Chris Russell ⚙️Practical Printing

Hi Corey, you mentioned getting DMs from every direction on this. So this reply is partly to you, partly to that broader conversation and comments on both of your posts, because some of what's flying around needs context. It unfortunately isn't that easy. Price is primarily set by the bill of materials. I can't make parts cheaper just by wanting it harder. And there's nothing extra on CORE One, every part has a job. Strip any part and you get a different printer. What most people would not expect and many actually think it is a solution: manufacturing in China doesn't fix this either. Take an entry-level Chinese printer apart, quote the same parts in China at 100k+ volume, the parts alone cost more than the printer sells for in the West. Where is the sense in retail below parts cost? Do this long enough and price perception is permanently skewed. Some of what props it up: 0% interest loans, multi-year tax holidays, free land, free factories, 200% R&D tax deductions. And at the wild end, the state pays consumers back ~15% of the printer's price as a rebate. They are literally running out of ways to push more money into the propped industries. None of that is available to any Western company manufacturing in the West, or even trying to manufacture in China. And this isn't just a 3D printing problem. Same playbook took solar, drones, batteries, EVs. Now it's working on robotics. 3D printing would be done if we wouldn't be soo stubborn💪 About the “competitiveness“ I keep seeing in the replies. God I hate that word. Part of every conversation about every industry, especially in the EU. It’s shifting the problem to western industry side. Real problem is China breaking the WTO rules the next day after joining. So an $899 CORE One isn't a price decision. And unfortunately the "what if" framing, however hopeful, reinforces exactly the view that's hurting us in too many people's eyes. Complex and heavy topic, but tried to add some context.

Right now CORE Ones we make in USA have already locally sourced packaging, fasteners and printed parts. Next in line is sheet metal but currently the best offer we got is 2,5x the cost we have in Europe. Happy to get tips for east coast suppliers but we can have larger radius as we have train dock in the factory. But both EU and USA machines are already TAA Compliant. If anyone wants to take a look and help us build the supply chain for fully made in USA printer full cad is here printables.com/model/1520471-…

HUGE NEWS! California AB2047 - the bill aimed at requiring 3d printers to have blocking software, has been GUTTED - and this is directly related to the incredible work @David_Tobin has been doing in the state, working with the California Handgun Association and the ACLU. THIS IS HUGE. David is talking about this on his Instagram - instagram.com/david_tobin Updates soon on the channel, and see the fiscal breakdown that was instrumental at the3dprintingnerd.com/ab2047

Love ya bud but you're wrong on this one. Your perception of price value is simply dictated by what you've seen of the competition: 1) Those prices are artificially propped up by government subsidy / incentive 2) The difference in volume of machines coming from China vs Prusa is so unbelievably skewed towards China that despite all the shenanigans BBL pulls it still doesn't really make a dent, trust me, nobody is going out of business there. 3) This thinking perpetuates the race to the bottom. Today you feel like $899 is the number. Next year it could be $700 or $500 or who knows based on whatever other aggressive pricing comes from the east. Believe me, Prusa absolutely wants to be competitive, they're not pricing it higher intentionally just to be greedy, they're at the numbers they're at because thats what their business and costs require right now. Thats how tipped the scales are in favor of fabricating in the east. Don't get me wrong, choosing to buying the best bang for your buck is perfectly valid, I blame no one for it, but it comes with the compromise of ethics sometimes and thats a personal decision for all to evaluate how important company values are to them. Blood diamonds are a hell of a lot cheaper too, doesn't mean we want everyone producing them that way.

@BeardedPrinter @mypeopoly @Voron_Design Sorry… someone had to…

@mypeopoly @Voron_Design That thing is almost as big as my ego!

Giga 800, May 14th 2026 @Voron_Design #Peopoly #Industrial3dprinting

BambuStudio has been violating PrusaSlicer AGPL license since their fork, with the same networking binary black box in question today. Why are they willing to burn the goodwill over it? There's something most have sensed but never seen it all in one place, the five-law framework China built between 2017 and 2023 ⤵️ So maybe their hand is forced as their "network" is too valuable already? Each law on its own, interesting, okay... Read them together, and add any Chinese company with big reach to the mix you get the complete picture. 1) National Intelligence Law (2017) All organizations and citizens must "support, assist, and cooperate" with intelligence work. The same law makes it illegal to disclose that cooperation happened. Cooperation is mandatory, and silence about it is mandatory too. 2) Cryptography Law (2020) Commercial encryption must be state-approved and state-reviewed. When authorities request it, companies must provide decryption keys or plaintext. The state on both sides of that equation is the same one. 3) Data Security Law (2021) Article 2 gives the state extraterritorial reach over data that touches Chinese national security or public interests. So EU/US data hosting does nothing to make it safe, because jurisdiction follows the company, not the server location. 4) Counter-Espionage Law revision (2023) The general definition of espionage was expanded to cover "documents, data, materials, or items related to national security and interests." Industrial data is one of the intended targets since the revision. 5) Network Product Security Vulnerability regulation (2021) Any company or researcher that discovers a software vulnerability must report it to MIIT within 48 hours. From there it flows to CNNVD (China National Vulnerability Database of Information Security), operated by the 13th Bureau of the Ministry of State Security. Microsoft's threat intelligence team documented Chinese state-hacker zero-day usage rising after this took effect. Shows the willingness to use the “tools” China built. Together they describe a system with no neutral exits. Cooperation is required, encryption is real but the spare keys live at the ministry, jurisdiction follows the company across borders, industrial data is in scope, and discovered vulnerabilities flow to an intelligence agency 😬 3D printing became strategic for China in 2020 and joined the “Made in China 2025” plan soon after. Why does 3D printing matter so much? 1/x

@drewrog @HotMakesLive @NASA @josefprusa new project for you when ready?

