Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Original Prusa MK4

prusa3d.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 277 posts

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#21

Post by treesciencebot »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #12

These look like very solid improvements over the MK3S+ (I personally have two MK3S+, and use them a lot), and I love their commitment to open hardware and for making upgrade kits available, but it's a bit disappointing to see still how far Prusa is behind truly next-gen printers like the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon.

Indeed. I always thought they deferred the launch of any new model after X1C in order to take the true "just works" crown back (with the hopes of it would be something like Intel/AMD feuds where the monopoly had finally came to an end and customers can finally see some real competition). But apparently it is just a classic Prusa printer with better parts but still a very very high price to usability ratio (compared to Bambu Lab P1P or X1).

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#22

Post by levpopov »

latchkey wrote: post #13
sho_hn wrote: post #8

So I would really like to get into 3D printing, but I struggle with discomfort over the health implications. I live in a small rented apartment and can't easily work out space or, much more importantly, external venilation. Yes, I've looked into PLA vs. ABS, I've looked into enclosures with carbon/HEPA filters, etc., but I still don't want to have it in my living space without a vent to the outdoors. Here's the best…

Box around the printer with a vent/fan blowing outside. It'll be negative pressure in the box, so everything should just vent out. Even if you can just crack a window and get the airflow going out the window... you can push a flexible tube far out onto your balcony...

This is the best way. Inline duct fan and a flex hose running out of your window (you can print an adapter/connector to fit perfectly). It works very well even if your enclosure is not airtight (and it shouldn't be when printing PLA since you want a constant stream of air getting inside for cooling) - just let negative pressure do its thing.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#23

Post by metal_am »

bilsbie wrote: post #11

Has anyone figured out remote slicing? I’d love to just click print on a thingiverse page and have my printer start going.

You can get kinda close to that with OctoPrint running on a RaspberryPi. You'll still have to slice it manually, but you can upload the gcode and start the print from another browser tab.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#24

Post by latenightcoding »

Prusa printers were great many years ago. in 2023 I'd recommend buying any cheap Chinese brand. I bought an i3 MK3S+ and it almost made me lose my love for 3d printing, the machine is clearly stuck in the past, you don't even have remote printing out of the box, you face as many issues as you would with a cheap 3d printer, but you have to pay over $1k USD and wait months to get one.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#25

Post by zokier »

From outsider perspective (fdm) 3d printers plateaued relatively quickly; while the speed improvement is undoubtedly nice for heavy users, even at 3x speed I don't know if it is really transformative. Meanwhile the print quality hasn't changed really that much afaik? Of course being more reliable and less fiddly are certainly good improvements but I don't see them being transformative or making 3d printing conquer new areas.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#26

Post by mcast »

latenightcoding wrote: post #24

Prusa printers were great many years ago. in 2023 I'd recommend buying any cheap Chinese brand. I bought an i3 MK3S+ and it almost made me lose my love for 3d printing, the machine is clearly stuck in the past, you don't even have remote printing out of the box, you face as many issues as you would with a cheap 3d printer, but you have to pay over $1k USD and wait months to get one.

Isn't Prusa one of the few open-source companies/printers? I thought they were expensive because they used high-quality parts.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#27

Post by yokoprime »

latenightcoding wrote: post #24

Prusa printers were great many years ago. in 2023 I'd recommend buying any cheap Chinese brand. I bought an i3 MK3S+ and it almost made me lose my love for 3d printing, the machine is clearly stuck in the past, you don't even have remote printing out of the box, you face as many issues as you would with a cheap 3d printer, but you have to pay over $1k USD and wait months to get one.

Is this satire? I have a Prusa mini, and for a 3D printer it’s as close to “it just works” as you can get. My friend got an Ender3 and has spent countless hours modding it, replacing parts etc and he still can’t print PETG reliably while I print in any of the “normal” materials without worry at all. The stories I hear about cheap Chinese printers are like my friend with his Ender, just dialed up to 11.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#28

Post by f38zf5vdt »

treesciencebot wrote: post #21
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #12

These look like very solid improvements over the MK3S+ (I personally have two MK3S+, and use them a lot), and I love their commitment to open hardware and for making upgrade kits available, but it's a bit disappointing to see still how far Prusa is behind truly next-gen printers like the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon.

Indeed. I always thought they deferred the launch of any new model after X1C in order to take the true "just works" crown back (with the hopes of it would be something like Intel/AMD feuds where the monopoly had finally came to an end and customers can finally see some real competition). But apparently it is just a classic Prusa printer with better parts but still a very very high price to usability ratio (compared t…

It's a proprietary versus open source argument. You can build a mk4 clone for much less than the price of a Prusa-branded one, as everything is open source. The higher price tag is like a donation to open source.

Prusa also makes the open source XL if you want an CoreXY model, or you could go with a Voron which is also open source.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#29

Post by rhinoceraptor »

treesciencebot wrote: post #21
rhinoceraptor wrote: post #12

These look like very solid improvements over the MK3S+ (I personally have two MK3S+, and use them a lot), and I love their commitment to open hardware and for making upgrade kits available, but it's a bit disappointing to see still how far Prusa is behind truly next-gen printers like the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon.

Indeed. I always thought they deferred the launch of any new model after X1C in order to take the true "just works" crown back (with the hopes of it would be something like Intel/AMD feuds where the monopoly had finally came to an end and customers can finally see some real competition). But apparently it is just a classic Prusa printer with better parts but still a very very high price to usability ratio (compared t…

This seems like a bit of a stop-gap since the Prusa XL seems to be taking longer to get going than expected, I would hope their plan is to totally rearchitect around the Prusa XL design and scale that down to the 250mm^3 size class.

They are still very good machines, but I would have a hard time recommending anyone get an i3 style printer when the advantages of CoreXY are so obvious, and particularly because the price gap between the X1C is not very big.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#30

Post by ferminaut »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #12

These look like very solid improvements over the MK3S+ (I personally have two MK3S+, and use them a lot), and I love their commitment to open hardware and for making upgrade kits available, but it's a bit disappointing to see still how far Prusa is behind truly next-gen printers like the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon.

I own two MK3s+'s. They are solid machines if you are looking to print PLA and some PETG. The stock extruder is a PITA. The MK4's redesigned nozzle/heat break & 10:1 extruder are basically a Bondtech LGX + Revo & should make for a great improvement.

The MMU3 seems like a marginal improvement, you still have purge towers & large buffer boxes. Hopefully the reliability out of the box has improved.

I wonder if it's too little too late for Prusa. A Voron, Ratrig, Bambu Lab printer seems like it has all these features & is CoreXY. The multi material options seem better on these options too (Enraged Rabbit Carrot Feeder, Bambu AMS).

In the case of the Voron or Ratrig, you'll load Klipper instead of the tried & tested (and outdated) Marlin.

In 2023, I am not sure I'd buy a MK4 at $1100 when you can get a Bambu for $100 more.

Post reply on HN