Prusa's answer to the Bambu and Creality models

[Redbrickman]

A very interesting new model from Prusa.

 

[tatianafrost]

A very interesting new model from Prusa.

Fully enclosed, open source, modable, prusa quality, AND price competitive to Bambu?

It may finally be time for me to purchase an official Prusa printer. Well done yall!

 

[Redbrickman]

After doing more research on it I think its not a great printer for the price but that's my opinion. There are better cheaper brands around, some with a chamber heater like the Qidi Plus 4. The Prusa isn't particularly well sealed either which is important to me to reduce VOC and fume oiutput.

 

[Artur5]

Believe me, if you want to keep your sanity, stay well away from that printer. Take a look into the Core One section of Prusa's forum and you'll see an online replica of Jerusalem's Wailing Wall.

My first printer was a Prusa MK3S-(still working fine). but after this model, they went downhill fast. Possibly the need to keep competitive prices against Bambulab and other Chinese brands forced Prusa to build machines with substandard parts, rushed clumsy designs and never ending buggy firmwares.
Out of curiosity after reading such horror stories on their forum, I browsed the assembly instructions of the printer and I was truly appalled. They saved every penny possible everywhere, but also some parts seem designed by people without any common sense. No wonder there're so much complains.
What is worse, Prusa's marketing hype nowadays is misleading and sometimes flat outright lies.

 

[Redbrickman]

I think it was a knee jerk reaction to Bambu's success and they cobbled it together as quick as possible.

If I was to buy a ready made printer any time soon it would be the QIDI Plus 4. It's by no means a perfect printer but there is a massive community on Discord similar to the Voron channel and they are doing amazing things with mods and have also released an open source firmware for the machine. The heated chamber is an attractive feature and the new QIDI box multi color system when the teething issues are solved will make it a nice machine.

 

[Nifty]

I'm really curious what's going to happen with Prusa over the years. They have a great reputation and have had good products, but I feel like the industry is changing faster than they are able (or willing?) to keep up with.

There are just too many other options these days that have better offerings and/or better prices.

 

[The Hat]

but I feel like the industry is changing faster than they are able (or willing?) to keep up with.

With all the talk of Tariffs hanging in the air, some of these printer companies are not going to survive.. Innovation is being strangled..

 

[ConradH]

I got the Core One kit during the Black Friday specials. At work we have a Bambu X1C and X1E, so I'm familiar with them and the parts they produce. I only worked on building the Core One for a couple hours a day, so it took me a full week to build the thing. Not sure I'd do it again, but at least I'm now familiar with every nut and bolt.

I work in precision manufacturing and was astounded at how good the Prusa components are. The tolerancing of their sheet metal parts is much better than what shops here typically produce. Every hole lined up. They put the quality where they needed it and didn't gild the lily where they didn't. IMO, the CoreXY assembly isn't that different than Bambu. Prusa uses a THK bearing rail for the X, which is a high-quality part. Linear ball bushings for the rest. Bambu uses a carbon fiber rail system. It doesn't have LIDAR, but the strain gauge system has produced flawless leveling and 1st layers. Print quality seems right on par with Bambu. People complain about value/pricing, but it seems like a reasonable price for a very solid production quality printer. There's also an upgrade path for the hotend and a multi-head multi-filament system.

Parts are typically easy to get from Prusa, and you can print many yourself, if necessary. We needed parts for the Bambu and were dead in the water for multiple weeks because Bambu couldn't supply them.

IMO, what you get out of a Prusa or Bambu probably has more to do with expertise than anything else. We have a constantly rotating group of engineering co-op students at work, and they all seem to have 9th degree black belts in 3d printing. They've been able to print all manner of things I didn't think were practical. So far, I'm getting similar results from the Core One, and I'm nowhere near their level of expertise.

I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Core One and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Bambu.

 

[Artur5]

Either you work for Prusa or you must be joking ...