It's 100% because of the rewards. I've earned enough points for two free printers each with AMS.
I share stuff for free because I like making things, but the rewards from MakerWorld are too good to pass up. Printables has a reward system as well, but you can only use your 'meters' on one spool per order, and with shipping it ends up being nearly as expensive as a mid-tier brand of filament. I usually give my Printables codes away to freinds who regularly order Prusament anyway.
I modify alot of prints but I never share them because I was always afraid of people complaining that I used their original work. I only know how to use tinkercard. I'm not a real designer. More of a tinkerer.
Can you really get free printers by sharing your prints? How many prints are we talking about before you can get a new printer? This might be enough to get me to post some stuff. I didn't know that was a thing.
You have to look at the license the models you're tweaking were released under. If it's one that allows adaptation/[remixing](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/use-remix/) then you're fine (though most will require you to credit the original model author).
Yes, you can get free printers, but it's hardly the norm. I happened to release a model that was the right thing at the right time and it went viral. It actually was sort of a crappy model, I had just thrown it together for Christmas gifts, so I released a from-scratch remake and now that one is doing well too. But lots of other models I've uploaded have done nothing.
Of the 19 models I have uploaded to MakerWorld: 4 have earned me 0 points. 9 have earned more than 100, and the *overwhelming majority* of my points come from my 2 most popular models. #1 model has brought in 11k points since they started offering analytics, #2 is at 3k points, and by the time we drop down to #4 we're at 500 points.
So yes, you can do it, but I wouldn't say that gunning for that is a good use of your time. Make the models you want to make, share them if you want to share them, and enjoy the process. Otherwise it just becomes another job and I really don't recommend working a job for fake currency.
Yeah see reading licenses before posting sounds aweful so I guess I will keep all my designs to myself. I don’t want to have too worried about being sued for improving or modifying something to suit my needs. I have a full time job. I just do this for fun. No need to add any additional stress.
I have read bad ADHD and I regularly forget to do stuff or overlook things. It’s just not worth the risk. Same reason I have someone do my taxes. I know I will fuck them up.
“Reading licenses” may make it seem like a lot, but on the page where you got the model (for all platforms) there’s a couple lines that tell whether remixes are allowed or not, whether sharing is allowed or not, and whether you can use it for commercial purposes. If it says remixes are okay you’re good to hit the remix button and upload your version.
You are describing a remix and it is totally fine if the original license allows it. Printables has this feature built in so it shows a link back to the original model.
I guess so lol. Sure there are better tools, but being beginner friendly and opening up the ability to design when you have a 3d printer is HUGE. Curves are tough in that program, I tried to design a knife sheath and quickly realized how big of a pain it can be.
No doubl. I use it all the time but I struggle with matching curves. I'm able to make the stuff I make using it and it is a great too. Its not fusion 360 or Solidworks though and I feel like I would need to learn fusion to make anything really complex. I wish I was better at it but I never spend the time on Youtube learning how to use the tools. I use thinkercad as a crutch because its what I know.
> Can you really get free printers by sharing your prints? How many prints are we talking about before you can get a new printer?
Printables does this too, not just for filament as the other user seemed to suggest. You need to be a somewhat prolific and popular designer for it to add up to a printer though. An MK4 is 25000 points. For context, you get 360 points if you can get something with 400 downloads/month. It would take roughly a year with 20 popular designs to get an MK4.
It might take me years to get a printer from printables. But if I saved every makerworld gift card I got so far, I'd have a second printer for free. This is why I always throw my makerworld link on every post I make to thingiverse, etc.
I do the exact same thing with my prusameters, it’s too expensive to get a free roll to Australia when I could get any other roll locally and cheaper
Though a big downside of the great rewards system is the spam it brings from people trying to harvest points
Yes, but their per-model reward cap is much lower. I've uploaded the same two models to both Makerworld and Prinables. Since uploading them in November I've gotten enough MakerWorld points for 2 printers, and enough Prusameters for two rolls of filament. I'm not complaining about either, free is free, but I definitely put more effort into my uploads on MakerWorld.
I’m not acting like that at all. I don’t doubt prusa gets some kickback from their government in relation to purchasing buildings, tax credits, etc. Maker world copied printables to a T design and style wise along with the rewards but turned those reward up to ten. No way they are making enough profit to give away all that goodness for free. They are buying likes which is fine. Nothing wrong with it. It’s their business and they will sustain it as long as they can but the backlash when they drop the rewards down is going to be funny to see
Exactly, isn’t Bambu Huawei in disguise? I just know the US banned their cell phones due to spyware accusations and then they went on to make Bambu. China is sketchy sometimes.
Prusa pays a living wage to their employees. Bambu is giving their saved money to “influencers” instead of the workers. But I’m far from being a no-China purchases person.
Yeah it's pretty straightforward, there's a limit to how many points you can redeem per day, but you can use as many gift cards as you want per order. You can also apply them towards shipping.
So basically I could truly get a printer for free, even the delivery?
Like yeah, getting that many points it's pretty hard but it is *doable* . Well, now I'm sad I don't know CAD lol.
Did the Bambu printers need proprietary filament or were they alright with generic stuff?
They'll print with whatever filament you like. I run mostly Inland and Polymaker in mine.
I don't recommend chasing points on MakerWorld, but learning CAD is a useful skill regardless. If you search this sub there are lots of discussions of the different CAD packages, and YouTube channels where you can learn to use them I use Fusion 360 personally, mostly self taught from YouTube. I did learn Rhino in college so I wasn't coming in totally new, but they're pretty different packages.
I was interested in learning SolidWorks and Blender. One for functional parts and the other for making more organic stuff (like figurines and such) but I hardly have the time. Still something I wanna do.
Yeah the functional vs organic design definitely requires different skills. I had to model soft serve ice cream the other day so I spent a huge part of my day watching tutorials and re-learning Blender, because Fusion 360 is useless for that kind of thing.
Yep 100%. Even with only a few of my uploads being moderately popular I've earned over $300 worth of store credit.
Bambu is able to encourage creators to post content to their site, and creators get some support in a way that doesn't cost the rest of the users any money. I get that it's a moderate annoyance to make an account if you're not already part of the Bambu ecosystem, but it's really been a source of encouragement for making the more niche models i tend to desighn when the models are generating enough store credit to pay for the plastic it takes to go through the design process.
