3D Printers with proprietary filaments?

[Wolfie]

The manufacturer then makes up the difference selling ink... errr... filament.

For the XYZ, flashing it over is fairly easy. Firewall the software and hardware, revert the firmware, use a flash chip to use any filament you want. Once you have the chip, 30 minutes at worst.

Exactly what I said, sell you their machine (cheap) and then force you to pay their prices for filament. You buy a printer once but you buy filament (ink) over and over and over.

I am sure flashing it is easy enough. Not my point.

Yep as marm says - drm based machines are often dirt cheap and decent kit.

So in some circumstances buying and jailbreaking is a good option.

The only circumstance where that is a good option is if you didn't know what you were getting when you bought it and don't have another option than to keep buying their filament.

Any other circumstance its a poor option. Knowingly buying a DRM printer is akin to feeding the fire. You are giving a company revenue and they are seeing sales numbers. That means they will continue in their path because of the sales. Only when they see sales curtailed will they see reason and change their practices.


The only way to force them to change is stop giving them money. Buying their printer and jailbreaking it is feeding them. Stop feeding the parasite and it will die.

This DRM discussion is precisely why I chose a Taz 5. All of its hardware, all of its software, everything about the machine is open source. All of it. No secrets. Nothing hidden. Nothing proprietary. I chose to feed that company and reward them for good behavior. The only power we have as consumers is our wallet. Opening it and giving it to a company with poor behavior because you know you can get around their poor behavior is not helping.