alt Hacker NewsHere is my perspective as someone who has not started 3d-printing yet, but is interested to give it a try:
I'm a confused about the whole "3D printer sends prints to its manufacturer's server" issue. Because I wouldn't want to connect hardware device like a 3D-printer to a network in the first place.
Can I buy a Bambu Lab printer and just never hook it up to any network?
Will I be able to print from sd-card just fine?
Can I update the firmware from an sd-card?
If these two are possible, I would not have any problems with such a device. If they are not, I would not even think about getting such a device.
And when it comes to slicing software: Can I use any slicing software and all I have to do is load the hardware info of the Bambu Lab printer I want to use? Or do I have to use Bambu Lab Studio or a fork like Orca Slicer for some reason?
And while we are at it: Does command line slicing software exist? I wouldn't want to dabble with a GUI. I would want to define the parameters of a print job in a yaml or json file and then slice it like "./slice.sh config.yaml myobject.stl"
You hook it up to the network to use monitoring features like a remote camera view to make sure your print is going smoothly.
SD cards work but it's extremely less convenient than just printing straight from the slicer.
You can use any slicer you want but Bambu wants only their slicer to directly connect.
CLI slicing is not something you want in general. Visual confirmation of the toolpaths is very important to making prints as successful as possible.