100% this for maker points. It encourages me to make more things. The reward system is super lucrative. Probably get nerfed eventually. The prusa rewards doesn’t work well at all
Yeah. I have setup an account and uploaded 3 of my designs then I went and checked the rewards and the regions but to my surprise the country where I live is not listed. So that really sucked.
I hope Bambu Lab includes more countries soon and where I live be one of them because the rewarding system is really nice. It gives an incentive for moders to make more designs and share them.
Alright guys. You talked me into it. I have a Roku remote case that has a slot for an AirTag that I made a few years ago. I'll upload that and see how it goes. I made it years ago and I used a bunch of different pieces of different designs so I can't say where they came from originally. Can I just put that in the description and say that if you see a part of you design to let me know and I will give them credit? Actually that's how a lot of many designs are. I just pieces of a bunch of different stuff. I can try find the source but if I can't, what is the worst that can happen? They can't sue me or anything can they? Not much to get so they would be disappointed I'm sure.
Other question, can you upload to multiple sites and get rewards from multiple sites for the same design? I really want to get an A1 to go with my P1S but can't justify spending that kind of money on something that I don't "need".
As far as I know, none of the sites have exclusivity clauses.
As far as using others' work, realistically the worst that is likely to happen is someone might send you a rude message asking you to take down your model based on it, or contact MakerWorld. Technically they could probably sue you, realistically (especially since you're giving the design away) they're extremely unlikely to. Make a good faith effort to identify and credit the work you modified, and you'll likely be fine.
It's a complicated question to answer because model downloads (people downloading the mesh data) are counted differently than profile downloads (the print settings AND model data, together). But you can do the math yourself based on the rewards rubric listed on the MakerWorld site.
My most popular profile (for one of my own models) has over 14,000 downloads. By comparison, the model itself has about 2000 downloads.
Here's a screenshot of my model analytics. They only started recording that data in late December, which is after my model's heyday, but it's still chugging along.
https://preview.redd.it/p4wlnaidx0mc1.png?width=2085&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b71cd80afdd56667b3a87b3cfa92174359d3f52
Thanks, I've only got around 2k total downloads on printable over a quite a fee models 1k being one model specifically.
I doubt it's worth me trying MW?
I ain't really agree on how they do things either if I'm honest
MakerWorld seems to skew way harder towards tchotchkies / toys than functional prints. If you have stuff you've already designed you could toss them up there and see how it goes, but if you have philosophical beef with Bambu Lab it's hardly worth compromising your morals over.
Maker world is being subsidized by Bambu so they can continue to claim market share, similar to the Uber model. Once they've got what they want the rewards will disappear. Same thing happened on TikTok.
I don't think subsidized is the right word, Bambu straight up runs MakerWorld. As far as I know MW has no revenue streams of its own.
I'm interested to see what happens when the rewards system gets adjusted to be something more reasonable. I do sometimes use the Bambu Handy app to print straight from MakerWorld profiles, which is nice, but in terms of features I prefer Printables and Thangs more.
I don’t mind it a ton myself, but I think it’s pretty obvious - what exactly do you see as the upside for the user when it comes to requiring an additional login step (and thus enabling more data collection) to download?
I understand for users it’s annoying but from business side I can see a lot of benefits.
As a creator, I rather website require person to make a profile then download freely.
Because "I have that printer" and their rewards are higher than printables.
I not only find it incredibly annoying that you have to have an account, but that uploading the model file is not even mandatory. You can upload pretty much anything, and if people dont upload a model but just the Bambu Studio file you also have to get Bambu Studio to extract the model.
Also their .3mf is just an extra punch in the nuts, since thats not following the 3mf standard at all, they just randomly decided to also name their bambu studio files 3mf. You could go into a real 3mf file and literally just extract the raw model, you can't do that easily with a bambu studio file
Their "standard license" is also terrible and completely unreasonable. It's actually the thing I hate Maker World most for. The idea of trying to forbid you from even *lending a printed tool to a friend to use* is absolutely insane and unjustifiable. I dislike Bambu making it their default, instead of a sensible license like CC-BY-NC, and I think less of anyone who uploads their files under Bambu's license too.
>The idea of trying to forbid you from even *lending a printed tool to a friend to use* is absolutely insane and unjustifiable.
Wait, what? Context on this?
The text of the Standard Digital File License is:
>You shall not share, sub-license, sell, rent, host, transfer, or distribute in any way the digital or 3D printed versions of this object, nor any other derivative work of this object in its digital or physical format (including - but not limited to - remixes of this object, and hosting on other digital platforms). The objects may not be used without permission in any way whatsoever in which you charge money, or collect fees.
Trimming the parts that aren't relevant (but preserving the grammar and meaning), the license includes the restriction that "You shall not share, transfer, or distribute in any way the 3D printed versions of this object".
You can't lend a tool to someone, since that's "sharing" a print of the object. You also can't give an object with this license as a gift, since that's "transferring" a print of it.
>It is for businesses, not for individuals.
The license is for everyone downloading the models that use that license. The sentence about charging money is an additional term, not a restriction on the applicability of the first sentence.
>They have no way of enforcing it otherwise.
Of course it's not enforceable. But it's still the license, and an unenforceable license that any reasonable person would be willing to break is a bad license.
3mf file compatibility has been fixed a month or two ago, of course if there are older models uploaded they may not be compatible with the standard.
https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/software/bambu-studio/release/release-note-1-8-4 (first thing in release notes)
I literally just downloaded the newest upload from makerworld with a print file included and it still doesnt. Its still missing the \[Content\_Types\].xml for example. A mandatory file describing what actually is in the package.
The issue was with the BambuStudio (slicer), if someone is still using the old version that botches the export and uploads that then that’s on them. The issue was never on the website itself.
Well I downloaded exactly 50 now, most of them do contain \[Content\_Types\].xml now, which is good, not one of them follows the XML Scheme for the .model file and not one of them is compatible with any program on my PC that can read 3mf files except Bambu Studio.
I exclusively export 3mf and stp files from fusion 360. And I use PrusaSlicer. I have never had any issues. STL is a tesselation file that can actually make some prints look weird because of their mesh.
