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Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

blog.prusaprinters.org

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Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#141

Post by ddingus »

jrockway wrote: post #58
j-pb wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My guess is that driving that big color display and more importantly ethernet/ip stack would be a huge PITA on an 8bitter.

Yeah, I posted a few comments here without actually watching their marketing video, and didn't realize it had those two things. Upgrading to get those features seems like a good idea, to compete with the cheaper models. I don't think I would have engineered a new board and control stack just to get a web interface and a screen. Their last model (the i3 MK3S) has headers to accept a Pi Zero, and that seems like a good…

Same, but I also like an SD card slot that can read a big gcode file.

Write file, insert, pick job, walk away, done.

For very long prints, SD is my goto. No failures.

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#142

Post by ddingus »

ekr wrote: post #110
j-pb wrote: post #8

I'm glad that prusa has stayed true to his open hardware pledge all these years, while continuing to push the reprap ideals. Everybody is complaining about the price, but c'mon this thing is designed printed and assembled in Prague, the EU. It creates local jobs for people with fair wages, social security and good quality of life, we should strive to have more of our stuff produced in the west. Happy to see him desig…

> It creates local jobs for people with fair wages, social security and good quality of life, we should strive to have more of our stuff produced in the west. I don't really agree with that argument from a humanitarian perspective. That would simply further increase the vast economic inequality between the west and the rest. Even with lower wages, people in China are better off with more jobs than fewer. People in th…

Let China put it's people to work. They have lots to do.

Making products locally maintains a higher standard of living and can limit dependencies on others.

Not doing that takes a nations to largely service economy status and when that matures the standard of living declines, infrastructure development slows or stops, tax revenue goes down, and demand for new products gets tepid.

In short terms, the boost from cheap stuff is nice. As wages flatten, that cheap stuff becomes not so cheap and improving income more difficult.

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#143

Post by dfasdfasd »

e12e wrote: post #123
dfasdfasd wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No everyone needs a 3d printer for sure. A big part of what stopped the idea that 3d printing would be this magical revolution is that designing plastic parts is actually fairly hard. I don't use my 3d printer to 'fix' things around the house that often because it's frequently cheaper to work around it or buy a replacement. The times a high-value item breaks in a way I can fix with a printed part are rare enough it c…

> I'm currently using mine to make molds for real ceramic parts. Any pointers on your process here? How do you cure/fire your ceramics?

> Any pointers on your process here?

It's a pretty straightforward, the same technique that's used industrially for most common ceramic production. I 3D print mold positives that then get cast in plaster. That plaster is used as part of a 'slipcasting' process:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slipcasting

> How do you cure/fire your ceramics?

I'm using standard high-fire (cone 10) ceramic slips that I mix from raw powder. They are fired to ~1300 C in a small electric kiln (although it's a particularly well insulated one so it can go all the way to cone 10 without too much trouble).

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#144

Post by johnchristopher »

jrockway wrote: post #44
johnchristopher wrote: post #34

Can it be used to print small figurines for role playing or board games?

Yes, but in general everyone that buys an FDM printer for things like that is unhappy. Your parts will look 3D printed. If you care about fine detail, you really want an SLA printer. (The fact that this printer is small doesn't make it any better at small parts. It just takes up less space and can't print bigger parts.) I got into 3d printing about 6 months ago and am thrilled every time I print something. But 100% o…

Thanks, I know nothing about 3D printing. Thanks for the pointers.

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#145

Post by imtringued »

jrockway wrote: post #60
m0xte wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The “no name” drivers are a bit more complicated than an H bridge: https://www.pololu.com/file/0J450/a4988_DMOS_microstepping_d... The typical H bridge has many failure modes and disadvantages which are handled by the controller ICs. Not to mention a lot less CPU overhead for the AVR running the show.

Yeah, you can get some feedback from the controllers easily (and then omit physical endstops). I am waiting for a 3D printer that uses servo motors, though. So many failed prints come from not knowing where the extruder is. But you can just measure exactly where it is, rather than guessing based on how much current the motor used.

Servos will easily triple the cost of the printer.

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#146

Post by dang »

omnimus wrote: post #127
dang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site guidelines ask you not to post like this—would you mind reviewing them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Its the parent who is clearly marketing different product in multiple comments around the thread. I was just annoyed that i had to read thrid comment about how great differend product is

If you're worried about abuse on HN, like astroturfing and so on, please email us at hn@ycombinator.com so we can look into it. That's also what the site guidelines ask you to do. Make sure to include specific links. I took a quick look at the commenter's history and didn't see the kind of thing you're talking about here, but it's always possible I missed something.

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#147

Post by dTal »

royletron wrote: post #41
hevi_jos wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prusa cares about quality. Chinese mostly about price. For example, Prusa filaments are perfectly rewind, so the possibility of the filament making a knot and stopping the print like has happened to me with other filaments in 14h printing sessions does not exist. Or chinese aluminium printing beds, with 0.3-0.4 mms differences along the printer, that even with a touch probe you can't print big things over. Those beds…

So does it feel like this is the first genuinely plug and play 3D printer...? That's always been one of the things that puts me off, I don't want to have to learn so much...

Ultimakers are absolutely plug and play. You get what you pay for.

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#148

Post by eigenstuff »

alphagrep12345 wrote: post #17

Why does everyone need a 3d printer? Maybe this statement would sound as ludicrous looking back as asking why does everyone need a PC in the 1980s. However, I still don't understand why would a regular person need a 3d printer? Mass marketed goods are always cheaper due to economies of scale. And would you really want to put in the effort to make your own chair, etc?

I'm a sculptor who specializes in math and physics visualizations, I have two Prusa printers and they are invaluable tools for me. I 3D print a lot of sculpture parts and things like sculpture bases that would be difficult and time consuming to make on a milling machine (grids of tapered square holes, etc), in addition to lots and lots of tooling like jigs for setting the back stop on my model railroad chopper to precise lengths.

I love my two printers. They enable me to achieve the kind of computer precision my artwork requires in a way I don't know I'd be able to achieve otherwise, at least not in such a short amount of time.

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#149

Post by shifto »

WillPostForFood wrote: post #14
bsamuels wrote: post #4

I guess switching to a bowden extruder let them cut a ton of costs. Can't wait to see how it prints compared to the mk3. The real test will be comparing it to the Ender 3, which seems to be the form factor/market the mini is trying to go after. Even if the mini is 150 bucks more than the Ender 3, if it prints even slightly as reliably as the MK3 then the Ender 3 may be done for. With low cost printers like the Ender…

Switching to the Bowden extruder may have been more about reducing print head mass because of the cantilevered design. I'd avoid printers like the Ender for fire risk as much as the hidden cost of maintenance and upgrades. The Prusa Mini will be a much better entry option than the cheap Chinese knockoffs.

Ender is fine and not comparable to previous chinese printers like the Anet series. Also the merlin firmware has been made more robust against risk of fire through some software mitigations (measuring extruder heat etc).

Re: Prusa MINI: Smart and compact 3D printer

#150

Post by dual_basis »

omnimus wrote: post #127
dang wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The site guidelines ask you not to post like this—would you mind reviewing them? https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Its the parent who is clearly marketing different product in multiple comments around the thread. I was just annoyed that i had to read thrid comment about how great differend product is

(I actually only posted a single comment in this thread. It seems like there are multiple people who are recommending the Ender :) )
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