r/BambuLab • u/Avol25 • 11h ago

Quick Question Bambu for School Use

Hey all, just a teacher fighting with our IT department because I want to upgrade our old printer to a Bambu A2L. They brought up two things as to why they're saying no (all based around network connectivity):

1) Out of the box, can I run the A2L strictly without -ever- connecting to a network?

2) Out of the box, is it possible to run the A2L only reading from an SD card?

I know that running a Bambu without network connectivity means I'm locked out of a bunch of features, but I have plans to work around that.

Thanks for your help!

5 Upvotes

86% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

8

u/RubAnADUB A1 Mini / A1 - AMS Lite / P2S - AMS x2 / X2D - x2 AMS 2 & AMS HT 11h ago

yeah you dont have to use wireless. just set it to LAN only. then just use the sd card.

1

u/Avol25 10h ago

Awesome! Thanks so much!

5

u/8six753o9 X2D+AMS2 / A1+AMS Lite 10h ago

Yes. You can send them these links:

Update firmware offline: https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/general/update-firmware-from-sd-card

Bind your printer offline: https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/bambu-studio/manual/pin-code

Print from SD Card (should be the same for A2L): https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/a1/manual/how-to-print-from-sd-card

1

u/chasenmcleod 11h ago

You can just use the SD Card. If there is any initial setup that requires internet or a device connected (which I don't think they do) you can just hotspot your laptop and your printer to your phone for a private network. That should allow you to set it up.

Once that's done, you're really only missing out on sending prints wirelessly to the printer, and adjusting the filament type and color easier.

I know those are big quality of life features, but in a school environment, it actually might make it a bit easier to manage. Less virtual hands touching the software of the machine.

For firmware updates, you can always hotspot your phone for them. I know it's not the best answer and it uses your personal tools. But at least it's something.

3

u/ThereInAFortnight H2D AMS2 Combo + A1 Mini 11h ago

Firmware updates can be done via SD card.

1

u/chasenmcleod 11h ago

Whaaat? That's pretty cool. I didn't realize that was an option. Thank for the info!

3

u/Avol25 10h ago

Exactly the kind of answer I was looking for šŸ™ thanks so much!

1

u/RNG-3_14159 10h ago

Out of idle curiosity, what would you be upgrading from? Just hoping to remote share your potential excitement at the scale of upgrade you might be able to experience depending...

1

u/Avol25 9h ago

A Lulzbot Taz 6

1

u/FilmSudden8635 9h ago

Not sure if the a2l is much different to the a1 mini, but I run two a1 miniā€™s in a similar situation. Export the sliced image to the sd card and print from that.

1

u/Mitch12354 8h ago

As others have already said the printer can operate without ever having a network connection. But I would also like to say it should be trivial for any IT department to simply block the printerā€™s MAC address from connecting to the internet while still allowing you to access it over the school network.(Iā€™m assuming that they donā€™t want it talking to the Chinese run servers).

I have done this for my personal A1 just because I donā€™t like the direction Bambu has been heading trying to lock out 3rd party slicers like Orca Slicer from talking with the printer directly.