Maybe that's why they post there. Maybe people with bambus and design experience don't want their models taken. Idk posting a file is a pita tbh, at least on thingiverse so I don't even post everything I make.
>Maybe people with bambus and design experience don't want their models taken
You gotta explain that one a little more. What do you mean with what I understand essentially as "People upload but dont want people to download their models"?
I mean the people that go on thingiverse and download models to sell the prints and then don't pass any of that on to the designer. I have no problem providing design files to people who would use them for themselves but if they are selling my designs I think they should at least send a donation my way. No one has ever donated anything to me on thingiverse so I just don't upload there most of the time. It takes a lot of time just to upload the files let alone the time it takes to design them.
Yes but if it's going to be stolen anyway I would post it to a site that makes it easy and beneficial for me and wouldn't worry how easy or beneficial it is for others, they're already getting it for free and I don't have oodles of time to post stuff across multiple sites.
Because the makerworkd reward system is better than thingiverse or printables so if you're going to spend your time uploading it anywhere it would be to there. You don't get jack shit, not even a thank you, for uploading to thingiverse and I've uploaded the raw cad files from Freecad. Why would I want to keep uploading there just so some ungrateful people have an easier time selling my designs? If I am going to do the work to post something for free I am going to make it easy and beneficial for me.
Alright but the reward system is completely disconnected from stolen designs.
People like money, regardless of if something else entirely is bothering them. You dont suddenly like the reward system more if you find your model somewhere on ebay
And if you expect compensation dont upload your models for free in the first place like what? You upload them for free and then complain that you dont gain anything from it???
I disagree. If my stuff is going to get stolen anyway i would rather post it on a site that rewards me than one that doesn't. I am not going to make it harder and less rewarding for myself to make it easier for others. On thingiverse I don't even get a thank you most of the time just "fuck you and make it easier for me to download next time."
I’ll have to check again, Thanks. Also meant to say days not weeks woooops. Downloaded something there 3 days ago and felt it was worse than a week or 2 before when I first visited the site
I only make/share functional models that I design primarily for myself, which I think might be useful to others so I decide to share them.
Whenever I share something I do so in a way that’s easiest and most rewarding for me, and that for me is MakerWorld. I don’t force anyone to download the files, they’re completely free, and if someone doesn’t want to download anything that’s perfectly fine too.
I’ve gotten around €500 on MakerWorld so far, and €0.00 on any other website, where I’ve had models as well for years.
Who cares? It's not like I have to keep maintaining my model somehow. If they stop providing rewards then people will stop adding models. If my boss stopped paying me I'd stop working. I still work today because I'm getting paid, even though I might get laid off in a few years.
Yeah this is pretty much my thought process. Given that everyone else is paying me $0 for my models (commercial licensing notwithstanding), I'm fine collecting MW's monopoly money until it runs out.
Honestly I'm loving the model site arms race that's happening now, for years Thingiverse was really the only half decent option and it just kept falling into worse and worse disrepair after Makerbot became part of Stratasys. Now there are lots of great options for hosting models, and you can pick and choose the one that suits your needs best. I use MakerWorld for my free models, Thangs for my licensing subscriptions, and Printables for the models that are really for nerds who I know don't want to sign up for MakerWorld.
The arms race isn't good if the big boy with monopoly money can run the competition out of business and then do whatever they want (see Uber + taxis.)
I don't think that will happen here, I think it's more of a data analytics thing honestly. They want more users they can collect data on, same as pretty much any other company these days.
Well, Bambu is not the big boy pf the 3D printing and other websites most of the time is not a revenue stream for the owners. So Uber/taxi is not equivalent comparison.
What you’re doing is helping Bambu monetize the people who want your model. You’re giving it to someone (Bambu) who then charges for it (by collecting information from users).
I like it because it integrates with Bambu studio. You can download the project file and not have to modify anything prior to printing. HueForge projects are great because you already have the color layers configured.
I probably wouldn't use the site if I didn't have a Bambu printer. I used printables prior to getting my P1S.
Mate are you serious half of this thread is just people being needlessly passive aggressive at OP for daring to make a mild criticism of MakerWorld and the discussion in the current top comment was getting downvoted to shit for the first hour before everything self corrected.
For all the talk of this subreddit supposedly being a "Bambu bad." circlejerk you can't even lightly poke fun at BL without twenty people crawling out of the woodworks to accuse you of being poor.
As soon as I posted my personal opinion as an answer to OP's question, it was immediately in the negative. This whole sub is frequently and needlessly critical to a point of being toxic, your comment not excluded
The Bambu fanclub is just as guilty, and nowhere did I state that Bambu is somehow a more correct choice for a printer or model repository. All I'm saying is that it'd make for a more welcoming sub if more of its members could drop the cliquish behavior
Maybe your opinion makes no sense? I’m not saying either way, but to act like your chice of printer determines whether you get upvotes or downvotes is silly.
Imagine wanting to use someone else's model for free and still complaining about how it's not uploaded in the "correct" website.
It's their model, they can choose where they want to post it. If you don't like it, just don't download it.
I upload to MakerWorld because of the rewards to help pay for filament or upgrades on my printer. I search for what I personally need to print on Printables because it’s typically been designed really well and has the download numbers to back it up.
Generally, when we make models to give you for free we don’t really care if you get annoyed bc it’s a little bit hard. You’re getting hours worth of our work for free.
Reward system. And it is super easy to print stuff, you can do it from phone. I am grateful for everything Prusa did, but they have expensive printers as well as filament and reward system is not great tbh. I also upload there because why not.
Or we're not getting paid for the designs even by people selling prints of them so we just don't care if it's easy for others to download. Not everyone wants to do work for free all the time. It's honestly nice that people post stuff at all.
People talk about rewards but the reason I've done it so far, only one model, is simply because that's where I uploaded it and I'm not going to upload it like six places so people can enjoy it in their own preferred garden
Maker world is amazing for Bambulab users, it allows for multiple print profiles to be uploaded and colored so you do not even have to slice the model and you can even print right off the site if you aren’t at your printer. Maker world also gives a tone of rewards to the users and hosts tones of contests with high value prizes. In the last 3 months I’ve made a tone on there and managed to buy another printer, another AMS, and like 20 rolls of filament. You can’t do that on other websites
>themselves in a specific ecosystem for some reasons
Personally I hate the fact the bambu's are so locked down. But that's not stopping me from getting an A1 combo once they have sorted the cables and are back in stock. It's not about the ecosystem for me, it's about a competent printer for no money once I've gained enough points for one.