Ground control to Major Tom… Here’s the first full print of the NASA chess set. There are a few tweaks that must be made (mostly sizing and tolerances with the board) but overall I’m pretty pleased with it. #hotmakes @HotMakesLive @NASA

Han Bear is now free for everyone over on @printablescom printables.com/model/1565704-…

I *finally* made a video about my game - Orange Banana. Give it a try, it's free to download! youtu.be/Yl_c_7BILE0

New model Nemo's Gambit Ready for some paint and ready to be shared. #3Dprinting

Happy #StarWarsDay! In honor of this magnificent day the Mining Guild TIE Fighter kit card is now available for everyone to download. May the 4th Be With You! (links in the replies)

Nemo＇s Gambit by Bugman_140 printables.com/model/1710364-… (via @printablescom)

Bambu Global needs to withdraw their legal threat against the OrcaSlicer dev allowing people to use their Bambu printer how they want to by restoring functionality that previously existed. Bambu wouldn’t even exist without all the open source they “borrowed” only to refactor and lock down behind closed source completely against the spirit of the GPL in our maker community, all while giving nothing back to the community that made their products possible in the first place. I honestly wish more content creators would speak up when Bambu pulls crap like this, but sadly Bambu spends more marketing dollars on “sponsoring” influencers than any other 3D printing company out there IMHO to silence as much negative feedback as possible, and it unfortunately works a lot of the time, especially with smaller influencers who can’t afford the hardware outright. I hope one day Bambu stops this constant bad behavior, but I doubt they will since they keep getting rewarded for it sadly since our community is easily preyed upon by bad actors. Huge shout out to Louis Rossmann for offering $10k for the OrcaSlicer dev’s defense against Bambu Global. I know the rest of the community that isn’t under Bambu’s thumb will also happily chip in a few bucks as well (myself included). Bambu seems to think most open source project devs don’t have the money to defend themselves against predatory companies like them, and sadly they would be right for most of them. But if you poke a big enough project hard enough to get global attention and start trending, the community sometimes will come together to raise the funds to ensure justice is served. Sadly, large predatory companies only care about one thing at the end of the day and that is money. This means the only way we can get them to do the right thing is to make the right thing cheaper than the bad thing they’re currently doing. Then they will make the change and publicly act like they did it for altruistic reasons when in reality it was because they were forced too. Repost this if you can & let’s get as many eyes on this as we can!!! ✊🏻 #3dprinting youtu.be/qLLVn6XT7v0?si…

Pulled 5 years of @prusament QC data because "±20μm tolerance" is the spec everyone claims without blinking these days 😏 Turns out ±20μm is our worst case scenario, not our spec. 98.7% within ±10μm. 30.7% within ±1μm 😎 More stats incoming, tolerance is just a small part of the equation for real print quality 💡 Can you guess what is even more important? In the meantime, check out the new video ⤵️

This is about as uneducated and grounded in Orwellian fiction as trying to prohibit keyboards from being able to generate the characters of “SHIT FUCK GOD DAMN”

The Kickstarter ploy here is what's gross. Last year at a Formnext party, a Chinese founder was bragging after a few drinks that he got his factory and land free from the government, I just checked, of course they ran a KS too 🤦 The playbook is simple: wait until the new tech has all the dead ends solved, start a company, take the subsidies and tax breaks, and milk the Western community. The new Creality IPO paperwork is a rare glimpse into how this works, if anyone wants to dig. But it is very surface level. For deeper research into this topic you'll need a Chinese phone, bank account, etc to access most of the source. Because of course - no one can fact check this way or if local, get into trouble 😬 (My father couldn't even study before '89, the communists took our family's property two generations earlier.) Since I started saying publicly that we're researching this, a lot of previously public documents have quietly disappeared 🤔 The CCP state support worked too well. In the last 6 years the desktop market got wiped, 95% China, the remaining 5% is Prusa. The billions being dumped into it are not just for the benefit of the Western consumer. I should do a longer write up after Makerfaire Prague! BTW It would be too funny if these are the guys we caught in our locked private room checking the CORE One INDX prototype the night before the Formnext reveal 🤣

If you or your kids have an iPhone go install SOLVD from Apple Marketplace right now. It's a free math game created by my bro @joeltelling. I have to admit it's pretty damn addictive & he's looking for feedback & reviews. This is going to take off! 🍿 apps.apple.com/us/app/solvd/i…

So instead of just doing a thing, I finished a thing. My homage to the Balboa Park Botanical Building as a bird feeder. The building is a San Diego treasure and I tried to capture its look and feel while still maintaining usability and print-ability. I think it works. Printed in @GreenGate3D R-PETG (Sandman Tan and Coffee). The perches are 2mm copper rod. @HotMakesLive @TheEdgeofTeck #hotmakes