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Original Prusa MK4

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Re: Original Prusa MK4

#241

Post by JofArnold »

tcoop25 wrote: post #75
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 just canceled my X1-Carbon order. Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. It is insanely loud, and it seems unreliable and buggy. I have owned a lot of printers over the years, and the only printers I, or any of my colleagues come back to are Prusa printers. They are incredibly reliable. The few times we have had issues with a part, we have been able to print a…

I also cancelled my X1C and am now part-way through a VzBot kit :) Didn't want something I couldn't repair/upgrade, even though the VzBot is for me quite a complicated build!

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#242

Post by Symbiote »

serf wrote: post #234
Symbiote wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think buying any Chinese product when an alternative exists has become unconscionable. China's current support of Russia is an obvious issue, as well as their threats towards Taiwan and their destruction of democracy in Hong Kong. Problems with IP infringement abound, and in this case it's particularly disappointing as Prusa is committed to open source. I hope Prusa continue to innovate, but I also hope…

You're still supporting China with a Prusa purchase. The power supplies are built by Delta Electronics, the bearings and rods are (usually) Chinese supplied, the fans flip between China and misc SE Asia suppliers (Noctua) , the steppers are from China (LDO)... the list probably goes on. You could make an FDM printer with exclusively American (or otherwise) parts, but the price tag is going to be astronomical.

I generally don't look that far into a purchase, as it's often difficult to find the information.

With Prusa, the majority of the profit is made in Czechia. The research, design, assembly and some of the manufacture is done there. I support China much less than with a purchase from a Chinese company.

Note Delta Electronics is a Taiwanese company with manufacturing in several countries including China. Noctua is an Austrian-Taiwanese company with manufacturing in Taiwan and China. LDO is Chinese, but this makes my point — how do you know those are the steppers Prusa uses? It's not written on their site.

I would like to see clear labelling on products showing their origin, perhaps including the origin of any component until the cost is <5% of the total, or something like that. Include the PSU, but don't bother about the capacitors or power cord.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#243

Post by rcarmo »

polishdude20 wrote: post #86
rcarmo wrote: post #3

I have a Prusa MK2 clone that I recently revived with Klipper firmware, a cheapo Kingroon MK3S Pro that I bought to tweak a bit, and have been looking at getting a Bambu Labs or building a Voron - and either of those seems like a better investment than the MK4 if you can build and tweak the printer yourself. But the key thing is that the Bambu (and other upcoming Core XY printers) are aimed at the non-modding market…

How is the Bambu a better deal? All I'm seeing is a $1500 printer. Is there some other model?

Even the more expensive models are (arguably) better than the prusa due to being core xy

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#244

Post by JofArnold »

Francis2023 wrote: post #101

Replaced all 25 MKS3+ machines with 15 Bambu P1Ps and 5 Bambu X1C's about 2 months ago. Sold the last Mks3+ yesterday. They Print 3 Times faster than the MKS3+ with same or better quality in some prints. 24/7 printing almost with zero issues in my print farm. BVery easy to send jobs to it from the Bambu slicer based on the Prusa slicer which is open source and enhanced to make complicated print jobs spread across mul…

> At this point i see ZERO reason to consider a MK4

Prusas are user serviceable with lots of spare parts available. Bambus are far from that and if there's a problem with the design (e.g. ghosting) you're out of luck for as long as it takes them to fix it.

I don't have a Prusa (I have a VzBot). Just saying there's far from zero reasons.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#245

Post by JofArnold »

rcarmo wrote: post #3

I have a Prusa MK2 clone that I recently revived with Klipper firmware, a cheapo Kingroon MK3S Pro that I bought to tweak a bit, and have been looking at getting a Bambu Labs or building a Voron - and either of those seems like a better investment than the MK4 if you can build and tweak the printer yourself. But the key thing is that the Bambu (and other upcoming Core XY printers) are aimed at the non-modding market…

Better deal by some measures, but definitely not part quality. Far from it. My equally-priced VzBot kit has much better quality components in every area right down to the screws.

