X1plus community Bambu Lab firmware - A win for everyone?

bamboo lab have closed Source proprietary firmware until now today we're covering everything you need to know about X1 plus Community firmware and why it's a good thing even if you never intend to use [Music] [Music] it about three weeks ago I was sent an invitation to join a closed Discord server for a group of people who have been reverse engineering bamboo lab firmware for the last week I've been testing the result of their work the custom X1 Plus firmware and from that as well as extensive conversations with the devs I bring you this video my aim is to give you all the knowledge you need to decide whether to try it or not and explain why it's a good thing even if you don't want to let's start with the obvious question what exactly is X1 Plus in short it's a custom Community firmware for the X1 series 3 ready printers why only the X1 well the hardware on it runs Linux and the other printers do not as we'll cover in this video it adds new features allows more access in control added security and a different user interface it also will be published open source so anyone can look through check the source code and make sure everything is safe that also means that contributions can come from all over the community which will greatly accelerate development the next question people will have is who is behind x1+ they are all bamboo lab customers who have purchased x1's with their own money they're happy with their printers have used them extensively and appreciate the engineering work of bamboo lab but they also have their own ideas for features and functionality that they wish to contribute to the X1 and this project is their way of achieving that and contrary to some rumors they're not doing anything illegal they respect and do not distribute any of bamboo lab's intellectual property in their firmware it's natural to assume that a group busting open close source firmware might be malicious hackers but based on everything that I've seen it's simply not the case so with that in mind we'll answer how exactly does X1 Plus work the first thing to know is that you can only install it if you have 1.7.0 firmware or earlier so if you do want to try this don't update past firmware version 1.7.0 anything newer will remove the possibility on versions 17 Z and earlier an exploit is used to jailbreak the AP board as this bamboo lab Wiki explains the AP board is the application board and it controls the interaction of information within the whole printer the only change x1+ makes to this AP board is to install a bootloader with the custom firmware actually being installed onto an SD card its structure is that the bamboo lab firmware is still there with x1+ being a layer on top where the enhancements and customization is added let's look at how this concept Works in practice when we power on the printer the bootloader comes to life and by default after 10 seconds x1+ will be loaded from the SD card we'll then see a custom loading screen for x1+ followed by the user interface for the printer except our custom version however due to this structure we have more than one option we can still boot directly to the OEM bamboo lab firmware that's still on the AP board we just need to select startup options and then press one of the options for starting the built-in firmware this will prompt a warning and this is important because if you were to update the factory firmware in this state the boot loader will be wiped and you'll lose access to x1+ so assuming you understand this you can still boot back into the original firmware on the AP board this setup is just like dual booting a computer where you can launch into multiple operating systems in fact this is what Apple uses for their boot camp software except here our choice is between the X1 firmware on the SD card or the OEM firmware still on the AP board the next question is how hard is it to install I think installation is really straightforward and can be completed in 10 minutes the first thing we need to do is prepare an SD card 32 GB is recommended we then format it in FAT32 and insert it into the touchcreen of the printer we then retrieve the Lan only access code we find this in the settings menu of the printer under General and we write it down we now run the computer based installer where we select our printer and input that code this will feel familiar as the UI is designed in the same way as the printer's touchscreen the final thing to do on the computer is to read the warnings and then tick the box if you'd like to proceed the installer will update you on the progress and after a few minutes the rest of the process takes place on the printer once we click install we're given another warning and after that everything is completely automatic when it's done you'll have confirmation telling you to reboot the machine and when you're do it will load into the new firmware the obvious question we haven't covered yet is what are the perks why would we do this already in its early State there are quite a lot of benefits benefits the first are more transparent Diagnostics like when leveling the bed or running resonance compensation from the utilities menu we can run the bed leveling procedure this will run the usual a sequence but with X1 plus we'll get some feedback when complete we can tap on the results and see a graphical representation personally the a does a great job of my X1 but if you were having first layer issues this will help you diagnose it's a similar story when running the vibration compensation tuning when complete our results will be shown and we can click on them to get a graph like we see in Clipper this might let you determine the best place to put the AMS or perhaps work out the effects of belt tension a completely new feature is setting up a lock screen this extends the functionality of the screen saver and at the moment we have an option for either a slider or a passcode both of these are handy options if you have your printer sitting somewhere with young children or perhaps in a public place like a school or library for those interested in security there's a special mode just for them we can have full Cloud connectivity the usual land mode from the stock firmware but in X1 plus a land plus Shield mode which blocks outgoing connections at the kernel level on top of this we get a command terminal and SSH access the terminal on the touchscreen will let you run commands for the Linux operating system and a root password can be enabled from the touchscreen and then you can use your favorite SSH client to navigate the Linux operating system finally when the time comes that bamboo lab move on from the X1 it's quite likely that the community will continue to support the printer and release new updates already that's pretty good but there is more planned for the future the team are planning to allow the user to customize the touchscreen interface and this is already underway as well making this video I put in a feature request to change the logo on the home screen which as you can see is already in place this also plans to allow ethernet using a USB dongle and that's because the AP board currently has an unused USB port using using x1+ will also allow completely offline firmware Updates this is another feature that's pretty much already in place as I've used it twice to update to the latest version of X1 plus the developers are hoping to gain access to the tool head camera and that should allow some pretty interesting time-lapse videos they're