this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
1383 points (99.2% liked)
Technology
84646 readers
4414 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Ender 3 Pro is a completely offline printer. It has a microSD slot and a USB port, that's it. No network connectivoty at all. It runs Marlin firmware which is a long-standing Arduino-based open source 3D printer firmware. It's highly customizable and upgradable. I added a CR Touch bed probe to mine and rebuilt the firmware to enable the unified bed leveling features. It's not the most user friendly but it's a decent, cheap platform, fully open source, and puts out decent prints.
You can also run klipper on them if you want network connectivity. Granted you need a raspberry pi to run klipper so there is that.
After running klipper on my Ratrigs I can't even consider Marlin anymore. Modifying a config file and restarting is less painful than having to compile and flash a bin for every modification or update.
As another 3d printing noob, why would I want my 3d printer connected and be in the mercy of some company? Feels like this dependency makes it so you don't truly own the product.
LAN mode. I kind of understand why they do it because it just works. I gave my Sister my X1C and it was the first printer I felt comfortable with giving her family, because it just works.
Klipper wouldn't do that at all on its own. It basically just uses an external computer to run the printer, rather than purely using the printers microcontroller. So you can connect to the computer remotely/over wifi and control the printer if you set it up to do so. It also makes it easier to add extra stuff like cameras, heaters, power switches, etc. too since it all runs through that computer and knows what the printer is doing.
That's what I switched to about 2 months after getting my Ender 3 S1 Pro. Klipper running from a RPi, lets me push sliced files out over WiFi to the printer right from Orca. So much better than dealing with SD cards.