Psst. I’ve got a secret. I’ve been doing cool shit off line. Crazy eh?
In our overly-connected world it’s inconceivable that a blogger would do his own thing and give (almost) no on-line mention. Right? Wrong! I wanted to enjoy the time to myself as I started a new “thing”. I have.
My little adventure was to “explore” 3d printing. I bought one about a month before Christmas. I did mention it, only once, as “My Outlandish Christmas Toy“.
I can’t overstate how much fun I’ve had. I was expecting a lot and got more than I expected. It was an extra-special fun Christmas. Sometimes one has earned a treat.
I dithered a bit because I’m a cheapskate to the molecular level. I worked myself up to it. I’m an adult and I’ve been sufficiently fiscally responsible that I’d literally earned it.
I just can’t overstate the fun involved. I remember as a kid thinking “someday I’ll be a grown-ass man with a checkbook and won’t that be awesome?”
It is!
I went apeshit with the thing. For 3 months straight I was printing this and that like it was my life’s goal to wear the poor thing out. (Which ain’t gonna’ happen, they’re more reliable than in the old days.)
My idea was that I’d wade through all the N00b bullshit and only write something up when I’d ironed out the details. It was a good plan. Then again plans have a way of not happening. I got sick. I’m still sick. I’m probably going to be sick for a little longer. Shit happens.
All that not-healthy time took away some inertia. I stopped experimenting and settled into a routine of sleeping much and grumbling a lot. It blew a month off my calendar and it ain’t over yet! (Don’t panic. I’m sick but not desperately so. If and when I’m “pining for the fjords” I’ll shoot ya’ a note.)
Then, to further change my plans, there’s been some changes with the technology. I feel an urge to address it. So here I am. Instead of the well reasoned, carefully considered, multi-part exploration of an interesting (to me) topic, which I’ve been planning since early December, you’re getting this. Life happens.
Technology grows in fits and starts. For many technologies there’s a “golden age” where it’s the most fun. I think with 3d printers that time is (roughly) now.
With all neato keen new things, it starts in the domain of the nerds, geniuses, crackpots, and early adopters. These are a special breed; hard core people who understand calculus, can properly define “anode”, speak Latin, and so forth. We owe these folks a debt of gratitude for making trails that’ll be roads for tamer/lamer users.
The early phases are a hassle. I remember 9,600 baud modems making local calls to bulletin boards. I did it a little bit myself. It was neat. But it was also a pain in the ass.
Then, times shift and the technology gains wider appeal as it “matures”. I can almost pinpoint the moment when “cyberspace” (as it was called then) went from “fringe nerditry” to “normal people stuff”. It happened gradually over many years but also all in one summer. I dropped off the bulletin board world and literally off grid (in a time before cell phones) and returned to a world that had popularized a thing called “browser” over the summer.
Nobody was paying attention. Because people are herd beings, 99% of America was wasting time all summer reading newspapers (remember them?) about OJ Simpson. Meanwhile a dedicated tiny sliver of humanity nudged unwieldy bulletin boards into “user friendly” browsers. It all happened while I was rambling about the forest completely disconnected from society. What were you doing in the summer of ’95?
The ensuing “golden age” is a time of peak amazement. Shit happens fast and it’s awesome. I can’t be certain, but I think right now is the moment for 3D printing.
After the golden age, the dipshits show up; normies break chairs, Karens pee in the corners, and people who were formerly too dumb to access the technology lower it to their level. Early adopters and nerds can do naught but slink away to better pastures. Right around ’95, slow crappy bulletin boards gave way to neat forums like Usenet, but it wasn’t long before everything turned to shit. It seems like only a few hours of “golden age” passed before Grandma was spamming you on Facebook and things were never quite as cool again.
Every technology has it’s own Facebook. You can’t stop it. You can only adapt. Bulletin boards blossomed into something awesome but now your TV is spying on you and a scorched earth landscape of lies smolders where reasonable political discourse once actually existed. By now smart phones have fuckwits cutting off their dick off and imbeciles attack Teslas because X in the last few years has less censorship than Twitter’s excellent mimicry of Soviet intellectual theory. And all I wanted was networked dissemination of knowledge.
Yeah… that sums up technology. Did I mention I’m taking a dozen random meds?
Where was I? Something something golden age? Right! 3D printing isn’t for everyone. Most people would prefer to buy cheap plastic shit from Wal-Mart than master the universe but that’s a them problem. I don’t have to live in life’s short bus. You don’t either. I’m slowly learning to make plastic anything. There’s a big difference between “you’ll eat what we shove in your face” and “I shall make my imagination a reality”.
At some level, a 3d printer is damn near magic.
Only recently they emerged from the world of tinkery complex frustrating g-code. Bask in the now of having fun without needing to know all the details. Be aware it’ll sooner or later fade. I can’t buy a car with a stick shift because monkeys in my society can’t use clutches. I’m sure this will happen with filament and deposition. Don’t fret that it’s not forever. Just have fun when it’s a good time to have fun.
