Ender 3 Pro, maybe its time to move on...

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Soldato
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Mate of mines just gone and gotten himself a Bamboo Labs X1 Carbon with the AMS, fair to say even though my E3P is modded, I'm not going to hit the speeds or usefulness of the AMS on it, so, time to move on..
Question is, with this recent BL locking stuff down, am I going to end up going down a road with no return, or roadblocks in the way?

So, are there other just as, or more, capable printers that have AMS, but are Klipper based, or should I just bite the bullet?
 
I did this move 2 years ago where I upgraded from an Ender 3v2 to the Bambu X1C and like most, it just changed the way 3D printing works for me. It went from something I tinker with to effectively another workshop tool at my disposal. Gone are the days of tinkering to keep the printer printing well and I really don't miss it! The Bambu is an impressive bit of tech that will give you near perfect prints almost every time in waaaaay more filament types than I'd have ever managed to print on an Ender.

My opinion here is just that, my own opinion and formed from my own experience of this printer so far; I'm sure I'm likely being quite dismissive or short sighted here but I really don't get what the big deal is with people up in arms about Bambu locking things down recently. From day 1, Bambu has always been a closed ecosystem. It's never been a secret and for me, that's where the real value of the Bambu is. Their printer's work incredibly well with parts they control, using their own filament which is sliced in their own take on a slicer (a fork of Prusa slicer) using their own pre-defined filament profiles. I only use Bambu filament now with Bambu Studio and in two years I've only had issues with ASA initially that required a small tweak to the profile and has been flawless ever since. I'm aware of Orca Slicer but haven't had any reason to even consider downloading it. My understanding is that it's a toss up as to whether the developer previews of Bambu Studio or Orca get new features first or perform a given feature better but at the end of the day they all make it into the regular Bambu Studio anyway and for the kind of printing I do, I can't think of a situation where Bambu Studio has been lacking. Obviously your mileage or experience may vary here.

The only other thing to consider is privacy. Using Bambu out the box with Bambu Studio may open up a potential privacy concern for you because all your prints are sent to the cloud before being printed. Obviously there is LAN only mode to cut out the cloud bit but I think you lose out on spaghetti detection and maybe some other features (please correct me if I'm wrong here). Me personally have no issue with this and frankly don't care if Bambu can see me printing the 18th variation of a wall hook :p

I'd say if any of this is a deal breaker for you then the Creality K2 Plus with filament switcher is where you probably should be looking. I have a friend who's just purchased this and it's also an incredible bit of tech, one I hope will push Bambu to up their game with their next machine.
 
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What’s your budget?

At the very top of the range arguably the most capable multicolor and multi material printer is the Prusa XL. Almost zero waste, five colours or filament types, 15sec to change colour instead of 1min+. Fastest multicolour printer.

Plus many people don’t know this but you can print from a browser or app with prusa printers (prusa connect and EasyPrint), their ecosystem is very good now.

Other ones not mentioned yet is the new elegoo centari carbon with its filament system. Prints are looking really good on it and price is great, but it’s only just released.
 
At the minute I'm looking at options, I would prefer Klipper, as that's what I have on the E3p, but I'm not married to it, if something else works just as well then that's fine.
Sending stuff to the cloud before print, not overly keen on that, why do they need to know what I'm printing?

Budget wise, I can spend the money for the X1C with AMS, I'd rather not have to spend the thick end of £1300 but, if that's whats needed and its going to last me then I can break it down to £xxx per year over x years to justify the cost to the FD...
 
So, had a quick internet poke, and the Elegoo doesn't seem to have a multifilament system, so looks like the K2 Plus, or the X1C so far...
 
Leaning back towards the X1C, the K2+ is huge, not sure I've got that much space...
 
Not building my own printer tbh, while tinkering is always fun, I think I need something that's just a take it out of the box, chuck filament in it, and hit print these days..
 
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