That said, if I put a price on my time I think the X1C would be 1/10th the cost :D

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#246

Post by JofArnold »

zokier wrote: post #25

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 ne…

The speed is far more important than immediately obvious. To be able to iterate on the scale of minutes and hours and not hours and days is a game-changer. Imagine how productive a programmer would be if their compiler used to take 1.5 hours every time they saved something and it now took 10 minutes.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#247

Post by Symbiote »

MPSimmons wrote: post #205
Symbiote wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think buying any Chinese product when an alternative exists has become unconscionable. China's current support of Russia is an obvious issue, as well as their threats towards Taiwan and their destruction of democracy in Hong Kong. Problems with IP infringement abound, and in this case it's particularly disappointing as Prusa is committed to open source. I hope Prusa continue to innovate, but I also hope…

I'm totally unfamiliar with the company that makes the Bambu, but do they have ties to the CCP or is there evidence that buying this printer would further the Chinese government's efforts?

Taxes paid by Chinese businesses and residents further the goals of the Chinese government.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#248

Post by jayyhu »

serf wrote: post #234
Symbiote wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personally, I think buying any Chinese product when an alternative exists has become unconscionable. China's current support of Russia is an obvious issue, as well as their threats towards Taiwan and their destruction of democracy in Hong Kong. Problems with IP infringement abound, and in this case it's particularly disappointing as Prusa is committed to open source. I hope Prusa continue to innovate, but I also hope…

You're still supporting China with a Prusa purchase. The power supplies are built by Delta Electronics, the bearings and rods are (usually) Chinese supplied, the fans flip between China and misc SE Asia suppliers (Noctua) , the steppers are from China (LDO)... the list probably goes on. You could make an FDM printer with exclusively American (or otherwise) parts, but the price tag is going to be astronomical.

While Prusas definitely contain Chinese parts, if your goal is to avoid buying Chinese then buying a product with a diversified supply chain is certainly preferable to buying a product that is 100% from China.

Also Delta Electronics is a Taiwanese company[1]

[1] https://www.deltaww.com/en-US/about/aboutProfile

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#249

Post by himinlomax »

openmapsguy wrote: post #108
tcoop25 wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just canceled my X1-Carbon order. Just spend some time on the Bambu Labs subreddit and you will see a lot of frustrated owners. It is insanely loud, and it seems unreliable and buggy. I have owned a lot of printers over the years, and the only printers I, or any of my colleagues come back to are Prusa printers. They are incredibly reliable. The few times we have had issues with a part, we have been able to print a…

You’ll find people frustrated with Prusa too. There was a whole discord dedicated to trying to fix all issues. People act like having the power supply die, bed probe not being reliable, not having x axis tensioner are all normal. Just print out a bunch of parts from some randoms to fix. Also Prusas software are forks too so weird thing to call out bambu for.

> Also Prusas software are forks too so weird thing to call out bambu for.

They've been developing and supporting those forks in house for years, giving back to the community. I don't know about Bambu, but typically other Chinese companies don't really do that.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#250

Post by hellweaver666 »

alpaca128 wrote: post #174
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…

Voron? Apparently that takes about 30 hours of build time, that's definitely not my kind of project. I want to use the printer. Bambulabs? Looks very interesting, but it's as proprietary as it gets. With Prusa it's clear what I'm getting into. I want to upgrade from my Prusa Mini and can't justify the cost for the XL, so the Mk4 seems like a decent choice. I'm sure people building and modding their own printers and f…

I'm in the same situation. I've been using a Prusa Mini for two years and it's a really awesome machine. I've made some tweaks along the way but I get consistent, high-quality prints in a reliable machine. I never have trouble with prints failing to stick or filament sticking or any of that stuff. I'm in the market for a bigger print bed at the moment and I want to stick with Prusa but the XL is too expensive and the MK4 seems like it might not be quite big enough for my needs. I'm looking at the Elegoo Neptune range (they have some seriously big printers that are cheaper than the Prusa Mini!). I have serious doubts about the quality though at that point... it's just too damn cheap for the size.
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