this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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Great move by Snapmaker. In considering buying a new printer soon I am very annoyed by how difficult it is to know beforehand how much functionality of a printer is locked behind cloud connectivity that can be remotely disabled at any point. I know Bambu is to avoid absolutely thanks to the very public backlash they got but what about the others?
I know Prusa is a shining example of letting their customers own their devices but they are pricy. I didn't know Snapmaker had the same kind of mentality until now thanks to that move.
As the owner of a Snapmaker2 A150 (that is, one of their second-gen multifunction devices, fairly old now), I can say that my experience with it has been decent enough. It speaks a lightly modified Marlin dialect and can be run completely offline. New firmware requires user permission. They did release the source for the firmware and for their custom slicer (not worth it), and some of the more adventurous owners did manage to flash it with modified firmware. There were a few complaints at the time about the hardware not being as open as people had hoped, mostly because of custom connectors and the like.
Hardware-quality-wise, it was kneecapped by needing to be solid enough for CNC, so it's slower and heavier than a purpose-built printer would need to be, but the prints are of decent enough quality for a device of its age and type.
Could you please give your thoughts on its milling and laser capabilities? Do you own the 4th axis rotary?
The A150 is too small to mount the rotary—you need at least an A250, but there were no longer any of the midsize units available by the time I hit the kickstarter and I didn't have the space for the A350, so I opted for the smallest model.
Embarassingly, I've used it mostly as a 3D printer. The blue diode laser originally shipped with the unit is a decent etcher but too weak to cut through anything very thick (best I've heard of anyone managing was 1/4" of wood, and that took a lot of passes and patience on their part), and it has some limitations on what materials it will handle (I'd have to scour the forum for details, because it's been a while). I didn't buy the more powerful laser that later became available as an add-on. Unless their software has improved a lot since the last version I downloaded, you'll need 3rd party software to make the most of it.
I never actually tried milling with it because of potential dust removal issues, but according to reports it once again suffers here from being a compromise device with limited software. The frame isn't quite as rigid as a dedicated CNC, the bits are Dremel-sized and a bit fragile due to that, and the provided software I have won't, for instance, handle what should be simple tasks like drilling all-vertical holes or doing multiple passes with different-sized bits. Unlike the laser, I can't recall any reports of anyone using alternative CAM software for the CNC, but it's been a couple of years since I last looked.
In the end it's kind of like a Swiss Army knife: great if you have limited space (my issue) and just want to try stuff out, but if you can manage it you're better off with dedicated machines for each function.
Thank you for the thorough response!
It's unfortunate that the design compromises result in a tool with limited usability. I'm slightly interested in the desktop mills and lasers but haven't done much research on them. Your comment about printing being slow actually perked my ears up as that suggests increased rigidity needed for milling. It sounds like if I ever do decide to get a tiny mill or laser, I'm better off with a purpose built machine.
As for software, G-code for a specific machine is all about the post at the professional level. Unfortunately, pro-grade CAM is around $20k a seat. A good post is often $4k or a lot of time painfully producing and testing it yourself. CAM/CAD is the only thing keeping me from Linux at work and on my primary home PC. I wasn't impressed with the 1.0 release of FreeCAD. The UI still seems to be designed by aliens.
(Lemmy weirdness: I only received notification of your response last night.)