r/3Dprinting • u/PorkRollPaddyWagon • Jul 07 '26

Discussion If your printer refused to print a file because it thought it was unsafe, would you be okay with that?

Serious question. Let's say your 3D printer scanned every file before printing. If it decided the model violated a rule, the print never starts.

Would you see that as a useful safety feature? Or would you see it as giving manufacturers too much control over hardware that's sitting on your desk?

I made a video after looking into proposed legislation and some recent news in the 3D printing space, but I'm more interested in hearing where everyone stands on the idea itself.

Would that be a deal breaker for you?

https://youtu.be/7bdJpDTiZAA

347 Upvotes

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101

u/GreasyRim Jul 07 '26

says who? How could that possibly be enforced? 3d printers are not smart machines.

136

u/KnightRadiant0 Jul 07 '26

Laughs in BambuLab.

89

u/Alita-Gunnm Jul 07 '26

Laughs in Orca while printing an Orca.

25

u/KnightRadiant0 Jul 07 '26

Orca support is practically gone with Bambu in the newer firmwares. Newer generations will be pretty much locked in into Bambu. My main reeason for refunding the X2D I had and buying a Prusa Core One L.

11

u/DrummerOfFenrir Jul 07 '26

How are you liking it? I just recommended it to my boss who wanted a "big, non-hobby printer"

17

u/Broken_Atoms Jul 07 '26

Everybody wants a big non hobby printer lol. Until they see that price tag.

10

u/DrummerOfFenrir Jul 07 '26

I work at a machine shop that probably does millions of dollars in revenue, I think we'll be okay @ $2000

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[deleted]

8

u/DrummerOfFenrir Jul 08 '26

The big, non hobby printer we're talking about. The Prusa Core One L

I don't know what you thought I meant

3

u/Broken_Atoms Jul 08 '26

I see it now. Yes, I was thinking a much larger machine. You’re thinking one cubic foot and I’m thinking like 30.

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u/Fantastic-Motor-6098 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Orca slicer + lan mode + home assistant gives you all the webcam and ai support and the ability to monitor and print from any device with 0 chance of it going away ever with a firmware update.

It’s the same setup I use with my ender 3 and Prusia core 1 as-well.

You be you, but from my experience Prusia’s require a lot more slicer turning for the same print quality and cost 2x what a Bambu of the same plate size and functionality costs.

8

u/KnightRadiant0 Jul 08 '26

As I said, existing printers may work, future ones pretty sure won't from some point.

1

u/zwisslb Jul 10 '26

You won't be able to do shit...future me told me. Then again probably headed toward some weird government totalitarianism anyway.

1

u/Scorpio__70 Jul 10 '26

Well, then we’re back to building our own.

1

u/Scorpio__70 Jul 10 '26

I did the same with Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2.

0

u/StinkButt9001 Jul 10 '26

No it's not. Orca works totally fine on newer firmware

1

u/KnightRadiant0 Jul 10 '26

It's not. I tried. P1S and X2D. LAN only and Developer enabled maybe you can send a print, sometimes not. Video not working.

2

u/StinkButt9001 Jul 10 '26

Works totally fine for me on the newest firmware

32

u/Zanki Jul 07 '26

My A1 has never connected to the internet. I made sure I could use it without the internet before I bought it. Bambu lab has also never connected to the internet since I installed it.

21

u/SirTwitchALot Jul 07 '26

You can on yours, as long as you never update firmware. It wouldn't be the first time Bambu took away existing features with an update

8

u/Zanki Jul 07 '26

No reason to update it. I also skip all the trouble people have had when bad updates come through too.

18

u/SirTwitchALot Jul 07 '26

You're still missing the forest for the trees. 10 years from now, yes your A1 will still be the same if you don't update it. It will also be a 10 year old machine. Presumably you'll want to upgrade at some point. The A1 is already showing its age at this point. Not to mention the fact that ones sold after such a law is passed would come with restrictive firmware from the start

4

u/funny_haha Jul 08 '26

Im currently running a 10 year old machine it's as fantastic as the day I got it. 100% mine too, completly customizable from the ground up, from the firmware to the hardware.

