Yes, but you said it yourself - you had to replace the firmware with one that lets you run faster than the original, and you're using a different slicer.
With Bambu Labs printers, you just plug them in, turn them on, and feed them filament and your files. They work so well that you don't have to think about firmware or anything else.
I got my first 3D printer around a dozen years ago as well, and the comparison to the experience you get with a Bambu Labs X1C or H2D is absolutely night and day. It feels like with the previous generations of 3D printers, that operating and maintaining and tuning the machine itself was the "hobby". With Bambu Labs (and I'm sure some of the other competing printers that have come out since the X1C was released), the "hobby" is what you actually make.
It just works, requires no tweaking, no fiddling, no flashing firmware or bed leveling or hairspray, and it has totally changed 3D printing from a nerd hobby to something anyone can do (IMHO).
Sure but the last tweaking I did on this printer was years and years ago, and it's been "just working" ever since. I haven't fiddled with anything, I haven't even leveled the bed, I don't use hairspray. I don't think you can even find the firmware I flashed onto it in 2014 anymore because of link rot. It's just a solid printer that makes the part I want every time I hit print. I use it all the time for mechanical parts. I do prints that pause to embed hardware. Heck I even have it clear the bed by hitting parts with the print head so I can make multiple copies of things unattended. (only works on parts with low bed adhesion)
It's not a brittle system. I don't deny that Bambu makes a good product, an excellent product even. If you can't afford to support the general ecosystem get one and do your thing.
I just think the reason Bambu is where it is right now is because they are VC funded vampires on the ecosystem and supporting them will make things worse in the long run. If you can afford to support someone else you should because it helps make things better for everyone.
FWIW until recently I championed Bambu as just the default easy solution, recommending it to my friends every time, but I had a long conversation with Josef about the future of 3D printing and it really changed my mind.
> I don't think you can even find the firmware I flashed onto it in 2014 anymore because of link rot
This is exactly what I am talking about - you claim to have a reliable and easy to use solution, but it's not a solution that someone who wanted to print dragons for their grandkids could use. Bambu Labs is (and Prusa's current offerings, to some extent, are as well, although that is up for debate as you can imagine).
It sounds like your issue is not with Bambu Lab's products, but with their business practices, and I share your concerns there - but it still doesn't mean that "my old printer I've spent a lot of time getting to work the way I want it do" is a viable alternative to "I can buy it at BestBuy, plug it in, and hit print"
I think the point I'm trying to make here is that my printer is bad and old and it works every time, and I attribute that to Prusa Slicer, a free open source piece of software. The Makerbot was a finnicky piece of shit before Prusa Slicer, and now it's excellent and makes dimensionally accurate parts every time, I don't even remember the last time I've had a print fail and I use it all the time, tens of hours of printing per week recently.
The upfront ont-time cost to get to something that works reliably with a non-Bambu printer is real, but I am perhaps naively assuming that if my ancient makerbot has been working reliably for years now the same one time cost can be paid with any modern printer and amortized over hundreds of hours of printing to be nearly negligible, and you still have a reliable printer AND you're voting with your wallet for a better future.
I am not claiming that what I've done is the same as "go to best buy, plug it in and hit print" but I do think the alternative is really really not bad at all.
This isn't "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially...". I'm saying "surely if my ancient makerbot is like this with really minimal tuning, a modern non-bambu printer is worth the cost of a bit of extra setup in order to fund people who are improving the space".
But he's also using a 12 year old maker bot. They're not really even in business anymore. Why are you pushing so hard that GP needs to provide a completely turnkey solution for their long out of production printer? All of your comments are attempting to make it sound like bambu is the only turnkey solution, and you aren't doing a terribly effective job refuting GP's point that there are and have been other printers that just work as well. For another comparison point, my prusa MK3s (also now out of production I believe) has been absolutely turnkey and has required literally zero fiddling. The only print failures I've had have been due to part design, which would also apply to a bambu. I bought mine as a kit, it was a fun few hours to build but you can buy them fully built and assembled. Literally plug into an outlet, load filament, and hit print. Bambu isn't the only option for printers that work reliably and aren't a separate hobby, I don't know why this narrative gets pushed so hard.
> and you're using a different slicer.
yeah, Prusa Slicer....who do you think Bambu labs got theirs from? All of the major slicers are forks of Slic3r. Hardly a "oh wow this is such a pain in the butt" change.
> no flashing firmware
BambuLabs have firmware, and they have updates too. Or are you complaining about, what, having to take an SD card out and drop a file on it?
I wasn't complaining, I was noting that the commenter was not comparing apples to oranges. They are using a 3rd party slicer (not the one that came with their printer, which is the old Makerbot Desktop) and an alternative firmware, but claiming that their printer was just as easy to use as a Bambu Labs product.
It's like trying to compare installing Gentoo on an old Lenovo and a Macbook Pro - yes, they both work fine, but the amount of work that one might have to do to get one of them to work reliably is much different than the other. Once you get them working, sure, they are reliable, but obviously most people would rather not have to flash an alternative firmware, etc.