11 ms·

The state of open-source in 3D printing in 2023

198 points by ollien 4y ago

hirundo 4y ago
The elephant in the room was not addressed, that despite these great open-source advances, closed-sourced Bambu products have taken a big lead in price/performance. It would be nice to hear that Prusa is working on designs to close the gap ... to offset the bad news that the price of the MK4 does not reflect that changed industry reality.
- swimfar 4y ago
  Wouldn't you assume that closed-source products would generally have a competitive advantage against open-source products? Especially for products where most of the contributions to the project are from the company selling it. With closed-source you have to worry less about people simply selling copies of your design without having to have invested in any of the design process. Competitors also can't as easily include your design improvements into their products. And, there's definitely a cost associated with sharing internal designs.
  - alpaca128 4y ago
    That only sounds like an issue in markets without healthy competition, which ideally shouldn't exist either way.
- ummzokayy 4y ago
  These comments follow Prusa around but nobody seems to go beyond this type of surface level spec sheet take and into the details, especially in a more professional / high performance context. Prusa machines work in a production, factory-like environment and it isn't clear that Bambu or others can do that. Specifically: - What is the long term durability like? --- Do the nozzles leak when using high performance materials? (E3D themselves cannot even ship anything other than Revo that can actually make this claim with the only exception being Prusa factory installed 0.4n V6s) --- Extruder durability? - What is the support experience like? We've heard it is patchy relative to Prusa, specifically around spare parts availability. - How is the lifting / warping problem with the given build surfaces and enclosure? This is a non-trivial problem if you want to use the entire surface for large jobs with advanced materials. Would be curious to know if you have any insights on these points or using Bambu in a professional context and how they perform.
  - hooverd 4y ago
    Bambu is going to capture the prosumer market. People who want professional reliability will still buy Prusa or any of the "call for pricing" brands. I would be curious to know how much of Prusa's revenue is hobbyists vs professionals/support contracts.
  - jdietrich 4y ago
    >What is the long term durability like? --- Do the nozzles leak when using high performance materials? (E3D themselves cannot even ship anything other than Revo that can actually make this claim with the only exception being Prusa factory installed 0.4n V6s) --- Extruder durability? The Bambu hotend is a fully integrated unit, with the (hardened steel) nozzle, hotend and throat being shrink-fitted together. It is at least as leak-resistant as the Revo. The extruder is broadly derivative of the Bondtech BMG/LGX, with hardened steel hob gears; I would expect it to have similar durability. >What is the support experience like? We've heard it is patchy relative to Prusa, specifically around spare parts availability. Bambu have had issues with availability of machines and spares, which is to be expected for a company growing at their speed. As I speak, most parts are available, with a few backordered with ETAs of early April. >How is the lifting / warping problem with the given build surfaces and enclosure? This is a non-trivial problem if you want to use the entire surface for large jobs with advanced materials. Auto bed leveling is fast and accurate, with optional confirmation of first layer quality using the LIDAR scanner. Build plate adhesion is what you'd expect from textured PEI. I have seen some complaints of warped beds. It's fully enclosed, which is essential for printing with materials like ABS. The controller's camera provides automatic failed print detection. Neither Bambu or Prusa make truly industrial machines; if you need high uptime and business-level support, you'd want to buy something from the likes of Makerbot, Zortrax or Raise3D. Of course, you would pay several times more for the privilege. With that said, I see no reason to trust a Bambu machine any less than a Prusa.
dang 4y ago
Related ongoing thread: Another reply to Josef Průša - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404374
Svenstaro 4y ago
Sadly their enclosure isn't open source. I asked the support for technical details and apparently they are not allowed to share them. It's a bit weird that their open hardware policy doesn't extend to all their stuff.
- tengbretson 4y ago
  They absolutely do have an open source enclosure.
  - grogenaut 4y ago
    Link please?
    - tengbretson 4y ago
      https://www.printables.com/model/17-original-prusa-i3-mk3-enclosure-ikea-lack-table-pr https://www.printables.com/model/17-original-prusa-i3-mk3-en...
      - ollien 4y ago
        While a cool thing to release, it's not the same as their official enclsoure, which I believe GP was looking for
- bioemerl 4y ago
  I'll bet you it's built by a third party company if they aren't allowed to share the details.
RobotToaster 4y ago
As I said in the other thread, any license that bans "1:1 clones" would, by the very definition Prusa endorsed[1], not be open source. I'm sympathetic to wanting a more "copyleft" or "AGPL like" open hardware licence, even the CERN-OHL-S could be improved, but none of those points advocate that. [1]https://freedomdefined.org/OSHW https://freedomdefined.org/OSHW
- ThatPlayer 4y ago
  They also want to ban "nearly exact 1:1 clones", which I feel is going to be impossible to define. How many changes is going to be enough to no longer be near?
  - cptskippy 4y ago
