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Original Prusa MK4

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Re: Original Prusa MK4

#131

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

f38zf5vdt wrote: post #28
treesciencebot wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I don’t know why this is being down voted. Prusa are trying to make an open source hardware company work and I guess this is what it looks like.

There is so much noise on HN about repairability. Well here is some open hardware And it’s ”the Chinese printers have so much more features!”

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#132

Post by BoorishBears »

mzi wrote: post #10
j-pb wrote: post #5

Really nice to see steady incremental improvements to an already solid platform! It's small stuff like no longer having to manually Z-Adjust, and having the print-head connected via easy to undo/replace connectors, that seem like small things but are huge time- and nerve-savers when it comes to actually running these things in production. Crazy to see how far Prusa has come with his stuff, I still remember sitting an…

They also just published a blog post[0] discussing the hardware equivalent of SSPL if I get it correctly. 0: https://blog.prusa3d.com/the-state-of-open-source-in-3d-prin...

Prusa really needs a PR department.

Getting your lunch absolutely eaten by some kickstarter printer in near silence, announcing the first few minutes of pre-orders for your already delayed printer will take months, near zero build up to the launch of the MK4...

And they won't even let the win from that just sizzle a bit, they need to take all that heat and dump it into the murky depths of Open Source Licensing.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#133

Post by buffington »

makeset wrote: post #59
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.

That’s the opposite of my experience with i3/Mini compared to the Enders of the world. Cheap printers => eternal fix/mod hell, Prusa => still “just works.” If you don’t care to become a part-time 3D printer tech, and value your time more than a few hundred dollars vs. dozens of hours spent trying to get it right, buy Prusa and get printing.

I have an Ender 3 that just worked. I one-clicked it on Amazon, it arrived later that day, I unboxed it, put it together, then started a 16 hour PETG print that was ready the next morning. That printer has since printed something almost every day for the past year without issue.

I have another Ender 3 that I upgraded. It has a Bigtreetech SKR Mini with a full color touch screen, a bed leveling sensor, and a Micro Swiss direct drive extruder. It just works as well, and probably doesn't benefit a ton from the fancy extruder or touch screen since I tend to use a web UI.

I also have a Prusa MK3S+. It performs equally well to the Enders.

For what I paid for the Prusa, I could have a 5+ Enders with upgraded 32bit controllers running Klipper. Or a lot of rolls of filament.

Come to think of it, I haven't even used the Prusa in over a month because one of its steppers or that stepper motor driver is failing, skipping steps or just going rogue. I haven't bothered looking into it yet because the Enders are easily keeping up with whatever I need printed.

I honestly think that when you buy a Prusa, you're buying the brand, and supporting a company who's founder helped shaped the industry we all benefit from. At least that's what I tell myself to justify the huge (by comparison) price difference.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#134

Post by tlonny »

Symbiote wrote: post #124
tlonny wrote: post #120

God damn it - I just bought a MK3...

The announcement article says people who bought a Mk3S within the last month will receive a voucher for $150 or $200 which could be put towards the upgrade kit (or, I assume, filament etc). https://blog.prusa3d.com/announcing-original-prusa-mk4_76585...

Thanks for the heads up!

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#135

Post by dividedbyzero »

anamexis wrote: post #87
ferminaut wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

It seems like an odd place in Prusa's own product line-up. I have a Prusa MINI+, which for $450 gets you a great printer. The print volume on the MK3 and now MK4 is just not that much better - 180x180x180 for the MINI, 250x210x220 for the MK4. If I wanted to upgrade and wanted to stick with Prusa, MK3/MK4 wouldn't come into the picture, I'd go straight to the Prusa XL.

I have a Mini too, and I could see myself get a MK4 as the Mini has been a bit of a disappointment. The X and Y axes on mine aren't 90° and there seems to be no hardware adjustment (just a rigid printed part), no support for software adjustments either (the respective GCode is disabled in firmware), so I can't print proper rectangles, just parallelograms, and any boxes and lids I print never fit properly. I want to keep tinkering to a minimum (that's why I got a Prusa), and I can make do with goskew and preprocessing the gcode, but I found I have to repeat callibration quite often and it's a fairly annoying process and not very exact and means I can't reuse gcode files at a later date, so having a printer that doesn't have this defect would be very welcome.

