Yeah thatâs always the hard part. I gutted them from the AD3 and designed my own PCBâs to replace them.
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Sounds like a pretty solid machine then, but probably took a lot of work to get it there. This is the point I was approaching with my FlashForge Creator Pro 2, before I upgraded to the X1C. I debated between stripping the printer down, rebuilding, and trying the custom route. Though, the online community for the Creator Pro 2, is very very slim. The Creator Pro, has a decent community, but not so much for the CP2. Most, if not all of the development to get it working I would have been doing myself. It was also an IDEX machine, so I did doubt the success I would have with getting both heads working properly with a custom setup. Though, it would have been pretty simple to just remove a head and only have one.
Though, from the cost to rebuild, the fact that the bed was tiny (probably the main reason), and the time lost with my main printer down; I figured it would just be best to spend the money on a much nicer machine. Glad I did, personally, I feel the rebuild route would have been mostly headaches and limited success 
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I already had the bulk of the parts I needed to rebuild the printer and the PCBâs were dirt cheap too.
For me the printer just wasnât getting used as the âbed levelingâ was complete garbage. Rebuilding it made it useful again.
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The biggest feature missed in my opinion with the Creator Pro 2 was no automatic bed leveling. Prusa has shown that the feature can make a printer run very reliably for a long time with minimal tinkering. I even designed a jig to use with a drop indicator so I could precisely tune the bed in, but it would still drift over time. If I didn't use the printer for a couple weeks or longer, I was almost certainly going to have to level it before printing again. Mostly ended up with me getting a backlog of things to print, getting it running good again, and then printing my backlog. Not ideal, but it worked. Now, with the X1C, it can run constantly, or sit for a few weeks, and when I come back to it the thing just works.
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Apparently Bambu has removed the option to downgrade.
Prusa has never been on my radar due to the cost.
I bought an Ender 3-V2 three years ago for $400 CDN then dumped another $200+ into it trying to get it to produce better prints.
Got fed up with it and bought a cheap Prusa clone (Sovol SV06) which is far superior to my old Ender.
I then bought the SV06 Plus and retired the Ender.
I bought both Sovol printers on sale and spent around the same money as my initial investment on the Ender.
All said, I have purchased 3 printers that combined, are still cheaper than a single Prusa.
That was quick.
Yep, like Apple trying to thwart the jailbreakers.
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Been fighting the urge to buy a 3d printer for many years now but finally decided to pick up a Bambu X1C recently and have been furiously printing almost non stop since it was plugged in ~3 weeks ago.
I am actually using a random integration I found in these forums to connect the X1C to Hubitat and have it sending me push notifications via the Hubitat app whenever a new print initiates with the estimated print time as well as a 10 minute, 5 minute and 0 minute (print complete) update, so I can run over and check out the results right away.
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Bambu is following Anker's lead. IMO, Anker intends to force the great bulk of their users to use their cloud so they can collect (sell?) info. The M5 is relatively new but there is a group pursuing a jailbreak. Note that on my 2nd M5 I ...ummm... missed the opportunity to connect it to wifi.
Not so random if you mean below - that was created by our own @FriedCheese2006, one of the integrations he created when he was primarily using HE (has moved mostly to Home Assistant).
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In sure the devs will find another option to change to their firmware.
Same, but I have recommended them to others prior to Bambu Labs coming on the scene. They are very reliable which is why they are popular in print farms.
However I do think Prusa have utterly failed to adapt and innovate for a long time now. Heck even before BL came on the scene, you could build a big Voron Core XY printer for the same money as a basic Prusa.
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Based on the info gleaned from the X1 Plus firmware, apparently there is very little metadata being sent back to HQ. The dev who cracked it says he hasnât found anything nefarious at all so far.
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Agreed. Ever since the MK3S, there really hasn't been much innovation from them in the filament printer category. The MK4 really seemed like a rushed product just to get their name back out there since other companies were releasing newer models of printers with more advanced features.
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I love my MK4 and the open source community.
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They are great printers, itâs just that since Bambu released the X1C, $1,099 USD is astonishingly poor value for money when all you get is a basic bedslinger.
PS, to make things worse, you can buy a Mk3s+ clone from Fystec for $350 USD. Sure the quality isnât going to be quite as good as a genuine Prusa, but the point is to show just how overpriced genuine Prusa printers are. There just isnât $750 of extra value there, IMO.
Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that Prusa printers are bad printers. At my old workplace, we had 3 MK3S machines, and they ran nearly constantly during the week, and usually long prints overnight / weekends, and they performed very well. Only 1 of the 3 was semi-problematic, but the other two were very reliable machines. I'm sure anyone who gets a MK4 printer will really enjoy its capabilities, and it is an improvement over the MK3S machines.
Though, in today's market, it is definitely not the best value for the money. And if you want multi-material printing, Bambu is really the most affordable and reliable option on the market. I know Prusa has a MMU system, but from what I have heard, it is not nearly as reliable as the AMS.
Its just for the price of a single MK4 printer, you could get a P1S with AMS and a few spools of filament. You would then have multicolor printing available, a fully enclosed printer, liveview camera, and slightly larger build area (though this could be debated due to the optional calibration lines it prints). Keep in mind I am only discussing the fully assembled prices. Sure you could get a MK4 kit cheaper, but its on backorder, and not quite as accurate of a comparison as fully assembled.
If the MK4 was priced lower, I could definitely see it being a better value than the P1S/AMS combo. Then again, everyone has their own reasons for the things they want to buy, so it really comes down to personal preference in the end. There are many more solid options out there as well, and its good to see so much competition in the marketplace. The more competition between companies, the better off the consumer is really to get more value for the money 
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$799 for the kit. And some things are worth more in value than just a printer. Iâm playing the long game and know that Prusa will win out and still be printing years from now when Bambu will likely fail and be replaced due to the high cost to ship the entire unit back to China. I dont begrudge anyone what they like in these hobbies, you do you and more printing power to us all! As long as youâre happy with what you have, does it really matter?
I would very much like Prusa to continue to do well, but they need to get their costs and retail prices down or they just wonât have a market left.
Just look at the XL fiasco, that sort of thing has done a lot of damage to their brand.
I even know of one case where an XL customer was accused by support of damaging his printer by over torquing a fastener, that the factory installed. He had to escalate the issue to Joseph to get it resolved. Heâd spent 20k over many years and was pretty upset.
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