    I think the intent is, like patents, to prevent someone else from undercutting your price and reaping reward for your investment in innovation but at the same time saying if you make a significant contribution to the greater good then you can immediately apply it to the current state of the art. You can benefit from our innovation but only if it's in addition to your own innovation. I kind of like that because unlike patents which stifle innovation, it encourages acceleration of innovation.
    - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
      Patents encourage publication of inventions, either as part of an application for a patent or as a defensive publication to prevent others from getting a patent. They allow (UK, not sure about other jurisdictions) research, can always be licensed. So is it just the monopoly length that is stifling? The main alternative regime seems to be industrial secrets, are they less stifling?
      - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
        Industrial secrets might be less stifling, because reverse engineering is usually faster than waiting 20 years for a patent to expire. Then of course there is the option of embracing open source across industry by recognizing as a culture that widespread innovation grows the economy faster than restricted innovation.
landofredwater 4y ago
Open source hardware is a great idea, but most of the executions have been pretty shoddy with stuff like proprietary parts still being used, bad documentation, and worst of all some companies just releasing products with no actual sourcing at all. I've been very happy with ZSA for example, and they've done it right in my opinion. Hopefully more companies work on making their stuff open standards with strong centralized production for those that don't want to build it themselves rather than arbiters of what can and cannot be reproduced by 3rd parties.
- judge2020 4y ago
  Proprietary parts aren't necessarily bad, it just depends on why they're proprietary - if it's just to go-to-market faster, it's fair to criticize the decision, but often there are legitimate downsides that would result in less-than-ideal compromises in terms of performance or features. Hopefully such companies doing this are transparent and will answer inquiries into why they made these parts decisions.
  - landofredwater 4y ago
    By proprietary, I more meant the "only certain people can get access" more than the part itself being open to tinker at that sort. Think the weird random chips apple uses more than the fact that 90% of CPUs on market aren't totally open; one is still clearly more accessible.
    - judge2020 4y ago
      > Think the weird random chips apple uses more than the fact that 90% of CPUs on market aren't totally open; one is still clearly more accessible. The random chips are their competitive advantage - Intel chips are notoriously power-inefficient, and AMD chips are still x86 which is an inefficient architecture. The only difference is that you can't build your own M2 computer, which isn't exactly moving any goalposts besides Apple opening themselves up to the grueling, low-margin work of setting up logistics for their different SKUs of chips, working with board partners to define specifications, and dealing with supporting the utterly random hardware people plug into their PCIe lanes (Macs 'work' in that Apple has rigorous test cases for 99% of scenarios; Windows had so many driver problems throughout Windows 7, 8, and 10 because MSFT to maintain backwards compatibility for components from 2002; this is why W11 has mostly dropped official support for older CPUs).
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
kragen 4y ago
This seems to be an announcement that Prusa is abandoning open-source hardware; they're only going to release the "electronic plans" of MK4 under a license that prohibits "the production of nearly exact 1:1 clones for commercial purposes" and also does not permit the production of "parts that can be considered consumables"¹, which clearly cannot be open source, and they plan to move all their products to such a license. They also seem to be announcing that they are going to lie about it by falsely claiming that it is open source. Hopefully this is an April Fool's joke. ______ ¹ They say it would permit the production of such parts "after the verification by the licensor", which is to say that it would permit the production of such parts at the licensor's pleasure. This is similar to the situation with copyright, where you can make copies of the work if the copyright owner approves of it, but it is not at all clear that heater blocks and printing plates are subject to copyright.
- treesciencebot 4y ago
  Now it is kind of funny to think about all the discussions that happened last week when the main advantage of Prusa over Bambu Lab X1C was quoted as them "being open source" and the absolutely crazy pricing was just "supporting/sponsoring Prusa's work since there are many clones thanks to their open source model". The tables turned, or they would have been turned if Prusa did either a huge change in their pricing or brought a completely new printer with features that would actually be worth the price tag.
- pen2l 4y ago
  > Hopefully this is an April Fool's joke. I'm pretty sure it isn't but it is devilishly clever to drop news like this on a date like this. But as to their decision: It's tough -- obviously we all want to support Reprap movement, Prusa, Ultimaker, etc. and the original innovators in this space of desktop 3d printers, but this is the way things happen, when you've optimized your technique and product the Chinese tend to come and kill you with their high volume low margin approach. Can you really blame them for doing what they're doing? It was probably an existential decision for them.
  - kragen 4y ago
CobrastanJorji 4y ago