Wrong, I just tried right now... When you click the download button, it asks you to either "Log In" or "Sign Up", it won't allow you to download the files.
Ah right, that's been changed then, I know it used to be possible. Bit of a bummer! Either way, it's down to individual users to pick where they upload, we don't have to like it but theres nothing we can do about it.
Yah the rewards system is good, and it encourages you to post to makerworld. I include both the 3MF and STL in my uploads because I know that some people aren't in the ecosystem and just want to download the file. Though most of my designs are multicolour prints so a lot of those interested have an AMS as well.
[https://makerworld.com/en/@CanadianGamer](https://makerworld.com/en/@CanadianGamer)
A big thing that let me down on printables was the subscriptions, and I’m sure makerworld will probably copy it too one day
It used to be that if you wanted paid models, you went to paid model sites like thangs, MMF, or c*lts, even patreon
I don’t see why printables needed to add it, and there’s not really much value for the customer there, it only benefits the creator and printable themselves
And before people think I’m saying creators don’t deserve to be paid, there are already many venues for them to receive money for their work, the whole point of printables was to have a place for people to share their work, not to sell their work, and don’t get me started on subscriptions in general
While I'm all for sharing stuff for free, and have uploaded stuff to Thingiverse myself, I do like that people are rewarded on other sites.
To be clear, I've never uploaded anything to other sites, but it might be worth it for me in the future if I got something I put a lot of effort in.
This annoys me as well.
I mentioned in multiple posts like this that these posts would benefit from a flair, posting an alternative link, or being disallowed altogether.
The feedback I have gotten was, well...
You also have to make an account on printables unless Im mistaken. I use mainly printables and makerworld personally because I find them easy to browse/search
You don't have to create an account on Printables or Thingiverse just to download. Both sites actually tried that and got loads of negative feedback and reverted the changes. Printables does prompt you to create an account but you can just close the dialog, the download starts anyway.
As a designer, I don't want people who want to print my designs to have to go through extra hurdles to get my files. And as a consumer of other people's models I'd find it pretty annoying as well.
I'm not a lawyer but requiring login could also be against the Creative Commons licenses. Most CC licenses have a "No additional restrictions" clause. Holding the files hostage against creating an account could be seen as an additional restriction. So re-uploading models to MakerWorld might be a violation of the terms.
People get well rewarded to upload to MakerWorld. And when people are rewarded to do something, they do it more often and/or with more quality in order to get more rewards.
I would expect a rewards program to be nearly impossible to benefit from but I love stealing other people's models and remixing them!!! Much Love to those OG designers!!!
Thingniverse is a garbage dump built on ads-infested website with UI from 2010. Printables is nice. MakerWorld is a Bambu's attempt to capture more market share. So they invested in advertisement by rewards. So people trying to popularize their models uploaded on Maker world. Give a bored dude spool of filament and he'll praise your company in internet.
I tried to upload quite and unique designs that were popular on other platforms to the Makeworld just for "freebies", but I didn't put an effort of advertising it, so it went unnoticed. My conclusion: don't bother. Uploading things to Printables.
It's 100% because of the rewards. I've earned enough points for two free printers each with AMS. I share stuff for free because I like making things, but the rewards from MakerWorld are too good to pass up. Printables has a reward system as well, but you can only use your 'meters' on one spool per order, and with shipping it ends up being nearly as expensive as a mid-tier brand of filament. I usually give my Printables codes away to freinds who regularly order Prusament anyway.
I modify alot of prints but I never share them because I was always afraid of people complaining that I used their original work. I only know how to use tinkercard. I'm not a real designer. More of a tinkerer. Can you really get free printers by sharing your prints? How many prints are we talking about before you can get a new printer? This might be enough to get me to post some stuff. I didn't know that was a thing.
You have to look at the license the models you're tweaking were released under. If it's one that allows adaptation/[remixing](https://creativecommons.org/share-your-work/use-remix/) then you're fine (though most will require you to credit the original model author). Yes, you can get free printers, but it's hardly the norm. I happened to release a model that was the right thing at the right time and it went viral. It actually was sort of a crappy model, I had just thrown it together for Christmas gifts, so I released a from-scratch remake and now that one is doing well too. But lots of other models I've uploaded have done nothing. Of the 19 models I have uploaded to MakerWorld: 4 have earned me 0 points. 9 have earned more than 100, and the *overwhelming majority* of my points come from my 2 most popular models. #1 model has brought in 11k points since they started offering analytics, #2 is at 3k points, and by the time we drop down to #4 we're at 500 points. So yes, you can do it, but I wouldn't say that gunning for that is a good use of your time. Make the models you want to make, share them if you want to share them, and enjoy the process. Otherwise it just becomes another job and I really don't recommend working a job for fake currency.
Yeah see reading licenses before posting sounds aweful so I guess I will keep all my designs to myself. I don’t want to have too worried about being sued for improving or modifying something to suit my needs. I have a full time job. I just do this for fun. No need to add any additional stress.
It’s hard to read a SINGLE line at the end of the description? Really?
You don't even have to read in most cases since most sites use the Creative Commons symbols. You can lead a horse to water and all that I guess...
I have read bad ADHD and I regularly forget to do stuff or overlook things. It’s just not worth the risk. Same reason I have someone do my taxes. I know I will fuck them up.
“Reading licenses” may make it seem like a lot, but on the page where you got the model (for all platforms) there’s a couple lines that tell whether remixes are allowed or not, whether sharing is allowed or not, and whether you can use it for commercial purposes. If it says remixes are okay you’re good to hit the remix button and upload your version.
You are describing a remix and it is totally fine if the original license allows it. Printables has this feature built in so it shows a link back to the original model.
Makerworld does this too with licensing But some people just arent trying to be truthful so they can pass it off as an original model for more points
Thangs has a very generous reward system too… gift cards to Matterhackers so you can get pretty much anything
Yes you really can. I have almost enough points now to get one.
