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Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

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Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#141

I am angry at the bait-and-switch Bambu is pulling. I bought one of their printers in the Black Friday sale on the understanding it was reasonably hackable and open. Now they're trying to lock it down so I can't print on my own printer without using their approved software and DRM chain. It's outrageous. More info on the hacking (the first in what may be a long stupid fight): https://hackaday.com/2025/01/19/bambu-con…

> on the understanding it was reasonably hackable and open

I, honestly, have no idea why you thought that. Bambulab has been under fire from the very beginning about not being open at all and not contributing back to the open source community they're build on.

I bought one of their printers during black friday too, it took me a long time to get over the fact that it isn't an open printer, and I never want to go back to tinkering for hours to get meh quality prints.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#142

I am angry at the bait-and-switch Bambu is pulling. I bought one of their printers in the Black Friday sale on the understanding it was reasonably hackable and open. Now they're trying to lock it down so I can't print on my own printer without using their approved software and DRM chain. It's outrageous. More info on the hacking (the first in what may be a long stupid fight): https://hackaday.com/2025/01/19/bambu-con…

> on the understanding it was reasonably hackable and open I, honestly, have no idea why you thought that. Bambulab has been under fire from the very beginning about not being open at all and not contributing back to the open source community they're build on. I bought one of their printers during black friday too, it took me a long time to get over the fact that it isn't an open printer, and I never want to go back…

And let them be closed-source as long as they give you ability to print without calling home or even without internet connection.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is not that. i mostly mean that for anything functional that needs to take a load you need at least petg or asa (abs is a bit old now), which require proper storage. also there are so much stuff that are in open prs and issues for years that are not implemented for slicers.

I think the AMS unit for the Bambu is somewhat sealed and has desiccant in it. "take a load" - I don't know what kind of load, do you mean the fact that PLA is creeping under sustained load? If that is YOUR usecase that is fine, but that does not mean that set and forget works just fine for others. Btw gun people use PLA plus just fine.

that is just one example of issues with thermoplastics. the AMS is great though.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#144

I was very against Bambu in the beginning for their lack of proper network (not cloud!) support. Then they added LAN mode and I actually considered getting one. Luckily I was lazy and never got around to it. What the fuck Bambu?? Security, really? Not even HP dares to make that excuse...

HP just straight locks you out of your printer unless you pay ransom every month..

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#145
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just some of them: - Battery Management (iPhone 6, 6s, and SE): In 2017, Apple introduced a battery management feature in iOS 10.2.1 to prevent unexpected shutdowns by throttling the performance of iPhones with degraded batteries. This led to slower device performance without informing users, which is a removal of expected performance functionality. - 32-bit App Support: With the release of iOS 11 in 2017, Apple drop…

> This led to slower device performance without informing users, which is a removal of expected performance functionality. As opposed to the device unexpectedly shutting down due to a degraded battery not being able to push enough energy to support the CPU? They didn't remove expected performance, they prevented crashes which are by definition 0 performance. All Li-ion batteries degrade over time. That's not removing…

> All Li-ion batteries degrade over time

So they know this yet they refuse to let users swap the battery?

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#146

I'm not surprised that 3D printers are turning out to be as hostile as 2D ones. As usual these days, "security" is the excuse.

With 3D printing out for a while now, there's zero good reason IMHO that there isn't a 2D-plotter retrofit which allows someone to attach one or more [colored] pencils or pens. I'm really shocked the overpriced ink monopolies weren't attacked in this manner, as a young child I distinctly remember a kiosk in a grocery store which 'printed' messages and images on blank cards using colored pencils, for customer order. N…

> there's zero good reason IMHO that there isn't a 2D-plotter retrofit which allows someone to attach one or more [colored] pencils or pens

This is a thing. Obviously.

https://urish.medium.com/how-to-turn-your-3d-printer-into-a-...

Only a randomly selected tutorial.

> I'm really shocked the overpriced ink monopolies weren't attacked in this manner,

Inkjet and laser printers easily print whole page 300 DPI raster images in seconds. Plotters need vectorial data and their printing speed depends on how complicated what you are printing. These things simply don’t serve the same use case. You can do nice art and heart warming cards with a plotter, but you can’t hit print on your boarding card / dhl label / word document and expect your plotter to give you what you see on your screen.

> None of this is remotely new.

I agree that none of this is remotely new. Plenty of people tinker with plotters for fun and profit. There are even pre-packaged consumer centric solutions where you pay the price of convenience with lack of freedoms. (See the similar debacle around the Cricut plotters.)

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it is not that. i mostly mean that for anything functional that needs to take a load you need at least petg or asa (abs is a bit old now), which require proper storage. also there are so much stuff that are in open prs and issues for years that are not implemented for slicers.

I think the AMS unit for the Bambu is somewhat sealed and has desiccant in it. "take a load" - I don't know what kind of load, do you mean the fact that PLA is creeping under sustained load? If that is YOUR usecase that is fine, but that does not mean that set and forget works just fine for others. Btw gun people use PLA plus just fine.

"Take a load" = perform mechanically and or structurally at levels of force, temperatures, etc. at levels higher than the properties of PLA allow for.

Don't get me wrong here. PLA is a great polymer, However you can't really expect parts made with it to hold up when compared to other "engineering grade" polymers.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I _think_ that's browsing the SD card from Bambu Studio when the printer's set to LAN Mode, not printing from SD on the printer itself.

Yeah this looks to be the case. All of this change was prompted by the fact that malicious software was triggering prints over the network. So now they have locked it down so the printer can verify prints came from the actual account owner. Printing directly from SD cards via the little touch screen is unchanged since networked computers can’t do that.

> So now they have locked it down so the printer can verify prints came from the actual account owner.

This is inaccurate, the printer already required authentication using an 8 digit code. What they're trying to do now is verify that the print has been started using official Bambu software, i.e. software-only DRM.

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#149

I think people are making a big nothing burger out of this. Bambu is patching a security issue. Personally I don't want any device or application to send any old G-code to my printer. Like say command the printer to basically destroy itself. Could this lead to completely locking it down in the future? Yes. But they could do that anyways. I think this is a way to stop getting their pants sued off. If they really wante…

> Bambu is patching a security issue. This isn't a security fix. As a security protocol, it wouldn't pass any kind of security audit. A security fix would be something based on a per user credential, not on obscurity. > Personally I don't want any device or application to send any old G-code to my printer. Username/password over TLS would do that better than what Bambu Lab is proposing, as an extremely simplistic exa…

And LAN-only mode should work without any external connections yet it looks like it'll require it for authentication. That defeats the whole idea of LAN-only!

Re: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect

#150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yep -- I read that, but that doesn't spell out auth back to BBL's servers, just auth. And keep in mind that OrcaSlicer already used Bambu Network Plugin to communicate with their printers. (It prompted you to download this on install of OrcaSlicer if you picked one of their printers.) The move to Connect means that OrcaSlicer needs to send the print data to Connect via a protocol handler instead of to the plugin. Con…

"Operation Guide for Bambu Connect Start by logging in to the Bambu Lab account or click Discover to find LAN mode printers." https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/software/bambu-connect At the very least - it looks like you'd need to log-in to the cloud account to print on the LAN, which really begs the question.... why?

> it looks like you'd need to log-in to the cloud account to print on the LAN

The text you quoted directly contradicts what you are saying. It says login OR discover to find LAN mode printers.

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