I'm sympathetic to their goals. They want to make sure all of the hardware and software is open for their customers to be able to arbitrarily examine and modify, which is laudable and is very much the sort of thing that 3D printer customers care about. But also they're desperately searching for a way to research and design new printers without some other company immediately selling exact clones of their devices. A "here's all the plans, do whatever you like...except making and selling our exact device" license seems like an extremely fair compromise, especially compared to the default choice of "stop being open to make cloning harder." Comments are right that bans of that sort are pretty much definitionally not "open source," and Prusa would be wrong to use that term if they went down this path. I think, though, that there should definitely be a space for companies that want to preserve their copyright but also be very open with their hardware and software. It'd just need a different word.
- pen2l 4y ago
  Indeed, a variety of open source models have been able to co-exist: There's the sqlite3 type of "it's all open source but you can't contribute to the code"; the conventional community-led copyleft GNU type of open source that gave us Linux; the company-led which creates things like Docker and k8s; and there is dual-licensing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing).
- glenndebacker 4y ago
  I don't think this has a lot to do with the open source spirit but the fact that competitors like Bambulab are eating their lunch. That seems to rub them the wrong way. I also see a lot of FUD from the Prusa community regarding that particular brand, where you can't claim it's a 1:1 Prusa clone. Even the remarks from Josef Prusa about speed or noise are targeted to the X1C or P1P printers while if you want to talk about clones and copying there are brands out there that fits the bill better e.g. Sovol 06. The part where you can only sell "consumables" that must be verified by Prusa also has zero to do with open source or freedom.
  - koffiezet 4y ago
elkos 4y ago
I'm more into let's move our hardware designs to CERN-OHL-S licensing and persue violators in the court of law the same way proprietary copyright holders do. In many jurisdictions violating copyright is a felony, it is prosecuted viciously with fines up to 100k$ per infringement and jail time and in the civil courts with extraordinary damages. How can Prusa go forward with that? I don't know. I know though from a handful of interactions with them that they acknowledge the catalytic role open-source software and hardware can have.
mistercow 4y ago
I think this is really missing a big part of the picture. I didn't buy two mk3s+s because Prusa has tech that nobody else has, or because their design is fundamentally superior to anything else. I bought them because Prusa has an outstanding and justified reputation for building selling reliable machines and standing behind them with proven expertise. Those are not things you can clone – not cheaply, anyway. That's the deal with any premium brand that has earned its reputation. There will always be imitators, and there will always be people who scoff and call you a rip-off because the cost of your product is greater than the sum of its parts. You ignore that, because you're better than that. To me, being aggressively open source is a line in the sand on this point. It's saying "Go ahead: clone us. We don't care. Clones are not a threat, because the design is not what you're paying extra for." Conversely, backpedaling on that position seems like a mistake. It's switching to a different strategy where you're instead saying "Actually, our IP is the only thing that differentiates us, and otherwise, we're the same as any other manufacturer." That's a dangerous game to play, and you only want to play it if you can ensure that you're going to be ahead of the curve on innovation. And, well, much as I love Prusa… they're not ahead of that curve right now. Their value is that they have great QA and great support, and it seems to me that their stance should reflect that.
- awestroke 4y ago
  I'd pay good money to hear Prusa leadership read and discuss this comment
- nikitaga 4y ago
  I don't think they would be writing this blog post if their "go ahead: clone us" strategy was working as well you imply it should. Mass market products live and die by the average customer, and the average person in need of a 3D printer will see a Prusa clone for half the price, and buy that instead of the original. Most people can't afford to spend double just on principle, even if they wanted to. And not everyone even cares for such principles in the first place. I don't claim to know anything about Prusa's financials or technology, but if they are not technologically ahead of the curve as you say – could it be because they're starved for resources to do R&D, because they're losing too many customers to rip-offs?
omneity 4y ago
A mechanical engineer friend of mine recently released an open source high precision DIY-friendly 3D printer[0], the assembly manual[1] alone is a thing of beauty. [0]: https://www.printables.com/model/378252-i-3030-fdm-3d-printer https://www.printables.com/model/378252-i-3030-fdm-3d-printe... [1]: https://files.printables.com/media/prints/378252/other_files/3511659_c3d45afc-3592-4721-aa44-e06294a1099d/i-3030-v4-assembly-guide-v10.pdf https://files.printables.com/media/prints/378252/other_files...
- bmsleight_ 4y ago
  Ironically hosted on the free/open source website run by Prusa, because thingiverse went away from core principles.
  - RobotToaster 4y ago
    The website isn't FOSS, ironically. Also it recently started allowing models that aren't CC or open source, at the same time as adding blue checkmark brand accounts.
    - omneity 4y ago
      Is there a better place to host such projects? Appreciate your insights, I will pass them along to the author.
      - RobotToaster 4y ago
