For many, brand-agnostic Orca Slicer was THE gold standard of 3D printing slicers. It’s a fork of Bambu Studio (which is itself a fork of Prusa Slicer), developed by SoftFever in 2022 when Bambu Lab was a young company with only one printer line, the X1, to its name. Because Orca was community-driven, it was quick to develop wild new features and offer them to users to test before they were fully stable and corporate-approved. Things like scarf seams, crosshatch infill, mouse ears, and a built-in suite of calibrations were introduced by Orca Slicer first.
It was a death blow to Orca users when Bambu Lab removed direct access to its cloud servers. Unlike other printers, Bambu Lab machines rely on cloud access to support their advanced features like remote monitoring and reading the filament in the AMS. In fact, it wouldn’t be until three months later, in March 2025, that a Bambu Lab printer would have a USB drive to facilitate moving print files without the internet. The X1, P1, and A1 series were all limited to hard-to-access microSD cards not intended for frequent access.
Though Bambu Lab offered up “Bambu Connect” to allow OrcaSlicer to send files, it severely limited users’ access to their own machines. OrcaSlicer could “see” your printer’s and AMS’s settings, but could not change anything. Changing the speed, temperature, or colors in the AMS required users to manually input data directly into the printer.
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Denise Bertacchi is a Contributing Writer for Tom\u2019s Hardware US, covering 3D printing. Denise has been crafting with PCs since she discovered Print Shop had clip art on her Apple IIe. She loves reviewing 3D printers because she can mix all her passions: printing, photography, and writing. ","collapsible":{"enabled":true,"maxHeight":250,"readMoreText":"Read more","readLessText":"Read less"}}), "https://slice.vanilla.futurecdn.net/13-4-22/js/authorBio.js"); } else { console.error('%c FTE ','background: #9306F9; color: #ffffff','no lazy slice hydration function available'); } Denise Bertacchi Social Links Navigation Freelance Reviewer Denise Bertacchi is a Contributing Writer for Tom’s Hardware US, covering 3D printing. Denise has been crafting with PCs since she discovered Print Shop had clip art on her Apple IIe. She loves reviewing 3D printers because she can mix all her passions: printing, photography, and writing.
warezme Seems BambuLab has lost its way. Reply
Key considerations
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Reference reading
- https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/SPONSORED_LINK_URL
- https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/developer-re-enables-3d-printer-features-that-bambu-lab-disabled-firm-promptly-threatens-legal-action-orcaslicer-bambulab-project-now-shuttered#main
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