How old is your printer?
Hello all, looking to see the ages of your printer. I had a "MK1" that was purchased in February 2016, but have since done the MK2s upgrade which was in summer of 2018. While I never missed the glass bed leveling, it is amazing to see the growth of everything. Early 2016 you only had a few quality options to go with, most cost in the $1-2kUSD price range. I was curious and did some research, found myself on Prusa's site and I guess the rest is history.
RE: How old is your printer?
I have an old reprap (Prusa i3 alike), since they came out, that still needing manual calibration and an MK3 that i built somehow buying the hardware little by little. I never got the original frame from the mk3 as i bought directly the bear upgrade, the rest of the hardware is from prusa but, as i never could afford the kit i had to buy everything monthly all over a year (saving money isn´t for me lol)... So, in short, 2016-2017. With what i spent, i could get now a couple of awesome machines lol. Things have changed quite a lot since reprap times
RE:
my history started when I was working with a university, they paid for an SLA housing for the device we were working on...
It was interesting. but there was no way I could afford an SLA printer at that time...
Later I met a DIY 3d Printer enthusiast. He was knowledgeable and told me he had built a Prusa Mendel... Interesting...
SO I arranged to go to the Local Hacker space, to see a Mendel, in the flesh.
They had 2 Mendels... one wasn't working, and the other was!... Almost!!!... Both had very poor cable management (Waterfall wiring)... during the demonstration, the guy had to repair the wiring. a number of times... the assembly of the hardware left something to be desired... and I would have to source all of the components... and I didn't know enough, to be confident... so I Backed off...
Then I Saw the Prusa i3 1.75mm printer (As it was called at the time) it was a printer in a box! (Including 1Kg filament) Just add manpower, electricity and a PC, download some software and off you go... (that sounded a lot more positive than DIY...)
So I bought one... (30/10/2015) since then, I have a I had what is now called a Mk1, which has been upgraded to mk2 and then MMU1 (Biggest things for mk2 were Self levelling PEI Heatbed instead of glass on wobbly manually leveled glass heatBed)
Since then, I bought another mk2 (which didn't get built due to ill health) the MMU1 was not good... prusa offered an upgrade to the MMU1 to add filament sensors
I pre ordered... not a lot happened for ages... The Mk3 was offered for Pre order... Yup... I Pre ordered... the mk3 arrived bringing removeable build plate and filament sensor...
MMU2 was announced (Prusa offered to convert my MMU1 upgrade to an MMU2 Upgrade) I Had to wait until all of the MMU2 Upgrades had been fulfilled before I got my MMU1 to MMU2 upgrade. This came with cables for Mk2 and Mk3... I Sourced 2 additional extruder motors to complete the MMU2 and fitted it to my Mk3
As it turned out, the Mk3 Laser filament sensor, was not good... So Prusa created the Mk3S (infrared Filament Sensor) and the MMU2S At that time I Had tasks that needed more capacity, so another Mk3s joined the family... Then... the Mk2 I Didn't build, which had donated organs to other printers... became Frankenprusa...
Mk3 technology in a Mk2 frame, with a Meanwell 300 watt power supply. At some point a Prusa SL1 Joined the family, it's now an SL1S.
Covid happened, and some of my need for 3D printing capacity disappeared...
FrankenPrusa was donated to a friend...
More recently my original Mk3 MMU2, was upgraded to MK3.9 and MMU3...
Guess I am a Prusa Fangirl!
So here I am, with a
Mk2 MMU1 (Now working well)
Mk3 now with Zorbiter extruder and Phaetus Dragon Hotend
Mk3.9 with MMU3
SL1S And,,,,
Zaribo ZLC Core XY 300x300x300 (Moment of weakness,,,)
Guess there is no cure for 3D Printing!
Joan
I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK
RE: How old is your printer?
Hello all, looking to see the ages of your printer. I had a "MK1" that was purchased in February 2016, but have since done the MK2s upgrade which was in summer of 2018. While I never missed the glass bed leveling, it is amazing to see the growth of everything. Early 2016 you only had a few quality options to go with, most cost in the $1-2kUSD price range. I was curious and did some research, found myself on Prusa's site and I guess the rest is history.
My oldest Prusa is a MK2 bought in 2016. It has been since upgraded to "MK2.5S+". I've also reprinted all the plastic parts - the originals became brittle and started to break in 2022 - and added a RPI4 running Prusalink. It still gets regular use I printed something on it only a few days ago. I'm amazed an almost 10 year old printer is still getting firmware and software updates from Prusa.
But my oldest printer is a Thing-o-Matic I bought in 2010 although I haven't used it since getting the MK2. However it's a neat bit of history and I keep it on the shelf as an ornament.
RE: How old is your printer?
I bought my 3d-printer prusa mk3s during the Covid containment in May 2020.
RE: How old is your printer?
After making friends at a local maker space: https://somakeit.org.uk/ with James, (sadly lost contact with him since he became semi famous as XRobot https://youtube.com/@jamesbruton ) I got a LulzBot AO-101 in 2013 for ~£1700! It served me well until the mainboard started falling in 2022. I toyed with doing a major upgrade to it but as sturdy as the tank like frame is, the underlying platform was just so dated that I started thinking about a new bigger format printer. Then the XL was announced... Just 2 printers but I started in the early days 😀
RE: How old is your printer?
I bought my MK3 in 2018, after 6 months printing on two very inglorious cheap Chinese branded printers. I did the S and S+ upgrades. I have recently bought another printer with multi material but I find myself going back to the Prusa with even PETG, ABS and ASA because these materials are just so good on the MK3S+.
The only materials I've struggled with are the Colorfabb PA-CF, until a rake of similar filaments came out last year and I was able to modify a similar filament config to get it to work. Other than that the only filament it just wouldn't print with was a cheap glitter filament from Amazon, but again that's probably just the slicer config.
Everything on the printer is stock, except I bought the newer mk3s+ z rod bearings last year, and the heat break is a Slice Engineering Copperhead heat brake. I use mainly MicroSwoss XT nickel coated nozzles, and switch to e3d hardened steel when printing abrasives.