        Not that I'm aware of. A lot of open source code is hosted on github, which isn't open source either. It isn't really an issue, I was just correcting bmsleight_. It would be nice to have an open source model repository though.
mungoman2 4y ago
I'm always surprised that 3D printing isn't making faster progress. The print quality of these cheap(ish) FDM printers is tbh not good. But it's been like this for nearly a decade now. Have we really reached the global maximum in performance for this price point? I refuse to believe that, since coming here has basically been just local hill climbing since FDM was cheap enough for home use. But where is the innovation? Where are the alternatives? Is there simply not enough money in cheap 3D printing to justify investment?
- radomir_cernoch 4y ago
  We have to wait for next-gen high-end printers. Pricing of current-gen tech will be under pressure. With Voron/Bambu lab/Prusa XL, the next-gen is arriving right now. Let's see...
- wincy 4y ago
  I think limiting to FDM printers is a mistake these days, as resin printers have exploded in visual fidelity and the MSLA (using pixels on a monochrome LCD to mask light to print the whole layer simultaneously by curing a UV sensitive resin) printers make hands down better looking prints. If you need functional parts as well there are advances in engineering resins designed for that (although they’re still very pricy compared to PLA). For art pieces I often print using a mixture of the two then join them together, such as a bust with the head, I’ll make the head in resin and the body in FDM. The printers are dead simple to use too compared to all the hassle of FDM printing. Very few moving parts means very few opportunities for the myriad mistakes that seem inherent in FDM printing.
  - bluescrn 4y ago
    Resin printers aren’t ‘dead simple’, as you’re dealing with fairly nasty chemicals in liquid form, and have to deal with cleaning/curing steps that aren’t needed with FDM. The results can be nice, but they may not be the best choice for many users.
  - zokier 4y ago
    While sla has some advantages over fdm, I definitely would not call it less hassle. Handling liquid resin is more hassle than spools of filament, and sla prints need cleaning and curing steps while fdm prints can be usable straight out of printer. Finally multi-material fdm allows you to use soluable supports, making post-processing again easier.
tiledjinn 4y ago
Open source doesn't protect the commercial interests of the producer. It protects the rights of the consumer. It sounds like Prusa doesn't understand that central premise, or is coming to terms with how hostile open source is to traditional business models.
flowless 4y ago
Amusing that their firmware repo (unlike Slic3r) had no reference to Marlin until I've pointed it out to them https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware/issues/2625 https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware/issues/2625 Also it was imported by copying the modified source instead of proper git fork with history and all the contributors that made it possible. Since i3 was designed, there were always parts that weren't open (like the pictured PCB heated bed) so nothing really changes.
ryanmentor 4y ago
I bought a MK3S+&Enclosure this year instead of 5 clones. I'll be buying a MK4 and an XL, again instead of 15 chinesium clone machines. Free Openness, reliability, trustworthiness - that's what I paid a multiple for. Joseph puts his name on every machine, every spool of filament. I trust that if and when something goes wrong, it's his neck on the line to make it right. I welcome a newer, stronger, toothier approach to Free and Open hardware and software. If that means a patent trust, or a consortium for enforcement, or whatever collaboration between large players can become, it would be great if this could be the catalyst.
iandanforth 4y ago
Does 3D printing work yet? As in the way my office printer can print 100 pages easily without issue?
- AndrewOMartin 4y ago
  I don't think comparing 3d printing and 2d printing is fair. Not the least because if the 3d printing industry completely halts progress it'll be meet by the crashing regression of the 2d printing industry in about six months.
  - iandanforth 4y ago
    Ok, then the way I can get into my car 100 times in a row and drive without issue. Or I can toast 100 pieces of bread without issue. Or an elevator can work 100 times in a row without issue. You know, a pretty low bar for a product to be considered functional.
    - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
      Yes and no. I have a Prusa Mk3 that I've had for years and upgraded to the MK3s. The machine was flawless from day one even in the hands of a complete novice like me. The upgrade was also flawless. This times I've had bad prints? I changed filaments without understanding how it behaves. I printed things without understanding how to prepare the print, and it fell over. Attempting to print flexibles. These issues may or may not plague you depending on your use case. I mostly print mechanical parts that I design myself. And I use limited types of filaments for prototyping. So can I get 100 out of 100 successful prints? Yes, that's quite achievable.
- aquova 4y ago
  My own experience, I bought a Ender 3 Pro for ~$100 about a year ago and I've been very impressed with it. Aside from some instances where I didn't have the bed correctly distanced from the nozzle, I've yet to have a build fail. Granted I've printed rather simple things, I think my longest build has been about 8 hours. I've been very pleased with its ease of use.
intrasight 4y ago
I think 3D printers are like boats. The best boat is someone else's boat.
- baremetal 4y ago
  boat stands for 'bust out another thousand'
nullc 4y ago
Welp there goes the only remaining reason to purchase a prusa printer over Bambu Lab. Thanks for making buying decisions easier Prusa!