also aiming that the user can see the visualization of the first layer liar scan and finally in case you didn't know it's a long running joke and challenge for developers to try and Port Doom to all kinds of crazy Hardware so once the source code is public perhaps we can expect Doom playable on our x1's and in the interest of balance let's explore downsides and risks one thing you won't find on this list is any loss of Base functionality in every conceivable way this is still a 3D printer that functions exactly as it did before I've done a lot of test Printing and there's no difference in print quality the AMS and all of its menus are completely supported working like always the printer remains 100% compatible with oras slicer as well as bamboo Studio stud the bamboo handy mobile app also retains all of its functionality also once gel broken each X1 Plus firmware update is based on the latest firware released from bamboo lab so you won't miss out on anything there either so here are the actual downsides first and foremost running custom firmware will affect your warranty I've linked the warranty in the description and it does explicitly name unofficial firmware and any damage related to it not being covered under the warranty but it also is worth mentioning that outside of Eur Switzerland and Norway the warranty period for the rest of the world is only 1 year so there's a chance your warranty has already expired I'd also like to point out that this is a completely reasonable and understandable step from bamboo lab with the access this firmware gives a user who didn't know what they were doing could really break things and it shouldn't be on bamboo lab to rescue them as with any firmware there's also some bugs there's a known issue with missing text on this AMS screen that doesn't affect functionality and I uncovered a bug myself where asking asking to reprint the job that just finished would give an error saying the G-Code wasn't compatible with the machine the main thing that's frustrated me is the slower boot time because it feels like it's stuck on this screen after the boot loader for at least 30 seconds you might point out that the X1 plus team is currently unknown but at least when their firmware is released anyone will be able to check for malicious code another reason against is that you just don't have any interest in these additional features which is fair enough like with any firmware update there's a non-zero risk that you could Breck your machine and finally the future of x1+ is unknown a community may form or all of the developers might just lose interest and it stops being a thing the work of the X1 plus team has given them unprecedented knowledge of bamboo lab so let's address some conspiracy theories whenever I test a bamboo lab printer the conspiracy theories come out people think it's sponsored or that bamboo lab have editorial control let me tell you that is absolutely not true bamboo lab have no problem with my review policy and here are the bits that count from the NDA I signed when testing the A1 bamboo love encourage unbiased and honest feedback I don't receive any money or Goods beyond the printer I don't even have to make a video if I don't want to and my only restriction is not talking about it before the release date so that's what I can reveal but what of the X1 plus team learned while reverse engineering the firmware they tell me the bamboo lab Engineers are talented and produce high quality work that the firmware updates frequently patch security issues including the 171 patch which closes the possibility of this firmware working printer logs are not sent without user permission and according to them there's no evidence that land mode is connecting to the cloud no evidence of firmware theft and no evidence in general of any dishonesty the X1 plus team are hoping that the release will debunk some of the accusations that are thrown around so a lot of people bought an X1 because they didn't want a 3D printer to Tinker with so understandably they might have no interest in trying this custom firmware so let me explain why x1+ can benefit those those who will never use it in case you didn't know most of the modern slicers originate from slick 3r prucha slicer is built on this and then bamboo studio is forked from that and finally we have the community Fork of bamboo studio called oraser but even if you've only been using bamboo Studio you've been benefiting from the community work of Ora slicer and we can see this if we come to the releases for bamboo Studio most of the recent releases have code ported from Ora slicer sometimes these are bug fixes sometimes these are complete new features the point is even if you've only used vanilla bamboo lab software the community has enhanced your experience so even if you only ever use vanilla bamboo lab firmware if X1 plus is able to survive you will likely see improvements and new features for the stock firmware that come from the community such as the lock screen and that's the power of the community and open source I'd like to finish with my thoughts on what might happen next it's extraordinary how successful bamboo lab have become since launching the X1 but one knck has always been that people didn't like the Clos Source firmware X1 plus is a ray of light for those people and potentially expands bamboo lab's customer base but anyone who's done a recent update will have lost the means to try it out therefore some cooperation is needed from bamboo lab perhaps one model for success is demonstrated by prusia who allow you to run custom firmware but to do so you have to break a tab on the main board understandably this does void your warranty but the user will have the freedom to experiment as they please of course bamboo lab has features on the X1 that they were first to bring to Market and to protect those perhaps some work would need to take place before handing over the keys to the firmware to the community so it's not like bamboo lab can give the green light instantly in the last week I've had extensive discussion with the devs of X1 plus and I did speak directly to Bamboo lab CEO Dr to I was able to help put them in direct contact with each other so all you can do now is hope that they can find a solution that makes everyone happy let me know in the comments what do you think of the idea of community firmware for bamboo lab printers and also what you think will happen next thank you to the X1 plus Dev team for inviting me to their server and allowing me to try their firmware thank you so much for watching till the end and until next time happy 3D printing good day it's Michael again if you like the video then please click like if you want to see more content like this in future click subscribe and make sure you click on the Bell to receive every notification if you really want to support the channel Channel and see exclusive content become a patron visit my patreon page see you next time

Channel: Teaching Tech

Views: 189,709

Keywords: 3d printing, 3d print, 3d printed, 3d printer, bambu lab, bamboo lab, bl, x1, x1c, x1 carbon, p1p, p1s, s1, s1 mini, firmware, open source, x1plus, community, cracked, jailbreak, jailbroken, hacked, rumour, safe, install, installation, tested, bug, review, lan mode, security, privacy, cloud, stl, log, decrypt, decryption, encrypt, encrypted, custom, upgrade, sd card, how to, tutorial, risk, benefits, features, troubleshooting, ccp, conspiracy, china, shield, roadmap

Id: Oio2ibz7rMw

Length: 13min 38sec (818 seconds)

Published: Fri Jan 05 2024