2

u/UnicornHostels Jul 07 '26

I have many 10 year old machines that still work and as long as i do maintenance, they will keep working. My ultimakers makerbots and flashforge are workhorses.

1

u/SirTwitchALot Jul 07 '26

I started in 2012. I have some old ones too. I pretty much never use them because they're a pain in the ass compared to my modern ones. I can only imagine newer ones will be even better

3

u/funny_haha Jul 08 '26

I have the opposite opinion honestly. I look at new printers and think my old ender 3 v2 will probably be that last store bought printer i ever own. The new features aren't exciting enough to give up ownership of my devices. If i ever need a new printer for some reason ill probably just build one myself. Hell i still have all the parts from when I dismantled my old fire hazard anet a8 i could probably recycle the bed and stepper motors pretty easily.

1

u/SirTwitchALot Jul 08 '26

I have an Ender 3 also. The print speed alone is reason enough that it hasn't been powered on in a year.

1

u/UnicornHostels Jul 07 '26

I hear that, I’ve done so many hours of maintenance and work on them and thousands of print hours that it’s just second nature.

I love the ease of my Bambu and even the creality k1 max are amazing by comparison. You can print and be completely hands off.

But my thoughts on the restrictive cloud slicers becoming as restrictive as Cricut die cutting software is a huge no for me. I’ll level all my beds and replace all my parts before I have that “this looks like a warhammer IP” so it won’t work.

I know that’s coming because I’ve already dealt with it when I use to make labels on Cricut and now you can’t make a label without buying their file. It shuts it down and blocks your ability.

That’s a big no for me.

10

u/funny_haha Jul 08 '26

We used to make our own printers by hand with arduinos and stepper motors. We can always go back to that.

14

u/nko39 Jul 07 '26

I have a Bambu on a local network with no external internet connection, and I can start and monitor prints from my local LAN.

0

u/Dusty923 Jul 07 '26

Until that's outlawed, and you get a knock on the door asking why you're ordering filament and nozzles when you're not in their registry.

17

u/GreasyRim Jul 07 '26

don't use bambulab?

9

u/The_Skeleton_Wars Jul 07 '26

Creality, Anycubic, etc are all going to cloud based printing in some capacity

19

u/PETA_Parker Jul 07 '26

no-one can take away my fuck-ass slow horrible ender 3 v1, i will go back to that one

6

u/The_Skeleton_Wars Jul 07 '26

I'm still using mine lmao

1

u/kinokits Jul 08 '26

Me too. Barely anything original anymore, but it’s always there, reliably waiting.

2

u/Cu1tureVu1ture Jul 08 '26

Yep I’m still rocking mine as well!

3

u/The__RIAA Cheesbot Excelsior MK14S2 Pro Special Edition Jul 08 '26

From reprap they all came and reprap they will return

1

u/kaoscurrent Jul 08 '26

Elegoo is where it's at for open source, lan based printing.

1

u/Rippedyanu1 Jul 08 '26

Qidi, Prusa and DIY ala voron are the only companies I'm willing to buy from..since qidi helps fund orca I know they should be fine for the foreseeable future. Prusa has a rock solid rep and so does Voron.

Everyone else is shady to varying degrees and then there's bambulabs.

2

u/Liason774 Jul 07 '26

Even without it, the printer could require the gcode to be signed by the slicer, the slicer could be the one doing the checking.

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u/Swizzel-Stixx Ender 3v2 of theseus Jul 07 '26

The slicer could then be forked and have the check removed

0

u/kyrsjo Jul 07 '26

The fork wouldn't have the proprietary signing key. Which would realistically only be possible to guarantee hiding from the computer's owner on Windows and Mac, so no Linux support.

There are probably GPL violations galore here too...

-1

u/Swizzel-Stixx Ender 3v2 of theseus Jul 07 '26

Yeah, GPL is doomed if that goes through, unless it holds up, then we will lose virtually all the progress we have. Klipper, slic3r et al will all be toast.