My Mini also likes to ram the nozzle into the build plate once in a while without any of it's safeties triggering, heating element stuck on and the Z stepper fully engaged, so I can't let it run unsupervised either, and the filament sensor is pretty hit and miss as well. I may have had bad luck with my unit (I ordered right at release), but I'm definitely looking for something more reliable and, frankly, less dangerous.

The Prusa Mk4 does look like a solid hands-off machine and hopefully they didn't cut corners there like with the Mini, and hopefully customer support is also better for the more expensive ones. I don't have any use for the XL's feature set (I only print relatively small parts and not that many), but I didn't want to get a Mk3s as it's been pretty dated for a long time now. I'll wait a bit until other people have had a chance to run into any major flaws though.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#136

Post by 2muchcoffeeman »

sydd wrote: post #130
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.

Is it really? I've looked at the Bambu Lab printer and while on paper it looks nice I would be very hesitant to buy it, their "advanced" features not that convincing: - IMO multi material printing has always been a buggy gimmick (mostly multi material setups are very prone to failure). - Them advertising that the printer can print "advanced" materials like PC is a gimmick too, the main issue with FDM printers is laye…

>bashing bed slingers is wrong too, they have their advantages compared to CoreXY setups (mostly simpler mechanics)

Tangent: why was moving the bed the solution over having X and Y on independent axes? I’ve always wondered. Cost and initial reliability?

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#137

Post by belval »

Could someone explain to me what you get from paying more for a 3D printer like this one instead of a "basic" model?

I have a Ender 3 V2 with self-leveling bed (without self-leveling it's not that great) and I use it a lot, enough to justify buying a better $1k+ printer but it's not clear what I get from spending that much money on it.

Is it printing speed, better materials, or something else entirely?

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#138

Post by gjsman-1000 »

BoorishBears wrote: post #132
mzi wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They also just published a blog post[0] discussing the hardware equivalent of SSPL if I get it correctly. 0: https://blog.prusa3d.com/the-state-of-open-source-in-3d-prin...

Prusa really needs a PR department. Getting your lunch absolutely eaten by some kickstarter printer in near silence, announcing the first few minutes of pre-orders for your already delayed printer will take months, near zero build up to the launch of the MK4... And they won't even let the win from that just sizzle a bit, they need to take all that heat and dump it into the murky depths of Open Source Licensing.

It's a really, really bad look for them recently in my opinion.

The Prusa XL has been over a year and a half late. We had to preorder it, plunk down $200 as a deposit... and wait as they redesigned it over and over and blamed part shortages. Now, out of nowhere, "MK4 - Buy Now! No Preorder!"

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#139

Post by golem14 »

asveikau wrote: post #100
jsjohnst wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. I have had mine (w/ four total AMS units) for two months now and have over 500hrs of printing so far w/ minimal failed prints. I often print in sport and/or ludicrous too. I own eight other 3D printers of various major brands (including Prusa) and it’s by far and away the best I’ve ever owned. Easily comparable to printers…

> Your loss! This reminds me of an attitude I see in some of these hobby communities. The idea that someone who is happy with a different product is somehow wrong or losing. People are highly invested and identified with their choices. Why not just be ok with choices other people make, even if we disagree with them?

Always been that way. Ask any Atari ST user about Amiga and vice versa.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#140

Post by [deleted] »

outworlder wrote: post #104
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.

Disclaimer: I own an Ender 3, heavily modified. Prusa printers are generally rock solid and their quality control is great. For 1k, I really think we should be looking at a CoreXY machine (or, at least, something that doesn't have a bed that moves, whatever the kinematics). That's a major speed limitation, and it also causes vibrations even in lower speeds as you are moving the bed and your entire model. That's the o…

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