How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
Just finished building my Core One this last weekend and got to thinking about the price difference and how long it takes to build. Anyone know how long it takes a pro to build one in house?
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
I think 1-1.5 hours with everything else being perfect (desk organised, tools organised etc) and a lot of experience building a particular printer. I think that it wouldn't be particularly time consuming for a builder at the factory to make a mk4sn or a mk3s, since they have been in the pipeline for some time now.
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
Usually though one printer isn't assembled by one person - that's the whole point of an assembly line. Have many people each laser focused on making one small job perfect and then pass it on to the next.
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
Hi @avarice, that's good to know. yeah, the mk4 and mk3 seem much easier to build, and certainly if all the parts were already in easy to grab "piles" or "bins" it would be quicker.
@outofcheese: agreed. But I wasn't sure if they assembly-lined construction. Given the number of steps that would be a large assembly line. But I could see efficiency in say, one person building the XY gantries, etc. Definitely could see an actual process not using same instructions as the home build kit.
My thought was just "there's a $250 diff in price... but way more packaging/care in the kit. so the build must be _relatively_ quick for Prusa in house to make the price difference worth it.
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
One station doesn't have to equal one step, stations have to be reasonably timed to each other as well so on average they churn out their product at about the same rate (or there would be piles of stuff accumulating in front of the slower stations). I'm 100% sure they have an assembly line because it's much more efficient to produce that way. Just think of the amount of parts and tools one station would have to have in store to make a whole printer. Also it's much easier and quicker to teach a new employee their job if it's a relatively simple one vs teaching each new employee how to assemble the whole thing. If somebody calls in sick/is on vacation/quits it's much easier and quicker to replace them on an assembly line.
However, I believe in their research dept. prusa actually have people who build whole printers by themselves or in small teams, maybe they have some timed core one assemblies over there.
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
It was long 3 evenings with my MK4. I cannot imagine it in 1.5hr
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
yeah, I did 2 pretty solid days of work to build the Core One. Think it was about 10-12 hours. Was enjoyable, but yeah, I wouldn't think down to 1.5h. Would be fun to see some video of assembly line or whatever. =)
It was long 3 evenings with my MK4. I cannot imagine it in 1.5hr
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
Prusa made a blog post / similar a while back about their in-house assembly time for the MK4s. I can't find the post, but it was significantly more than 1½ hours. If I recall correctly, I think the average was around 5h with the in-house record being slightly over 2h. I would imagine that the Core One would have similar assembly times.
RE: How long does it take Prusa to build printer?
Don't know if I got the right one from the blog, but in the one I found they don't really show anything from the assembly. I found a factory tour on YT from a non-Prusa channel that shows how they did it a year or so ago (timestamped to start of tour).