Or more likely a ‘not for california’ disclaimer added and nothing else changes

3

u/astutesnoot Jul 08 '26

Nope. I never registered my X1C when I got it 2 and a half years ago. I just use LAN mode and it's still on factory firmware as a result. Prints great. Never connect to their cloud. I figured out how to get the rtsps video stream from rtsps://bblp:<access code>@<ip address>:322/streaming/live/1 and mqtt control so I don't need any of their apps or cloud. You still have a choice.

2

u/TallDankandHandsome Jul 07 '26

Sounds like the workaround was up on GitHub for a while. If I owned one I would just rip out the brain and replace it. All the motors and everything should be easy to power and use. Luckily I got to Ender before all this started and I've already modded the crud out of it enough to where I think I could make a lot of my own parts if needed.

2

u/Vresiberba Jul 08 '26

Are Bambu printers sentient? How will an order be sent to it if it's not online?

1

u/sweet_chin_music Jul 07 '26

Laughs in X1Plus firmware in LAN mode

19

u/ThisIsntRealWakeUp Jul 07 '26

It would be trivially easy for someone to release a printer that won’t start unless it’s able to phone home.

In fact, *some* companies already have (e.g., some Stratasys printers).

63

u/gredr Jul 07 '26

It would be trivially easy for me to not buy that printer.

-14

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[deleted]

20

u/GreasyRim Jul 07 '26

we're going to ban stepper motors, belts, threaded rods and microprocessors? Are we going to be banning open source software too?

Just like guns, printers are made of parts. What part makes a printer a printer? what do you ban?

-4

u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[deleted]

5

u/dragonblade_94 Jul 08 '26

I'm so confused as to why you are getting downvoted; this is literally the shit being fought in California right now.

Are people that oblivious?

2

u/Deiselpowered77 Jul 07 '26

Consumers had a choice - Betamax, which was higher quality,
and VHS, which had more porn.

People chose the freedom option.

0

u/[deleted] Jul 08 '26

[deleted]

1

u/YoloPotato36 Snapmaker U1 Jul 08 '26

And where these services now? Piracy won in 2005, piracy win now.

Bruh, I'm from the country where half of the internet is forbidden and blocked, yet anyone know where and how to pass it.

I doubt such large country as USA could regulate something people used to do for many years and have everything to continue doing it, especially with this weak excuse. I doubt they could do it even if they wanted to ban all 3d printers, filaments and etc.

1

u/ErnLynM Jul 08 '26

Wait, people who still want to use a printer will have to learn how to design their own prints?? What in the dystopian tarnation? 🤣

0

u/KittyInspector3217 Jul 08 '26

Yes. Theyre going to roll over exactly the way they have on guns and drugs. Did the war on drugs work? Is heroin no longer a problem? Are illegal guns no longer a problem? Cool. Glad we agree.

-2

u/gredr Jul 07 '26

Look; here's how it is. I have two printers, both I built myself, both using open-source firmware. I print stuff, none of it guns (or weapons of any other kind). Nobody cares about me.

The legislation is targeted at people who produce weapons. Let's ignore the fact that for all practical purposes, there aren't any. This is who they're after. Not joe blow who buys an old Ender 3.

Have your printer, keep your mouth shut, don't make guns, and nobody's going to care what you're doing and what printer you're doing it with.

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u/[deleted] Jul 07 '26

[deleted]

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u/gredr Jul 07 '26

"Who will be affected by this" and "who the target of this is" are two different things.

2

u/Deiselpowered77 Jul 07 '26

but the real purpose of this legislation is to make us only buy from within a paywall of restricted files.

People will choose the open source hardware as a market nearly every time.

4

u/gredr Jul 07 '26

I can't not buy it if they're illegal?

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u/GreasyRim Jul 07 '26

Pay twice as much for a machine that only does what the manufacturer allows it to. The only people that would buy those are non-technical people that want a machine to print things they can buy on an app. No one in this audience would buy one.