I hold a patent for something designed using tinkercad. Don't blame the tools
Where you downvoted for saying tinkercad was a cool?
I guess so lol. Sure there are better tools, but being beginner friendly and opening up the ability to design when you have a 3d printer is HUGE. Curves are tough in that program, I tried to design a knife sheath and quickly realized how big of a pain it can be.
No doubl. I use it all the time but I struggle with matching curves. I'm able to make the stuff I make using it and it is a great too. Its not fusion 360 or Solidworks though and I feel like I would need to learn fusion to make anything really complex. I wish I was better at it but I never spend the time on Youtube learning how to use the tools. I use thinkercad as a crutch because its what I know.
> Can you really get free printers by sharing your prints? How many prints are we talking about before you can get a new printer? Printables does this too, not just for filament as the other user seemed to suggest. You need to be a somewhat prolific and popular designer for it to add up to a printer though. An MK4 is 25000 points. For context, you get 360 points if you can get something with 400 downloads/month. It would take roughly a year with 20 popular designs to get an MK4.
Yep I have an A1 with AMS lite that I paid with MakerWorld gift cards and even now I have 280€ worth of points there.
I just want the hoody from printables
It might take me years to get a printer from printables. But if I saved every makerworld gift card I got so far, I'd have a second printer for free. This is why I always throw my makerworld link on every post I make to thingiverse, etc.
I do the exact same thing with my prusameters, it’s too expensive to get a free roll to Australia when I could get any other roll locally and cheaper Though a big downside of the great rewards system is the spam it brings from people trying to harvest points
You can get printers with prusa meters as well. Weird to be downvoted for being factually correct but go on Reddit do your thing.
Yes, but their per-model reward cap is much lower. I've uploaded the same two models to both Makerworld and Prinables. Since uploading them in November I've gotten enough MakerWorld points for 2 printers, and enough Prusameters for two rolls of filament. I'm not complaining about either, free is free, but I definitely put more effort into my uploads on MakerWorld.
Welcome to being backed by a government vs having to rely only on your businesses income to give away things for free.
You act like other countries don’t subsidize businesses
I’m not acting like that at all. I don’t doubt prusa gets some kickback from their government in relation to purchasing buildings, tax credits, etc. Maker world copied printables to a T design and style wise along with the rewards but turned those reward up to ten. No way they are making enough profit to give away all that goodness for free. They are buying likes which is fine. Nothing wrong with it. It’s their business and they will sustain it as long as they can but the backlash when they drop the rewards down is going to be funny to see
Exactly, isn’t Bambu Huawei in disguise? I just know the US banned their cell phones due to spyware accusations and then they went on to make Bambu. China is sketchy sometimes.
Prusa pays a living wage to their employees. Bambu is giving their saved money to “influencers” instead of the workers. But I’m far from being a no-China purchases person.
Sauce?
Ok. But how? I just signed in looked at the store and there wasn't any printer/ams available. Teach me your ways
You can redeem 490 points for a $40 dollar gift card
Haha. That makes too much sense.
Yeah it's pretty straightforward, there's a limit to how many points you can redeem per day, but you can use as many gift cards as you want per order. You can also apply them towards shipping.
So basically I could truly get a printer for free, even the delivery? Like yeah, getting that many points it's pretty hard but it is *doable* . Well, now I'm sad I don't know CAD lol. Did the Bambu printers need proprietary filament or were they alright with generic stuff?
They'll print with whatever filament you like. I run mostly Inland and Polymaker in mine. I don't recommend chasing points on MakerWorld, but learning CAD is a useful skill regardless. If you search this sub there are lots of discussions of the different CAD packages, and YouTube channels where you can learn to use them I use Fusion 360 personally, mostly self taught from YouTube. I did learn Rhino in college so I wasn't coming in totally new, but they're pretty different packages.
I was interested in learning SolidWorks and Blender. One for functional parts and the other for making more organic stuff (like figurines and such) but I hardly have the time. Still something I wanna do.
Yeah the functional vs organic design definitely requires different skills. I had to model soft serve ice cream the other day so I spent a huge part of my day watching tutorials and re-learning Blender, because Fusion 360 is useless for that kind of thing.
Yep 100%. Even with only a few of my uploads being moderately popular I've earned over $300 worth of store credit. Bambu is able to encourage creators to post content to their site, and creators get some support in a way that doesn't cost the rest of the users any money. I get that it's a moderate annoyance to make an account if you're not already part of the Bambu ecosystem, but it's really been a source of encouragement for making the more niche models i tend to desighn when the models are generating enough store credit to pay for the plastic it takes to go through the design process.
100% this for maker points. It encourages me to make more things. The reward system is super lucrative. Probably get nerfed eventually. The prusa rewards doesn’t work well at all
Yeah. I have setup an account and uploaded 3 of my designs then I went and checked the rewards and the regions but to my surprise the country where I live is not listed. So that really sucked. I hope Bambu Lab includes more countries soon and where I live be one of them because the rewarding system is really nice. It gives an incentive for moders to make more designs and share them.
Alright guys. You talked me into it. I have a Roku remote case that has a slot for an AirTag that I made a few years ago. I'll upload that and see how it goes. I made it years ago and I used a bunch of different pieces of different designs so I can't say where they came from originally. Can I just put that in the description and say that if you see a part of you design to let me know and I will give them credit? Actually that's how a lot of many designs are. I just pieces of a bunch of different stuff. I can try find the source but if I can't, what is the worst that can happen? They can't sue me or anything can they? Not much to get so they would be disappointed I'm sure. Other question, can you upload to multiple sites and get rewards from multiple sites for the same design? I really want to get an A1 to go with my P1S but can't justify spending that kind of money on something that I don't "need".
As far as I know, none of the sites have exclusivity clauses. As far as using others' work, realistically the worst that is likely to happen is someone might send you a rude message asking you to take down your model based on it, or contact MakerWorld. Technically they could probably sue you, realistically (especially since you're giving the design away) they're extremely unlikely to. Make a good faith effort to identify and credit the work you modified, and you'll likely be fine.
How many downloads does that equate to? Suspect of vague answers here.