Some jackass with an MBA is right now trying to ruin it. They’ll load a perfectly good 3D printer with Siri, AI, spybots, social media, and monthly payments. They’ll limit filament choices to vegan… for reasons. They’ll scan everything you make in case it’s a copyright infringement. Some virus will make dildos explode out of the model jeep your making. It’ll suck, but not yet.
Which brings me to the thing that happened. I purchased a I purchased a Bambu Lab A1 Combo. (The link goes to Amazon, if you buy anything from the link I get a few bucks and it costs you nothing.)
The A1 is out of stock… probably pending a new 2025 printer release.
I got in at the right time. There was a pretty good sale. I was happy with the price. I like the device.
The A1 Combo is the right balance between “can do lots of shit” and “it’s a bitch to make it go”. So of course Bambu Lab is going to improve it. Will it be better? Who knows. It might suck. I wanted “sweet spot” not “finalized mature technology”. Ford’s Model T wasn’t perfect… but it was a sweet spot.
By the way the only difference between A1 and A1 Mini is you save couple hundred bucks and get a smaller “build envelope”. I thought that would be important but I almost never push the 10″ cube of the larger A1. I’d have been just as happy with the Mini. The A1 Mini Combo (with AMS Lite) is still available and I wouldn’t kick it to the curb.
With a smaller “build envelope” the A1 Mini is pretty cute. In retrospect, I haven’t needed the larger build envelope of the full sized A1.
But wait! There’s corporate douchebaggery afoot!
In December I wrote:
Bambulabs feels a lot like Apple. The machine is easy to use but absolutely bad in terms of privacy, just like that infernal cell phone in your pocket. Other printers may be more private. Just like Apple, Babmulabs wants to merge everything and you gain all sorts of convenience that way. I can monitor my printer from my cell phone! I can even launch prints from cell phone. I can pick from a bazillion free and (so far) reliable prints on the “makerworld.com” site. I see a cool thing, click on it, and boom it’s printing. The “nerd index” is greatly reduced. On the other hand, I can also see what’s in the background of the printer’s camera. I also assume the People’s Republic of China and the FBI know what I’m printing. There are things you can do about privacy but it’s not the default. For the Bambulabs “environment” just assume James Comey and Xi Jinping are watching the printer like creepy privacy violating perverts.
If a corporation can be an evil, rotten, spying, douchebag…. it will do so.
Such is the sudden yet inevitable betrayal of Bambu Lab. A couple months after I got it, they announced a new “software upgrade”. It might interfere with privacy between you and your property.
Because of course they did.
Everyone went apeshit. Because of course they did.
There are people in 2025 who do expect corporate fucknuts to behave with decorum. Why? How can they possibly think that way?
Anyway, the “upgrade” might, possibly, under certain circumstances fuck with you. It could interrupt sending files to your printer from your computer during that period of time when it is in the taint of the internet… the cloud.
Should I run around in circles screaming and shouting? Should I take a shit on a Tesla? Maybe cry? Of course not! Smart monkeys see these things coming and adapt.
Put on your big boy pants and disable the cloud portion of the Bambu Studio software. It’s not hard. Get over yourself. The cloud approach worked great but I knew it wouldn’t last. Some golden ages are shorter than others.
It took 20 minutes of dicking around to kill cloud access and switch to LAN Only. Now it works exactly the same as before (except the cell phone parts, which had already lost their novelty).
Then I started thinking. What shall I do when they do the next insufferable thing?
So I swapped entirely out of the Bambu Lab Studio. I just made a print with Orca Slicer. Orca Slicer is totally open source. It too is running on my LAN. So I’ve got two methods proven to work without reporting to spybot central.
Nice.
Finally, it can run off an SD card. It wouldn’t kill me to walk across my shop and stuff the card in… manually… like a caveman.
The point is, the slow gradual progression from “golden age” to “shitshow” is incremental and certainly no big deal… yet. I still recommend the Bambu Lab A1 with AMS lite (if you can find it). Or the A1 mini with AMS Lite (which would take up less space).
The fat lady hasn’t sung. Bambu Lab has not shit the bed yet. They’ll come out with something more awesome than my A1 and they’ll probably do so in 2025. Or not. If whatever they release includes the mandatory proctology examination add-on with AI driven supports, SIRI audio suggestions, and glowing pinstripes I’ll be even more happy with my LAN-locked A1.
For a basic, uninformed n00b, who wants to get in on the fun without joining a technological cult there may never be a better time. Betamax has passed. VHS isn’t perfect but it’s good enough. Only a tool would wait for Blue Ray. And some asshole already put a Pepsi in on the VHS of Top Gun.
Act (or not) as you wish.