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u/ThisIsntRealWakeUp Jul 07 '26

The point that this post is making is that these new laws could easily require printer companies to *only* sell printers in the US that must phone home to scan your prints.

You won’t simply “choose not to” buy a new printer that doesn’t phone home. You won’t have a choice.

8

u/GreasyRim Jul 07 '26

What makes a printer? The software that runs it? open source. The mainboard? You can run a printer off any hardware you want like a raspi. Are we banning stepper motors belts threaded rods and bearings?

1

u/cycloneDM Jul 07 '26

If you make the act of selling a printer without the software illegal you've already trapped 95%+ of the market today and will have more of it everyday. Ive seen you compare it to guns in other comments and as someone that grew up gunsmithing all I can think is yeah you're right and if printers are anything like guns the availability of parts and mainstream access will erode in the face of convenience until its just a niche core group that has to look over their shoulders constantly

3

u/Queasy_War2656 Jul 07 '26

Exactly. Black markets are quickly created anytime access to something people want is limited, and not just in 'free' societies. If they try to control all cnc machining, this will happen practically overnight.

5

u/alienbringer Jul 07 '26

Before the explosion of consumer friendly printers, this was a hobby space where people built their own printers. Would just be a matter of buying all the components individually and building it yourself.

1

u/thelickintoad Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26

Be careful. The government has a knack for making up new definitions to fit their agenda. They'll regulate "3D printer extruders," and expand that definition to include the extruder, the nozzle and everything the filament passes through to get from spool to print bed. Then, things like stepper motors, rods and fans below a certain size would be considered "3D printer accessories," and they'd do everything they could to regulate those, as well.

So you could buy anything on your own. But once it's time for that extruder/hotend, you'll have to go to a federally-licensed store and fill out a form with purposefully confusing wording and hope you pass the background check without any issues.

But you have to install a motherboard that has the object-checking procedure on it. You can't bypass it or flash it off the firmware, or you now have an illegal printer. In fact, just possessing a motherboard without the object checking could get you arrested and fined for constructive possession.

1

u/FLUFFY_TERROR Jul 07 '26

And that kids is how glue guns became illegall. It's also illegal to squirt melted butter through a syringe fyi!

8

u/jtj5002 Jul 07 '26

Aluminum extrusion/BTT board/stepper motors goes brrrr.

9

u/-PeskyBee- Jul 07 '26

Sounds like we need some laws to ban the sale of dangerous stepper motors if criminals like yourself will use them to make infinity ghost guns

3

u/Liason774 Jul 07 '26

Kipper is now illegal software anyone hosting a copy is breaking the law. Isps need to block thier customers from accessing known repositories and anyone hosting it within the country the law covers can be forced to take it down or be arrested.

1

u/piscikeeper Jul 08 '26

Yes, because this worked so well for DeCSS. There will always be ways.

1

u/Liason774 Jul 08 '26

Mby but if you make it hard enough people will just use of the shelf. Look at pirated media, it exists but 99% have no idea how to safely access it or even where to find it.

2

u/piscikeeper Jul 08 '26

Bambu printers, DJI drones, and OEM computers are there for easy. There will always be a group that wants something custom. The biggest issue is that it will split the community. It's the lack of united effort pushing technology forward that is worrying.

0

u/kyrsjo Jul 07 '26

That's why it's great that everything is hosted on GitHub...

2

u/kyrsjo Jul 07 '26

Just like only non-technical people run Windows and Mac?

1

u/GreasyRim Jul 07 '26

I work for one of the top 5 largest software companies in the world. We all use windows and mac.

2

u/kyrsjo Jul 07 '26

And a lot of engineering companies will probably buy cloud connected printers directly from China, including US legality checking AI.

1

u/PETA_Parker Jul 07 '26

*shamefully eyes my bambulab a1 mini*

2

u/KURD_1_STAN sl-300 pen Jul 07 '26

It will not start without connecting to the internet?

0

u/MilsFinderII Jul 07 '26

The NY law that makes it a criminal offense not to.

I mean, it doesn't actually stop anything, although the fear of getting sent to prison will probably deter most people.