198 points by ollien 4y ago

The elephant in the room was not addressed, that despite these great open-source advances, closed-sourced Bambu products have taken a big lead in price/performance. It would be nice to hear that Prusa is working on designs to close the gap ... to offset the bad news that the price of the MK4 does not reflect that changed industry reality.

swimfar 4y ago
Wouldn't you assume that closed-source products would generally have a competitive advantage against open-source products? Especially for products where most of the contributions to the project are from the company selling it. With closed-source you have to worry less about people simply selling copies of your design without having to have invested in any of the design process. Competitors also can't as easily include your design improvements into their products. And, there's definitely a cost associated with sharing internal designs.
- alpaca128 4y ago
  That only sounds like an issue in markets without healthy competition, which ideally shouldn't exist either way.
ummzokayy 4y ago
These comments follow Prusa around but nobody seems to go beyond this type of surface level spec sheet take and into the details, especially in a more professional / high performance context. Prusa machines work in a production, factory-like environment and it isn't clear that Bambu or others can do that. Specifically: - What is the long term durability like? --- Do the nozzles leak when using high performance materials? (E3D themselves cannot even ship anything other than Revo that can actually make this claim with the only exception being Prusa factory installed 0.4n V6s) --- Extruder durability? - What is the support experience like? We've heard it is patchy relative to Prusa, specifically around spare parts availability. - How is the lifting / warping problem with the given build surfaces and enclosure? This is a non-trivial problem if you want to use the entire surface for large jobs with advanced materials. Would be curious to know if you have any insights on these points or using Bambu in a professional context and how they perform.
- hooverd 4y ago
  Bambu is going to capture the prosumer market. People who want professional reliability will still buy Prusa or any of the "call for pricing" brands. I would be curious to know how much of Prusa's revenue is hobbyists vs professionals/support contracts.
- jdietrich 4y ago
  >What is the long term durability like? --- Do the nozzles leak when using high performance materials? (E3D themselves cannot even ship anything other than Revo that can actually make this claim with the only exception being Prusa factory installed 0.4n V6s) --- Extruder durability? The Bambu hotend is a fully integrated unit, with the (hardened steel) nozzle, hotend and throat being shrink-fitted together. It is at least as leak-resistant as the Revo. The extruder is broadly derivative of the Bondtech BMG/LGX, with hardened steel hob gears; I would expect it to have similar durability. >What is the support experience like? We've heard it is patchy relative to Prusa, specifically around spare parts availability. Bambu have had issues with availability of machines and spares, which is to be expected for a company growing at their speed. As I speak, most parts are available, with a few backordered with ETAs of early April. >How is the lifting / warping problem with the given build surfaces and enclosure? This is a non-trivial problem if you want to use the entire surface for large jobs with advanced materials. Auto bed leveling is fast and accurate, with optional confirmation of first layer quality using the LIDAR scanner. Build plate adhesion is what you'd expect from textured PEI. I have seen some complaints of warped beds. It's fully enclosed, which is essential for printing with materials like ABS. The controller's camera provides automatic failed print detection. Neither Bambu or Prusa make truly industrial machines; if you need high uptime and business-level support, you'd want to buy something from the likes of Makerbot, Zortrax or Raise3D. Of course, you would pay several times more for the privilege. With that said, I see no reason to trust a Bambu machine any less than a Prusa.

dang 4y ago

Related ongoing thread: Another reply to Josef Průša - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404374 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=35404374

Svenstaro 4y ago

Sadly their enclosure isn't open source. I asked the support for technical details and apparently they are not allowed to share them. It's a bit weird that their open hardware policy doesn't extend to all their stuff.

tengbretson 4y ago
They absolutely do have an open source enclosure.
- grogenaut 4y ago
  Link please?
  - tengbretson 4y ago
    https://www.printables.com/model/17-original-prusa-i3-mk3-enclosure-ikea-lack-table-pr https://www.printables.com/model/17-original-prusa-i3-mk3-en...
    - ollien 4y ago
      While a cool thing to release, it's not the same as their official enclsoure, which I believe GP was looking for
bioemerl 4y ago
I'll bet you it's built by a third party company if they aren't allowed to share the details.

