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Original Prusa MK4

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Re: Original Prusa MK4

#151

Post by eropple »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #136
sydd wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Cost is part of it. If you look at bed-dropper printers (the Ender 5 or the Sovol SV05), there's just more metal involved. Metal is expensive. It's also heavy, so your shipping costs go up.

It's also a simpler set of kinematics for the system to deal with. Most 3D printers have pretty dumb microprocessors (value engineering!) at their core. CoreXY printers use two steppers to execute any movement, and that requires more calculations. Delta printers use three steppers to execute any movement, even.

More modern printers run Klipper, which offloads the kinematic calculations to a single-board computer, and that addresses a lot of the problems you run into. Klipper also helps with bedslinger kinematics too, though, as it has the headroom to do some forward-looking optimization. The current state of printers is pretty cool.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#152

Post by blisterpeanuts »

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.

Maybe I’m lucky, as are the hundreds other Prusa MK3S owners I see on the various forums, but the problems you mention seem to be rare.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#153

Post by eropple »

2muchcoffeeman wrote: post #131
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!”

Prusa absolutely builds good stuff, but their level of repairability just isn't different from most other printers--Bambu notably excepted, as they're a pretty closed system. They're all extremely commodity parts, from boards to v-wheels.

I wish them well, but the value of their devices to date just does not equal the price. (The Prusa XL may change this and I'm really excited to play with one.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#154

Post by eropple »

treesciencebot wrote: post #40
f38zf5vdt wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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. I would say the higher price tag is more like "Prusa" using its name as a quality assurance system where if you want to get something working without much hassle (since nearly every other mk4/mk3s clone th…

> since nearly every other mk4/mk3s clone that has been out there really really sucks except the ones from Prusa

The Sovol SV06 has been selling like gangbusters for the last six months or so, and it's excellent. And it's sub-$250.

If you move a little further away from the i3 clones (and the SV06 absolutely is clone-y), that's where Elegoo--or Anycubic if you buy judiciously, or even Creality if you get it on sale--still make the argument quite difficult.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#155

Post by mft_ »

gattilorenz wrote: post #62

Not quite on topic, but I wanted to start 3D printing for a long time, but it feels there’s a huge gap from where I am (0 knowledge of 3D modeling and obviously 0 experience with printing) and where I want to get (design some custom parts that would make my life easier, e.g. a custom support for my Magic Trackpad that integrates with my keyboard). Does anyone have a good recommendation to go “from zero to hero”?

3D modelling is the big learning curve, but obviously independent of owning a 3D printer. Running a printer (assuming you get a reliable model) is straightforward in comparison.

Having tried most of the options there are, I’d recommend downloading Fusion 360 and following a few of the many online tutorials. While the free version is a little restricted, it’s a high-quality parametric 3D CAD package, and to my mind is superior to everything else at a hobbyist price point. It’s also faaaaaaar more approachable (IMO) and/or fully-featured than other free options such as OpenSCAD or FreeCAD.

A few weeks of following tutorials and trying to make your own simple models should see you to a level where you can judge whether it’s the right hobby for you, and therefore whether it’s worth investing in a printer.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#156

Post by eropple »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #49
LeafItAlone wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how far Prusa is behind truly next-gen printers like the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon Can you expand on this?

The biggest disadvantage in my mind of the Prusa MK2/3/4 printers is they use the original i3 design. It's a good design, and very simple to build, maintain and program. But it limits the print speed due to the amount of mass that has to move, particularly in the Y axis. The entire bed has to move which induces vibrations at higher speeds. Newer printers (including the Prusa XL) use a CoreXY design, where the extrude…

CoreXY printers absolutely do have more stable kinematics for better acceleration, but modern open printer firmware--mostly Klipper, though you can do it with Marlin in an unsatisfying way--implements resonance compensation, aka input shaping, in a way that really improves acceleration (which matters way more than top speed for most prints).

My Sovol SV06 can make a really nice-quality 3DBenchy in 37 minutes after doing my input shaping samples. That's not as fast as an X1 Carbon, but it cost a quarter as much, and I tend to think that when it comes to 3D printers that bandwidth is more valuable than latency.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#157

Post by bboygravity »

rhinoceraptor wrote: post #49
LeafItAlone wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> how far Prusa is behind truly next-gen printers like the Bambu Lab X1-Carbon Can you expand on this?

The biggest disadvantage in my mind of the Prusa MK2/3/4 printers is they use the original i3 design. It's a good design, and very simple to build, maintain and program. But it limits the print speed due to the amount of mass that has to move, particularly in the Y axis. The entire bed has to move which induces vibrations at higher speeds. Newer printers (including the Prusa XL) use a CoreXY design, where the extrude…

I'll take the slower printer speed if it means I get better reliability, repeatability and repearability. Any day.

I've wasted enough hours on fancy features/materials/settings that don't work. Couldn't care less about the feature of being able to print a part a few minutes/hours faster tbh.

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#158

Post by mft_ »

asveikau wrote: post #114
gattilorenz wrote: post #62

Not quite on topic, but I wanted to start 3D printing for a long time, but it feels there’s a huge gap from where I am (0 knowledge of 3D modeling and obviously 0 experience with printing) and where I want to get (design some custom parts that would make my life easier, e.g. a custom support for my Magic Trackpad that integrates with my keyboard). Does anyone have a good recommendation to go “from zero to hero”?

I'm just learning too, but wanted to throw in that for an HN audience, OpenSCAD may be intuitive for modeling. You basically write up models in a simple declarative programming language. I found this easier to get started with than more GUI based tools.

I’m interested which GUI CAD tools you tried? I don’t use it myself but I find Fusion 360 magnitudes more intuitive and capable than OpenSCAD, which I really tried to like!

Re: Original Prusa MK4

#160

Post by sircastor »

ferminaut wrote: post #30
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…

I think as 3D printer enthusiasts, we focus on structure and features. The thing that I think of when I think of Prusa is reliability. For most people the most important thing about a 3D printer is that it prints. It doesn’t matter if it’s corexy or uses a Bowden tube, or the board is 32bit. And while those technologies ostensibly provide a better experience, it doesn’t really matter (for most) so long as you get thing thing you wanted to print.

For me, Bambu is too proprietary, Voron is too self-built, Ender is too unpredictable.

By current printer is self built and it works sometimes. My next printer is a Prusa.

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