I use a Bambu Lab printer at home and work, I would recommend running Orca Slicer and keeping the printer from connecting directly to the internet. You lose the app and some other connectivity stuff but I wasn’t really using that anyway. You can still connect over LAN so it’s pretty much fully functional and you don’t have to worry about your files going who knows where. This was more a concern for my work setup as we didn’t want to deal with export control issues with every print. I just carried over my cynicism to my home setup.
Edit: Just looking through the guide more closely I don’t do all of these steps, but just operating in LAN only with Orca Slicer will get you most the way to not needing to deal with any changes that Bambu might try to rug pull.
After an expensive experiment with Creality, I bought a P2S and love it. There are some well needed and well designed upgrades from my X1C. I’m not thrilled with their philosophy, but as stated above, there are ways around it.
Thanks for all the advice here. I’ve been putting off purchasing a printer for home, however some family members are thinking it would fun to have one. After some more internet searching and visiting with coworkers who are very much into the science I’m leaning strongly towards the QIDI Q2 combo (QIDI Box spool holder). I have not seen much here about QIDI printers, does anyone have experience with them? Coworker has a Plus 4 and likes it.
Whatever brand you are looking at, if money is tight, skip the filament box.
It is necessary for multi color / filament printing, and nice to be able to run spools completely out. Otherwise, a single spool on the side of the machine works just fine. You can always add the AMS / CFS at a later date, if you decide you need it.
If you want to make parts, buy a Bambu. If you want to learn about 3d printers, the others will do a good job of educating you, while you try and make parts.
As for the initial setup, it was very good, almost plug and play. The unpacking was a little out of date in the manual so I missed some foam pieces, luckily the calibration caught it. But all else the experience has been excellent.
Second print test is a 3 color print, main color on the left nozzle and two colors on the right induction hot end that swaps with the hot end changer. I want to get up to 7 colors prints so I need to get another AMS unit.
10 years into my 3d printing journey and bed adhesion is still the biggest challenge.
Bed leveling plays a part in this, but Bambu has made that almost fool proof.
PEI flexible build plates have also helped in this area. The problem with flexible build plates is they flex. If you want to print large flat objects, there is no substitute for a glass bed with the proper adhesive applied. (The stresses in the plastic will also cause the glass bed to bend, but much less than the flexible build plate.)