RobotToaster 4y ago

As I said in the other thread, any license that bans "1:1 clones" would, by the very definition Prusa endorsed[1], not be open source. I'm sympathetic to wanting a more "copyleft" or "AGPL like" open hardware licence, even the CERN-OHL-S could be improved, but none of those points advocate that. [1]https://freedomdefined.org/OSHW https://freedomdefined.org/OSHW

ThatPlayer 4y ago
They also want to ban "nearly exact 1:1 clones", which I feel is going to be impossible to define. How many changes is going to be enough to no longer be near?
- cptskippy 4y ago
  I think the intent is, like patents, to prevent someone else from undercutting your price and reaping reward for your investment in innovation but at the same time saying if you make a significant contribution to the greater good then you can immediately apply it to the current state of the art. You can benefit from our innovation but only if it's in addition to your own innovation. I kind of like that because unlike patents which stifle innovation, it encourages acceleration of innovation.
  - pbhjpbhj 4y ago
    Patents encourage publication of inventions, either as part of an application for a patent or as a defensive publication to prevent others from getting a patent. They allow (UK, not sure about other jurisdictions) research, can always be licensed. So is it just the monopoly length that is stifling? The main alternative regime seems to be industrial secrets, are they less stifling?
    - TaylorAlexander 4y ago
      Industrial secrets might be less stifling, because reverse engineering is usually faster than waiting 20 years for a patent to expire. Then of course there is the option of embracing open source across industry by recognizing as a culture that widespread innovation grows the economy faster than restricted innovation.

landofredwater 4y ago

Open source hardware is a great idea, but most of the executions have been pretty shoddy with stuff like proprietary parts still being used, bad documentation, and worst of all some companies just releasing products with no actual sourcing at all. I've been very happy with ZSA for example, and they've done it right in my opinion. Hopefully more companies work on making their stuff open standards with strong centralized production for those that don't want to build it themselves rather than arbiters of what can and cannot be reproduced by 3rd parties.

judge2020 4y ago
Proprietary parts aren't necessarily bad, it just depends on why they're proprietary - if it's just to go-to-market faster, it's fair to criticize the decision, but often there are legitimate downsides that would result in less-than-ideal compromises in terms of performance or features. Hopefully such companies doing this are transparent and will answer inquiries into why they made these parts decisions.
- landofredwater 4y ago
  By proprietary, I more meant the "only certain people can get access" more than the part itself being open to tinker at that sort. Think the weird random chips apple uses more than the fact that 90% of CPUs on market aren't totally open; one is still clearly more accessible.
  - judge2020 4y ago
    > Think the weird random chips apple uses more than the fact that 90% of CPUs on market aren't totally open; one is still clearly more accessible. The random chips are their competitive advantage - Intel chips are notoriously power-inefficient, and AMD chips are still x86 which is an inefficient architecture. The only difference is that you can't build your own M2 computer, which isn't exactly moving any goalposts besides Apple opening themselves up to the grueling, low-margin work of setting up logistics for their different SKUs of chips, working with board partners to define specifications, and dealing with supporting the utterly random hardware people plug into their PCIe lanes (Macs 'work' in that Apple has rigorous test cases for 99% of scenarios; Windows had so many driver problems throughout Windows 7, 8, and 10 because MSFT to maintain backwards compatibility for components from 2002; this is why W11 has mostly dropped official support for older CPUs).

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

kragen 4y ago

This seems to be an announcement that Prusa is abandoning open-source hardware; they're only going to release the "electronic plans" of MK4 under a license that prohibits "the production of nearly exact 1:1 clones for commercial purposes" and also does not permit the production of "parts that can be considered consumables"¹, which clearly cannot be open source, and they plan to move all their products to such a license. They also seem to be announcing that they are going to lie about it by falsely claiming that it is open source. Hopefully this is an April Fool's joke. ______ ¹ They say it would permit the production of such parts "after the verification by the licensor", which is to say that it would permit the production of such parts at the licensor's pleasure. This is similar to the situation with copyright, where you can make copies of the work if the copyright owner approves of it, but it is not at all clear that heater blocks and printing plates are subject to copyright.

treesciencebot 4y ago
Now it is kind of funny to think about all the discussions that happened last week when the main advantage of Prusa over Bambu Lab X1C was quoted as them "being open source" and the absolutely crazy pricing was just "supporting/sponsoring Prusa's work since there are many clones thanks to their open source model". The tables turned, or they would have been turned if Prusa did either a huge change in their pricing or brought a completely new printer with features that would actually be worth the price tag.
pen2l 4y ago
> Hopefully this is an April Fool's joke. I'm pretty sure it isn't but it is devilishly clever to drop news like this on a date like this. But as to their decision: It's tough -- obviously we all want to support Reprap movement, Prusa, Ultimaker, etc. and the original innovators in this space of desktop 3d printers, but this is the way things happen, when you've optimized your technique and product the Chinese tend to come and kill you with their high volume low margin approach. Can you really blame them for doing what they're doing? It was probably an existential decision for them.
- kragen 4y ago