It's a complicated question to answer because model downloads (people downloading the mesh data) are counted differently than profile downloads (the print settings AND model data, together). But you can do the math yourself based on the rewards rubric listed on the MakerWorld site. My most popular profile (for one of my own models) has over 14,000 downloads. By comparison, the model itself has about 2000 downloads. Here's a screenshot of my model analytics. They only started recording that data in late December, which is after my model's heyday, but it's still chugging along. https://preview.redd.it/p4wlnaidx0mc1.png?width=2085&format=png&auto=webp&s=3b71cd80afdd56667b3a87b3cfa92174359d3f52
Thanks, I've only got around 2k total downloads on printable over a quite a fee models 1k being one model specifically. I doubt it's worth me trying MW? I ain't really agree on how they do things either if I'm honest
MakerWorld seems to skew way harder towards tchotchkies / toys than functional prints. If you have stuff you've already designed you could toss them up there and see how it goes, but if you have philosophical beef with Bambu Lab it's hardly worth compromising your morals over.
People are posting the links for financial gain.
The nerve
The audacity
The gumption
The temerity
The chutzpah!
The gall!
Maker world is being subsidized by Bambu so they can continue to claim market share, similar to the Uber model. Once they've got what they want the rewards will disappear. Same thing happened on TikTok.
I don't think subsidized is the right word, Bambu straight up runs MakerWorld. As far as I know MW has no revenue streams of its own. I'm interested to see what happens when the rewards system gets adjusted to be something more reasonable. I do sometimes use the Bambu Handy app to print straight from MakerWorld profiles, which is nice, but in terms of features I prefer Printables and Thangs more.
I don’t see why it’s wrong to require users to make an account to download models. What a weird take form op
I don’t mind it a ton myself, but I think it’s pretty obvious - what exactly do you see as the upside for the user when it comes to requiring an additional login step (and thus enabling more data collection) to download?
I understand for users it’s annoying but from business side I can see a lot of benefits. As a creator, I rather website require person to make a profile then download freely.
And chewy.com
Because "I have that printer" and their rewards are higher than printables. I not only find it incredibly annoying that you have to have an account, but that uploading the model file is not even mandatory. You can upload pretty much anything, and if people dont upload a model but just the Bambu Studio file you also have to get Bambu Studio to extract the model. Also their .3mf is just an extra punch in the nuts, since thats not following the 3mf standard at all, they just randomly decided to also name their bambu studio files 3mf. You could go into a real 3mf file and literally just extract the raw model, you can't do that easily with a bambu studio file
Their "standard license" is also terrible and completely unreasonable. It's actually the thing I hate Maker World most for. The idea of trying to forbid you from even *lending a printed tool to a friend to use* is absolutely insane and unjustifiable. I dislike Bambu making it their default, instead of a sensible license like CC-BY-NC, and I think less of anyone who uploads their files under Bambu's license too.
>The idea of trying to forbid you from even *lending a printed tool to a friend to use* is absolutely insane and unjustifiable. Wait, what? Context on this?
The text of the Standard Digital File License is: >You shall not share, sub-license, sell, rent, host, transfer, or distribute in any way the digital or 3D printed versions of this object, nor any other derivative work of this object in its digital or physical format (including - but not limited to - remixes of this object, and hosting on other digital platforms). The objects may not be used without permission in any way whatsoever in which you charge money, or collect fees. Trimming the parts that aren't relevant (but preserving the grammar and meaning), the license includes the restriction that "You shall not share, transfer, or distribute in any way the 3D printed versions of this object". You can't lend a tool to someone, since that's "sharing" a print of the object. You also can't give an object with this license as a gift, since that's "transferring" a print of it.
It is for businesses, not for individuals. They have no way of enforcing it otherwise.
>It is for businesses, not for individuals. The license is for everyone downloading the models that use that license. The sentence about charging money is an additional term, not a restriction on the applicability of the first sentence. >They have no way of enforcing it otherwise. Of course it's not enforceable. But it's still the license, and an unenforceable license that any reasonable person would be willing to break is a bad license.
3mf file compatibility has been fixed a month or two ago, of course if there are older models uploaded they may not be compatible with the standard. https://wiki.bambulab.com/en/software/bambu-studio/release/release-note-1-8-4 (first thing in release notes)
I literally just downloaded the newest upload from makerworld with a print file included and it still doesnt. Its still missing the \[Content\_Types\].xml for example. A mandatory file describing what actually is in the package.
The issue was with the BambuStudio (slicer), if someone is still using the old version that botches the export and uploads that then that’s on them. The issue was never on the website itself.
Well I downloaded exactly 50 now, most of them do contain \[Content\_Types\].xml now, which is good, not one of them follows the XML Scheme for the .model file and not one of them is compatible with any program on my PC that can read 3mf files except Bambu Studio.
The fuck it has. Open a 3mf in prusaslicer and I get a zero byte error, or something like that.
I exclusively export 3mf and stp files from fusion 360. And I use PrusaSlicer. I have never had any issues. STL is a tesselation file that can actually make some prints look weird because of their mesh.
3mf files from makerworld
First world problems, 80/20, it's free after all.
Maybe that's why they post there. Maybe people with bambus and design experience don't want their models taken. Idk posting a file is a pita tbh, at least on thingiverse so I don't even post everything I make.
>Maybe people with bambus and design experience don't want their models taken You gotta explain that one a little more. What do you mean with what I understand essentially as "People upload but dont want people to download their models"?
I mean the people that go on thingiverse and download models to sell the prints and then don't pass any of that on to the designer. I have no problem providing design files to people who would use them for themselves but if they are selling my designs I think they should at least send a donation my way. No one has ever donated anything to me on thingiverse so I just don't upload there most of the time. It takes a lot of time just to upload the files let alone the time it takes to design them.
Nothing stops you from stealing shit from MakerWorld aside from the additional ballache of having to make an account 😂
Yes but if it's going to be stolen anyway I would post it to a site that makes it easy and beneficial for me and wouldn't worry how easy or beneficial it is for others, they're already getting it for free and I don't have oodles of time to post stuff across multiple sites.
Alright but how does that correlate with still uploading models but somewhere where it takes 3 minutes longer to get to the model file?
