Bit of a rant, but the more I think about this, the more I don’t like it, and this is probably the thing that annoys me the most about Bambu Lab printers. The cloud outage the other day made this issue worse, in my opinion.
I want to be able to send directly to my printer without sending my files through a 3rd party. As a software engineer, I really don’t see why that’s not possible. I’ve got other printers and that’s how they work - OrcaSlicer sends directly to the printer. I could be wrong here, but to me it feels like Bambu wants full control over what gets printed. i.e - they store all data that users send to their printers, and probably could - if they wanted to, decide to enforce restrictions on what could be printed, or if someone wanted to - they could just take our hard work and do something else with it. I know I could just put my prints on the SD card, but printer is in another part of the house, and part of the reason I got a Bambu Lab printer was for the printing convenience.
Anyway - if you feel the same way, chime in, maybe Bambu Lab will stop playing “big brother” and allow us to send directly to the printers that we own.
I fully agree with your views, but given what has already transpired from BL’s CEO (either through BL blog, various social media and through some YouTubers interviews), I very much doubt BL is even remotely considering to reduce or relinquish, in any shape or form, their total control over its printers.
However, there might be a way around that (sort of). The most likely for this to happen will be when BL stops providing firmware updates and support, which, according to the info on their own website will most likely occur sometime between 2,5 and 3 years from now.
Until then I keep building up, little by little, my spare parts stock, waiting for several months for users feedback before upgrading my firmware to a newer version, and keeping a close watch on how the third-party X1Plus firmware evolves over time, as as soon as BL begins dropping firmware support, I’ll be switching to X1Plus, as my printer warranty will have expired by then, so there will be nothing to hold back anymore.
You already can? LAN mode has been available for over a year. This topic has been discussed at length in MANY other threads.
correct me if i’m wrong, but LAN mode means no cloud at all - like no notifications or control if you’re away from home, etc. right?
that’s not the same thing. how do you get it there in the first place? either put it on the sd card directly or send via slicer.
I found out during the outage that you can use the “Send” function instead of Print, to send it to the printer’s SD card. I guess that may not be as convenient as sending and starting all from one button press in the slicer, but I didn’t mind. With the cloud down, I could still go start my jobs, and not have to foot it back and forth with SD card in hand, which to me is the annoying part of that process.
I’ll keep that thought in mind for the next cloud outage!
Didnt even think to try this, I was “sending” from the slicer, but manually releasing the print from the X1C LCD, cheers!
You can already do it, just use the LAN mode. The only functionality you lose is to be able to monitor your print from the phone app, but the rest is totally functional and already available. The only requirement is to have a microSD card inside the printer to store the sent prints there but nothing else.
You can FTP to the SD card FWIW.
They simply deleted my account and all my posts.
I could even use the same username again. Only my email address was blocked, so I had to use a different one. What did I do?
Not really, LAN Mode means that the slicer will connect to the local ip address instead of a forwarded port using internet.
ask BL… Obviously nobody here knows why
While I agree with the “for” case and enjoy the direct route through my own network, I would envision an avalanche of “can’t connect” posts from your average consumer.
Too many variables in the wild to make this option available freely on a printer thats essentially designed for the wider population.
I have the same problem - I go to that other part of the house to switch the printer ON anyway, so it is no big issue to carry an SD card there. I go there again to retrieve the print.
You could easily store gcode file on a micros SD card and then print from SD card. While the cloud is a nice convenience, some that can be a slow process is you have a slow upload speed from your provider.
There is too much “cloud” everything. Large corporations can’t even keep your personal information safe.
All my other printers can operate with only sending gcode from all the slicers, Orca, PrusaSlicer, and even Cura. It’s all about freedom of choice. Tying basic functions to cloud services is not good.
Do the MQTT messages come from the cloud I assume?
How does it work the lan only connections to the X1E?
The “E” a step in the right direction but not the added cost.
LAN mode is available on the X1C as well (maybe P1P/S and A1/Mini, but I don’t have those to confirm).
I use LAN mode and send my prints from Bambu Labs or Orca slicer directly to the printer’s SD Card. I then switch to the device in the slicer and find the model on the SD Card and click Print. I don’t have to go to the printer at all if I don’t want to, as long as I remembered to clear the build plate after the last print…
this seems like a really lame excuse when it would be an option that the “wider population” could easily ignore and the people who would want to use it probably wouldn’t have the same problems because more than likely they would be power users.
Power users typically have sorted out LAN or SD card methods, even X1Plus for those who want that extra bit of control. It’s no issue for me going down those paths, I don’t mind the tinkering involved if it doesn’t work. But browsing facebook groups gives me shivers when you see how simple problems are stumping a great many, even on this forum it happens. Introducing another button to push only tempts the layperson to press it, then blow a fuse on here because it isn’t working.