DON'T buy Chitubox Pro

With Chitubox (Pro) being the only option as a slicer on the Elegoo Mars 3 and on future Chitu-based resin printers, let's find out whether shelling out for Chitubox Pro is a necessity or mostly pointless.

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[greg]

Tom respected for declining that offer. Not many people would do that on YouTube. BTW another comprehensive review, keep up good work!

[juststeve]

Being locked down discouraged me from buying this printer.

[bogatyr]

$170 A year is ridiculous, genuinely bonkers. If it was significantly more feature rich than free I could maybe see $5 a month but holy crap, Disney+ is cheaper

[andyspoo]

A one off fee of $170 seems expensive to me. To have to pay that every year is a bad joke.

[shadow]

Sounds like it's time for some company to start making non locked boards. What an idiotic move by Chitu. But I think this move was always on the cards. Everyone wants to get in to services instead of simple hardware alone due to how profitable it is.

[dannesthlm]

A list of non chitubox printers is something I think should be made (if there is not one already made?), that would help buyers to avoid this type of locking a user to a corner they do not want

[insaneferret]

Manufacturers take note: a MASSIVE proportion of the maker community will not buy your products if you tie them to a subscription, its a hard red line.
Makers are very very hostile to hardware as a service schemes, upvote if you agree.

[DomSculpts]

I won't buy any new printers that have "Chitu locked" boards. Ever.

[MakerFarmNL]

Very subtle! That Fusion 360 logo almost popping up. Fantastic!

[groundzero_-lmmd]

The concern isn't that Chitubox Pro is better. It's weather or not Chitubox basic keeps it's existing feature set. If they give a real promise that basic will stay the way it is forever, I would be OK with it.

[DavesRocketShop]

I've been meaning to get a resin printer for a while now, but honestly I can't see myself ever buying a Chitu based printer. I can see a day not too far off where you need to pay them a subscription fee to use hardware you've supposedly paid for. Cricut anyone? No thanks.

[marcus_w]

That's a bold move, given that ChituBox is based on a (former) open source slicer, which desolved and got picked up by a couple of developers.

[SergiuszRoszczyk]

You just convinced me to skip any Chitubox framework printer. I don't see any point of locking machine that basically has to display a series of B/W bitmaps with certain time and speed. The same applies to SLA printers with vendor lock in.

[MMuraseofSandvich]

When a software maker reinvents one wheel, there's usually something fairly special about the wheel. When they reinvent the entire vehicle, usually they want to print money at the expense of users.

[neilis]

$169 per year is way too much for this type of product. If they wanted say $25, maybe even $40 one-time for a pro-license (or at least good until the next major update) then I could see paying that, but $169 per year is a hard pass for me.

[Twin_Flyer]

Great video. I did not know it was possible to slice with one program and export to another (never thought to look). That's a great workaround the basic/pro issue!

[SianaGearz]

I like the bool option. This way you can test a part of the print without marring your actual model file. I think FDM slicers would be well advised to introduce a simple box intersection boolean feature, I would make a good mileage out of it.

[hellcoreproductions]

This awful ecosystem is sure getting a lot of coverage.

[AndrewSink]

I've been waiting for this one! Can't wait to hear your take on the Pro software!

[felsinferguson]

Well, now I know I'll NEVER be buying a printer that uses Chitubox.