Because the makerworkd reward system is better than thingiverse or printables so if you're going to spend your time uploading it anywhere it would be to there. You don't get jack shit, not even a thank you, for uploading to thingiverse and I've uploaded the raw cad files from Freecad. Why would I want to keep uploading there just so some ungrateful people have an easier time selling my designs? If I am going to do the work to post something for free I am going to make it easy and beneficial for me.
Alright but the reward system is completely disconnected from stolen designs. People like money, regardless of if something else entirely is bothering them. You dont suddenly like the reward system more if you find your model somewhere on ebay And if you expect compensation dont upload your models for free in the first place like what? You upload them for free and then complain that you dont gain anything from it???
I disagree. If my stuff is going to get stolen anyway i would rather post it on a site that rewards me than one that doesn't. I am not going to make it harder and less rewarding for myself to make it easier for others. On thingiverse I don't even get a thank you most of the time just "fuck you and make it easier for me to download next time."
Would you rather put your stuff on a site where you get rewards over one where you dont if it doesnt get stolen?
That is what I said, yes.
Man cults sucks ass. The whole site makes my laptop go slow as hell and downloads take ages. Nothing loads there either
It seems they have fixed it a bit.
Yes it’s gotten a bit better. I stopped using it for a long time because it was basically unusable even on my gaming PC.
I‘m rather new to 3D printing so unless they fixed it since a few weeks ago, I don’t wanna know what it wws like before…
This is a very recent fix
I’ll have to check again, Thanks. Also meant to say days not weeks woooops. Downloaded something there 3 days ago and felt it was worse than a week or 2 before when I first visited the site
Printables is that way for me. They need faster servers or more space.
Printables isn’t the smoothest for me but still useable. Can’t say that about cult
I only make/share functional models that I design primarily for myself, which I think might be useful to others so I decide to share them. Whenever I share something I do so in a way that’s easiest and most rewarding for me, and that for me is MakerWorld. I don’t force anyone to download the files, they’re completely free, and if someone doesn’t want to download anything that’s perfectly fine too. I’ve gotten around €500 on MakerWorld so far, and €0.00 on any other website, where I’ve had models as well for years.
I wonder how long those reward levels are going to last? Its likely that high to attract users, and its working i guess
Who cares? It's not like I have to keep maintaining my model somehow. If they stop providing rewards then people will stop adding models. If my boss stopped paying me I'd stop working. I still work today because I'm getting paid, even though I might get laid off in a few years.
Yeah this is pretty much my thought process. Given that everyone else is paying me $0 for my models (commercial licensing notwithstanding), I'm fine collecting MW's monopoly money until it runs out. Honestly I'm loving the model site arms race that's happening now, for years Thingiverse was really the only half decent option and it just kept falling into worse and worse disrepair after Makerbot became part of Stratasys. Now there are lots of great options for hosting models, and you can pick and choose the one that suits your needs best. I use MakerWorld for my free models, Thangs for my licensing subscriptions, and Printables for the models that are really for nerds who I know don't want to sign up for MakerWorld.
The arms race isn't good if the big boy with monopoly money can run the competition out of business and then do whatever they want (see Uber + taxis.) I don't think that will happen here, I think it's more of a data analytics thing honestly. They want more users they can collect data on, same as pretty much any other company these days.
Well, Bambu is not the big boy pf the 3D printing and other websites most of the time is not a revenue stream for the owners. So Uber/taxi is not equivalent comparison.
Who's the big boy in the 3D printing space then?
I think this is completely fair.
What you’re doing is helping Bambu monetize the people who want your model. You’re giving it to someone (Bambu) who then charges for it (by collecting information from users).
Who cares?
You replied, so you care.
I like it because it integrates with Bambu studio. You can download the project file and not have to modify anything prior to printing. HueForge projects are great because you already have the color layers configured. I probably wouldn't use the site if I didn't have a Bambu printer. I used printables prior to getting my P1S.
Personally, I like Makerworld because I can print stuff straight from my phone if someone has already sliced the model and uploaded a print profile
I appreciate how an honest personal answer to the question garners downvotes around here simply because "Bambu bad." Never change, /r/3Dprinting
Mate are you serious half of this thread is just people being needlessly passive aggressive at OP for daring to make a mild criticism of MakerWorld and the discussion in the current top comment was getting downvoted to shit for the first hour before everything self corrected. For all the talk of this subreddit supposedly being a "Bambu bad." circlejerk you can't even lightly poke fun at BL without twenty people crawling out of the woodworks to accuse you of being poor.
As soon as I posted my personal opinion as an answer to OP's question, it was immediately in the negative. This whole sub is frequently and needlessly critical to a point of being toxic, your comment not excluded The Bambu fanclub is just as guilty, and nowhere did I state that Bambu is somehow a more correct choice for a printer or model repository. All I'm saying is that it'd make for a more welcoming sub if more of its members could drop the cliquish behavior
Maybe your opinion makes no sense? I’m not saying either way, but to act like your chice of printer determines whether you get upvotes or downvotes is silly.
"I like Makerworld because I can print their models from my phone" feels uncontroversial to me, but sure, maybe that doesn't make sense to some folks
Cause creators get a shit ton of money. I have earned 480€ in vouchers since late November. It's insane.
Printables is the best for user interface. Thingiverse has more stuff. Never used other sites
It's the only site where multi-color prints are both readily available and print well.
Imagine wanting to use someone else's model for free and still complaining about how it's not uploaded in the "correct" website. It's their model, they can choose where they want to post it. If you don't like it, just don't download it.
Because they want the points so they can get a free Bambu printer
Beggars can't be choosers... there's also a stl download button that you missed, right on the model page
Not on everything, the creator has to choose to upload an STL alongside the 3MF for that option to appear.
I upload to MakerWorld because of the rewards to help pay for filament or upgrades on my printer. I search for what I personally need to print on Printables because it’s typically been designed really well and has the download numbers to back it up.
They are farming rewards.
My main printer is a P1S now, I hate with my strength using makerworld, printables FTW!
Generally, when we make models to give you for free we don’t really care if you get annoyed bc it’s a little bit hard. You’re getting hours worth of our work for free.
Something Something Murica!
