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Comment by augment_me | Hacker News Reader

The amount of upselling, extra parts necessary for basic functionality, predatory resin pricing and specific open "modes" that are free to be subjects to amendment by contract makes this seem like a cash grab for investors rather than serious product. Really sour taste in the mouth from this.

Just buy an open source version from China that has the necessary hardware in an open format and let Claude adjust the software if there are concerns.

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I'm unclear what the open source version from China of a resin printer is. Creatlity and Elegoo don't appear to be at all it as they lock you to the chitubox ecosystem.

I use prusaslicer and uvtools with my Elegoo Saturn. No proprietary lockin. I also own a Prusa, so I don't feel bad using their software with another brand.

Same here, PrusaSlicer and a custom uvtools workflow with an Anycubic Mono M7 Pro.

Thank you. I didn't know that worked.

> Just buy an open source version from China

References and links?

There is currently no open source version of the high resolution monochrome LCDs. The LCDs and their drivers lock you into the Chitu ecosystem.

The problem, as Chitu figured out, is that as soon as you cough up the NRE to make the LCDs and make it publicly available, EVERYBODY will copy you and then there will be no profit left to sink the NRE that you just spent.

I don't follow. If you developed a special screen can't you profit just fine off selling the screen? Why would locked drivers be needed?

Maybe you could be happy with that, or perhaps I could be as well, but you and I aren't ChiTu. And ChiTu is free to do whatever they want (including doing nothing at all).

And that matters because statements like "just buy an open Chinese printer" are non-starters. The machines themselves have the soul of ChiTu inside of them and openness isn't really their jam.

So while the PC software that produces the layer images can be replaced, the printer's brains stays the same.

(This is very different compared to the world of conventional world of FDM printers, wherein: It's just some sensors, motors, heaters, and sensors; a screen, if present, is optional. A person can replace the brainbox of a traditional FDM Cartesian rig with open, off-the-shelf parts and be printing something in an afternoon, and there's a whole industry providing parts to support this kind of thing.

ChiTu isn't that way.)

Well I don't understand the paragraph you wrote starting with "The problem, as Chitu figured out". Did they figure out an actual problem or did they hallucinate a problem?

Does their proprietary software affect their profit at all?

I did not write that paragraph, my friend.

I don't know why ChiTu does whatever they do. All I know is that demonstrate a trend of keeping their source buttoned up instead of open.

> I did not write that paragraph, my friend.

My bad.

But that paragraph is what my original question is about.

Chitu, IIRC, originally were open when they were using the initial color LCDs (off the shelf) and then the first iteration of monochrome ones (required NRE as nobody made 1920x1080 monochrom LCDs by then). And then everybody in the universe cloned them and Chitu got mad and Chitu made sure that the next iterations of monochrome LCDs had encrypted driver chips.

This isn't an unsolvable problem. It takes probably less than $100K (and probably less than $50K) in NRE to make a truly open-source monochrome LCD and driver chip. This is on the order of a plastic injection mold.

But everybody simply whines rather than banding together, coughing up the CASH, and actually FIXING the problem once and for all.

Sadly, this seems to be standard operating procedure in the world of open source.

How did everyone clone the first generation with monochrome LCDs though, if they weren't off the shelf?

Dude, it's CHINA. Once developed, the manufacturer simply sold the LCDs to everybody.

Even now, there is nothing stopping you from going to the upstream LCD manufacturer and saying "Hi, Mr. LCD manufacturer. Here is a different driver chip, could you please take that nice LCD and use it with it?"

It all just takes cash. And not even a lot by manufacturing standards.

Okay, so they were not the LCD manufacturer (or in control of production) despite paying the NRE. That wasn't clear before.

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