Hacker News new | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit
userbinator | on: Reverse Engineering Bambu Connect
I'm not surprised that 3D printers are turning out to be as hostile as 2D ones. As usual these days, "security" is the excuse.
goda90 | parent | next
There's so much open source software, firmware, and hardware out there for FDM 3D printers, I doubt they'll ever get as bad as regular printers. It's much more a tinkerers world than 2D printing ever would be.
jopsen | root | parent
Are regular printers that bad, if buy brother?

I bought a B/W laser printer and have been generally impressed with the lack of BS that came a long with it.

It did ask for toner once, so I bought something from a third-party.

cuu508 | root | parent | next
Some are good, some are bad, buyer beware.

No direct experience, but I recently read[1] Brother HL-L3220CW counts printed pages, and refuses to print after a set number of pages, even if there's still toner in the cartridge. Some models have a way to reset the page count but this one apparently does not.

[1] https://spicausis-lv.translate.goog/2025/01-brother/?_x_tr_s...

(I also use a Brother B/W laser printer, got it second hand for almost nothing, works fine)

loading story #42766664
wongarsu | root | parent | next
I've only made good experiences with laser printers, from very small ones to full-sized copy machines. Some of the more expensive inkjet printers are reportedly also quite good. You are still stuck with the usual horror show that is software from hardware companies, but otherwise it's not so bad. And the occasional paper jam, but 3d printers are no better in terms of reliability

The bad reputation is just from HP's tactic to sell printers cheaper than everyone else, in more stores than anyone else, then make the money back with the scummiest tactics imaginable.

DrBenCarson | root | parent
Yep laser printers are the equivalent of modern CoreXY printers with solid auto calibration
loading story #42767876
loading story #42770543
rustcleaner | parent | next
With 3D printing out for a while now, there's zero good reason IMHO that there isn't a 2D-plotter retrofit which allows someone to attach one or more [colored] pencils or pens. I'm really shocked the overpriced ink monopolies weren't attacked in this manner, as a young child I distinctly remember a kiosk in a grocery store which 'printed' messages and images on blank cards using colored pencils, for customer order. None of this is remotely new.
krisoft | root | parent | next
> there's zero good reason IMHO that there isn't a 2D-plotter retrofit which allows someone to attach one or more [colored] pencils or pens

This is a thing. Obviously.

https://urish.medium.com/how-to-turn-your-3d-printer-into-a-...

Only a randomly selected tutorial.

> I'm really shocked the overpriced ink monopolies weren't attacked in this manner,

Inkjet and laser printers easily print whole page 300 DPI raster images in seconds. Plotters need vectorial data and their printing speed depends on how complicated what you are printing. These things simply don’t serve the same use case. You can do nice art and heart warming cards with a plotter, but you can’t hit print on your boarding card / dhl label / word document and expect your plotter to give you what you see on your screen.

> None of this is remotely new.

I agree that none of this is remotely new. Plenty of people tinker with plotters for fun and profit. There are even pre-packaged consumer centric solutions where you pay the price of convenience with lack of freedoms. (See the similar debacle around the Cricut plotters.)

bsder | root | parent
> I'm really shocked the overpriced ink monopolies weren't attacked in this manner

Because those of us who understand mostly don't care. Those who know bought a Brother laser printer and got on with life.

When those who understand need genuine inkjet prints, we go to a store that owns a printer that is several orders of magnitude better than we will ever need and pay them a pittance to get it printed.

That having been said, I really do wish we had an open source laser printer because, at some point, Brother is going to pull this same bullshit.

gjsman-1000 | parent
Admittedly, the printing system for 2D Printers is a nightmare. Windows Secured Core PCs, for example, disable all 3rd party printing drivers and only support open driverless standards for printing like Mopria. According to people who have looked at it, let’s just say CUPS in macOS and Linux is not very likely to be a paragon of security, having an RCE scare 3 months ago.

If the printing stacks within operating systems are trash, who knows what horrors your network-connected printer firmware has. (Locking down 3rd party ink cartridges in the name of security - what’s an ink cartridge going to do? Buffer overflow the data it sends to the printer? Oh wait, maybe the printer is that dumb and we’re overthinking this, and it’s more inexcusable than first glance suggests.)