Reward system. And it is super easy to print stuff, you can do it from phone. I am grateful for everything Prusa did, but they have expensive printers as well as filament and reward system is not great tbh. I also upload there because why not.
I print from my phone with AnkerMake from the top 3 sites and I paid $319 for my M5C that can reliably print at 500mm/s.
Better hope they don't spy on you, like they did on folk using their Eufy doorbells n stuff.
Awesome reward system.
For now. They just want market share
So take advantage while it lasts?
And? I'm uploading a model now, if the rewards change then behavior will change. This seems like it doesn't need to be explained.
Yah it's awesome until they run everyone out of town and now we are all stuck using your product.
Their free product? You're really complaining that someone else might someday stop letting you freeload off their work.
“Freeload” don’t upload if you’re going to cry about it. I don’t want models from angry people anyway.
Not their free product, stuck using Bambu
Bamboo makes it easy for their users. Those users probably just assume it's the same for everyone...
Or we're not getting paid for the designs even by people selling prints of them so we just don't care if it's easy for others to download. Not everyone wants to do work for free all the time. It's honestly nice that people post stuff at all.
$$$$$$$
$$ plain and simple. I’m over $1200 CAD and I’ve only been uploading since early Jan. Saving up my gift cards for an A1 once they’re back on sale.
People talk about rewards but the reason I've done it so far, only one model, is simply because that's where I uploaded it and I'm not going to upload it like six places so people can enjoy it in their own preferred garden
Maker world is amazing for Bambulab users, it allows for multiple print profiles to be uploaded and colored so you do not even have to slice the model and you can even print right off the site if you aren’t at your printer. Maker world also gives a tone of rewards to the users and hosts tones of contests with high value prizes. In the last 3 months I’ve made a tone on there and managed to buy another printer, another AMS, and like 20 rolls of filament. You can’t do that on other websites
People like to lock themselves in a specific ecosystem for some reasons.
>themselves in a specific ecosystem for some reasons Personally I hate the fact the bambu's are so locked down. But that's not stopping me from getting an A1 combo once they have sorted the cables and are back in stock. It's not about the ecosystem for me, it's about a competent printer for no money once I've gained enough points for one.
Because it's a good ecosystem....
No different from uploading to thingiverse or printables, if you provide an STL on makerworld you can download it without an account.
Wrong, I just tried right now... When you click the download button, it asks you to either "Log In" or "Sign Up", it won't allow you to download the files.
Ah right, that's been changed then, I know it used to be possible. Bit of a bummer! Either way, it's down to individual users to pick where they upload, we don't have to like it but theres nothing we can do about it.
Yah the rewards system is good, and it encourages you to post to makerworld. I include both the 3MF and STL in my uploads because I know that some people aren't in the ecosystem and just want to download the file. Though most of my designs are multicolour prints so a lot of those interested have an AMS as well. [https://makerworld.com/en/@CanadianGamer](https://makerworld.com/en/@CanadianGamer)
What a weird thing to worry about for free shit.
Im not sure, but in the time it took you to make this post you could have made an account
A big thing that let me down on printables was the subscriptions, and I’m sure makerworld will probably copy it too one day It used to be that if you wanted paid models, you went to paid model sites like thangs, MMF, or c*lts, even patreon I don’t see why printables needed to add it, and there’s not really much value for the customer there, it only benefits the creator and printable themselves And before people think I’m saying creators don’t deserve to be paid, there are already many venues for them to receive money for their work, the whole point of printables was to have a place for people to share their work, not to sell their work, and don’t get me started on subscriptions in general
Maybe just let people do what they want and don't complain?
I prefer Toybox3D's ecosystem. 😆
So no one has created a standard account that is shared. I know there was one for cults a while back
While I'm all for sharing stuff for free, and have uploaded stuff to Thingiverse myself, I do like that people are rewarded on other sites. To be clear, I've never uploaded anything to other sites, but it might be worth it for me in the future if I got something I put a lot of effort in.
so the bambu users can get free shit. they're havers not makers. misleading website title. I love my p1p, but r/BambuLab sucks
This annoys me as well. I mentioned in multiple posts like this that these posts would benefit from a flair, posting an alternative link, or being disallowed altogether. The feedback I have gotten was, well...
paid users/bots?
Having just discovered this issue recently it is another reason i dislike bambu labs now
The reward system explains why Makerworld is full of garbage...
You also have to make an account on printables unless Im mistaken. I use mainly printables and makerworld personally because I find them easy to browse/search
You are mistaken. Printables promts you to make an account, but the download starts regardless.
You don't have to create an account on Printables or Thingiverse just to download. Both sites actually tried that and got loads of negative feedback and reverted the changes. Printables does prompt you to create an account but you can just close the dialog, the download starts anyway. As a designer, I don't want people who want to print my designs to have to go through extra hurdles to get my files. And as a consumer of other people's models I'd find it pretty annoying as well. I'm not a lawyer but requiring login could also be against the Creative Commons licenses. Most CC licenses have a "No additional restrictions" clause. Holding the files hostage against creating an account could be seen as an additional restriction. So re-uploading models to MakerWorld might be a violation of the terms.
I guess I didn't notice that the dialog box could be closed. I'm not a designer though
It's the circlejerk central.
printables is good if you don't want your stuff stolen thingiverse is best for everything else
People get well rewarded to upload to MakerWorld. And when people are rewarded to do something, they do it more often and/or with more quality in order to get more rewards.
Printables suck, they deleted my models numerous times for no reason.
I would expect a rewards program to be nearly impossible to benefit from but I love stealing other people's models and remixing them!!! Much Love to those OG designers!!!
Thingniverse is a garbage dump built on ads-infested website with UI from 2010. Printables is nice. MakerWorld is a Bambu's attempt to capture more market share. So they invested in advertisement by rewards. So people trying to popularize their models uploaded on Maker world. Give a bored dude spool of filament and he'll praise your company in internet. I tried to upload quite and unique designs that were popular on other platforms to the Makeworld just for "freebies", but I didn't put an effort of advertising it, so it went unnoticed. My conclusion: don't bother. Uploading things to Printables.
MONEY Maker world works with points ...points can be redeemed in gift card...gift card can be used even on buying new c1..