".

Re: Why Prusa is floundering, and how you can avoid their fate

#130

Post by kiba »

swells34 wrote: post #128
kiba wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My experience did not match your. My X1C combo hadn't really work out of the box. I was able to get maybe 2 prints so far. That said, I am just an sample of one and the only reason why I bought it because my business need seems more pressing than waiting for Prusa to deliver the MMU3 kits.

I have maybe a few hundred prints on Bambu Labs printers, and I've had fewer than 20 failures, pretty much all from bad design choices on my part. They have been quick, reliable workhorses that just spit out the parts I need. I did have an issue with one of them having a warped bed, which caused bad adhesion on several prints, but I contacted support, they walked me through some debugging, then just sent me a new one…

Nope. All my issue with X1C is the AMS stuff.

I will be replacing it eventually once there's a viable open source product or make enough money to fund open hardware projects.

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