CobrastanJorji 4y ago

I'm sympathetic to their goals. They want to make sure all of the hardware and software is open for their customers to be able to arbitrarily examine and modify, which is laudable and is very much the sort of thing that 3D printer customers care about. But also they're desperately searching for a way to research and design new printers without some other company immediately selling exact clones of their devices. A "here's all the plans, do whatever you like...except making and selling our exact device" license seems like an extremely fair compromise, especially compared to the default choice of "stop being open to make cloning harder." Comments are right that bans of that sort are pretty much definitionally not "open source," and Prusa would be wrong to use that term if they went down this path. I think, though, that there should definitely be a space for companies that want to preserve their copyright but also be very open with their hardware and software. It'd just need a different word.

pen2l 4y ago
Indeed, a variety of open source models have been able to co-exist: There's the sqlite3 type of "it's all open source but you can't contribute to the code"; the conventional community-led copyleft GNU type of open source that gave us Linux; the company-led which creates things like Docker and k8s; and there is dual-licensing (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multi-licensing).
glenndebacker 4y ago
I don't think this has a lot to do with the open source spirit but the fact that competitors like Bambulab are eating their lunch. That seems to rub them the wrong way. I also see a lot of FUD from the Prusa community regarding that particular brand, where you can't claim it's a 1:1 Prusa clone. Even the remarks from Josef Prusa about speed or noise are targeted to the X1C or P1P printers while if you want to talk about clones and copying there are brands out there that fits the bill better e.g. Sovol 06. The part where you can only sell "consumables" that must be verified by Prusa also has zero to do with open source or freedom.
- koffiezet 4y ago

elkos 4y ago

I'm more into let's move our hardware designs to CERN-OHL-S licensing and persue violators in the court of law the same way proprietary copyright holders do. In many jurisdictions violating copyright is a felony, it is prosecuted viciously with fines up to 100k$ per infringement and jail time and in the civil courts with extraordinary damages. How can Prusa go forward with that? I don't know. I know though from a handful of interactions with them that they acknowledge the catalytic role open-source software and hardware can have.

mistercow 4y ago

I think this is really missing a big part of the picture. I didn't buy two mk3s+s because Prusa has tech that nobody else has, or because their design is fundamentally superior to anything else. I bought them because Prusa has an outstanding and justified reputation for building selling reliable machines and standing behind them with proven expertise. Those are not things you can clone – not cheaply, anyway. That's the deal with any premium brand that has earned its reputation. There will always be imitators, and there will always be people who scoff and call you a rip-off because the cost of your product is greater than the sum of its parts. You ignore that, because you're better than that. To me, being aggressively open source is a line in the sand on this point. It's saying "Go ahead: clone us. We don't care. Clones are not a threat, because the design is not what you're paying extra for." Conversely, backpedaling on that position seems like a mistake. It's switching to a different strategy where you're instead saying "Actually, our IP is the only thing that differentiates us, and otherwise, we're the same as any other manufacturer." That's a dangerous game to play, and you only want to play it if you can ensure that you're going to be ahead of the curve on innovation. And, well, much as I love Prusa… they're not ahead of that curve right now. Their value is that they have great QA and great support, and it seems to me that their stance should reflect that.

awestroke 4y ago
I'd pay good money to hear Prusa leadership read and discuss this comment
nikitaga 4y ago
I don't think they would be writing this blog post if their "go ahead: clone us" strategy was working as well you imply it should. Mass market products live and die by the average customer, and the average person in need of a 3D printer will see a Prusa clone for half the price, and buy that instead of the original. Most people can't afford to spend double just on principle, even if they wanted to. And not everyone even cares for such principles in the first place. I don't claim to know anything about Prusa's financials or technology, but if they are not technologically ahead of the curve as you say – could it be because they're starved for resources to do R&D, because they're losing too many customers to rip-offs?

omneity 4y ago

A mechanical engineer friend of mine recently released an open source high precision DIY-friendly 3D printer[0], the assembly manual[1] alone is a thing of beauty. [0]: https://www.printables.com/model/378252-i-3030-fdm-3d-printer https://www.printables.com/model/378252-i-3030-fdm-3d-printe... [1]: https://files.printables.com/media/prints/378252/other_files/3511659_c3d45afc-3592-4721-aa44-e06294a1099d/i-3030-v4-assembly-guide-v10.pdf https://files.printables.com/media/prints/378252/other_files...

bmsleight_ 4y ago
Ironically hosted on the free/open source website run by Prusa, because thingiverse went away from core principles.
- RobotToaster 4y ago
  The website isn't FOSS, ironically. Also it recently started allowing models that aren't CC or open source, at the same time as adding blue checkmark brand accounts.
  - omneity 4y ago
    Is there a better place to host such projects? Appreciate your insights, I will pass them along to the author.
    - RobotToaster 4y ago
      Not that I'm aware of. A lot of open source code is hosted on github, which isn't open source either. It isn't really an issue, I was just correcting bmsleight_. It would be nice to have an open source model repository though.

mungoman2 4y ago

I'm always surprised that 3D printing isn't making faster progress. The print quality of these cheap(ish) FDM printers is tbh not good. But it's been like this for nearly a decade now. Have we really reached the global maximum in performance for this price point? I refuse to believe that, since coming here has basically been just local hill climbing since FDM was cheap enough for home use. But where is the innovation? Where are the alternatives? Is there simply not enough money in cheap 3D printing to justify investment?

radomir_cernoch 4y ago
We have to wait for next-gen high-end printers. Pricing of current-gen tech will be under pressure. With Voron/Bambu lab/Prusa XL, the next-gen is arriving right now. Let's see...
wincy 4y ago
I think limiting to FDM printers is a mistake these days, as resin printers have exploded in visual fidelity and the MSLA (using pixels on a monochrome LCD to mask light to print the whole layer simultaneously by curing a UV sensitive resin) printers make hands down better looking prints. If you need functional parts as well there are advances in engineering resins designed for that (although they’re still very pricy compared to PLA). For art pieces I often print using a mixture of the two then join them together, such as a bust with the head, I’ll make the head in resin and the body in FDM. The printers are dead simple to use too compared to all the hassle of FDM printing. Very few moving parts means very few opportunities for the myriad mistakes that seem inherent in FDM printing.
- bluescrn 4y ago
  Resin printers aren’t ‘dead simple’, as you’re dealing with fairly nasty chemicals in liquid form, and have to deal with cleaning/curing steps that aren’t needed with FDM. The results can be nice, but they may not be the best choice for many users.
- zokier 4y ago
  While sla has some advantages over fdm, I definitely would not call it less hassle. Handling liquid resin is more hassle than spools of filament, and sla prints need cleaning and curing steps while fdm prints can be usable straight out of printer. Finally multi-material fdm allows you to use soluable supports, making post-processing again easier.

tiledjinn 4y ago

Open source doesn't protect the commercial interests of the producer. It protects the rights of the consumer. It sounds like Prusa doesn't understand that central premise, or is coming to terms with how hostile open source is to traditional business models.

flowless 4y ago

Amusing that their firmware repo (unlike Slic3r) had no reference to Marlin until I've pointed it out to them https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware/issues/2625 https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware/issues/2625 Also it was imported by copying the modified source instead of proper git fork with history and all the contributors that made it possible. Since i3 was designed, there were always parts that weren't open (like the pictured PCB heated bed) so nothing really changes.

ryanmentor 4y ago

I bought a MK3S+&Enclosure this year instead of 5 clones. I'll be buying a MK4 and an XL, again instead of 15 chinesium clone machines. Free Openness, reliability, trustworthiness - that's what I paid a multiple for. Joseph puts his name on every machine, every spool of filament. I trust that if and when something goes wrong, it's his neck on the line to make it right. I welcome a newer, stronger, toothier approach to Free and Open hardware and software. If that means a patent trust, or a consortium for enforcement, or whatever collaboration between large players can become, it would be great if this could be the catalyst.

iandanforth 4y ago

Does 3D printing work yet? As in the way my office printer can print 100 pages easily without issue?

AndrewOMartin 4y ago
I don't think comparing 3d printing and 2d printing is fair. Not the least because if the 3d printing industry completely halts progress it'll be meet by the crashing regression of the 2d printing industry in about six months.
- iandanforth 4y ago
  Ok, then the way I can get into my car 100 times in a row and drive without issue. Or I can toast 100 pieces of bread without issue. Or an elevator can work 100 times in a row without issue. You know, a pretty low bar for a product to be considered functional.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 4y ago
    Yes and no. I have a Prusa Mk3 that I've had for years and upgraded to the MK3s. The machine was flawless from day one even in the hands of a complete novice like me. The upgrade was also flawless. This times I've had bad prints? I changed filaments without understanding how it behaves. I printed things without understanding how to prepare the print, and it fell over. Attempting to print flexibles. These issues may or may not plague you depending on your use case. I mostly print mechanical parts that I design myself. And I use limited types of filaments for prototyping. So can I get 100 out of 100 successful prints? Yes, that's quite achievable.
aquova 4y ago
My own experience, I bought a Ender 3 Pro for ~$100 about a year ago and I've been very impressed with it. Aside from some instances where I didn't have the bed correctly distanced from the nozzle, I've yet to have a build fail. Granted I've printed rather simple things, I think my longest build has been about 8 hours. I've been very pleased with its ease of use.

intrasight 4y ago

I think 3D printers are like boats. The best boat is someone else's boat.

baremetal 4y ago
boat stands for 'bust out another thousand'

nullc 4y ago

Welp there goes the only remaining reason to purchase a prusa printer over Bambu Lab. Thanks for making buying decisions easier Prusa!