MK3 Experience: How has it been?  

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

So great to hear everyone! I am super excited.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

My MK3 is getting better and better. I have MK2S since two years and I'm using both printers almost every day. So far MK3 is definitely better in terms of speed and removable plate. I don't want to miss it anymore.
So far had only issues on the MK3 with higher temp PLA but with R3 parts no issues so far. Consider both printers as work horses for 24/7 usage.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

Also, just wanted to share this 3D Printing Porn. Really nice timelapses, mostly done with the Prusa MK3

Wild Rose Builds

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

I wonder when the new R3 B7 parts will be available? I contacted support and they said they are not selling or shipping printers with the new extruder parts and didn't have a date for when that would be done.
My experience has been good up until the hotend failing. I've got the replacement part, but was hoping I could buy the new parts or get them some other ways so I don't have to rebuild the extruder twice.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

I just got an email from support. I asked the exact same question. Maybe he was a little more forthcoming, but he said they were finalizing testing, are not shipping currently, but possibly in 2 weeks if all goes well. Not sure that will get included in my shipment. What happened to your hotend? it just died? Does anyone think it's worth getting any of the parts printed in NYLON or even metal from shapeways?

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

I just got an email from support. I asked the exact same question. Maybe he was a little more forthcoming, but he said they were finalizing testing, are not shipping currently, but possibly in 2 weeks if all goes well. Not sure that will get included in my shipment. What happened to your hotend? it just died? Does anyone think it's worth getting any of the parts printed in NYLON or even metal from shapeways?

Brian, I was printing fine for a few months when I started to have filament issues I thought. It may have been the beginning of the problem. In the end the nozzle kept clogging until I couldn't clear it either heating up the nozzle, cold or hot pulls.
The bulb kept forming on the filament when I cleared it. I was told that there were a small percentage of hotends that had failures like mine so they replaced it.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

My experience echos the positive reports: Great quality, great community, great support when I hit the inevitable issues coming from a home-built kit. Support has been incredibly respectful and helpful and patiently walked me through until I could obviously see my own subtle errors. And they have alwaysbeen my errors. Except there were some missing nuts in the kit, which they promptly shipped; CZ to California, and I was back in business in a couple of days.

Now I'm printing a new extruder, because I can! Very fun.

Everyone in my family can look forward to cool impossible plastic things for Christmas.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

Oh also, I wasn't a total noob; I learned hacking on a Craftbot+ at my former workplace. The MK3 crushes that unit in every dimension: Quality, reliability, ease of use, speed, versatility. You made a great choice.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

So far so good. Got my MK3 kit last week and put it together. Logged about 4+ hours on the assembly because I fiddled around with squaring the frame using some good machinist squares and fooling a bit with torquing bolts. Takes longer that way but seems to be paying off. Other than a couple of prints where I should have opted for a raft and supports, no problems at all.

Printing with the silver PLA and a spool of the lime green PLA from Prusa right now. There's a MicroCenter not far from me so I'll probably switch over to Inland PLA and PLA+ and try their PETG. It will require some recalibrating but not a big deal.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

Kit arrived yesterday evening, having been shipped within 24 hours of ordering. Amazing. Build has now hit a roadblock, as I'm missing both of the pulley bearings for the idler assembly as well as the shaft. (Have searched every bag three times, to no avail, but spoke to support and new parts are going out tomorrow.)

Can only echo what many say in that the printed manual is great, but the online manual - notably the comments on each step - are a godsend. I shave my head every day, but was considering growing it again just so I could tear it out, getting the frame perfectly square was driving me crazy. Spent about 45 minutes carefully loosening and retightening screws in the specified order, but always had a wobble. Until I checked the ONLINE manual and saw Paul's tip- which worked perfectly.

Re: MK3 Experience: How has it been?

I recently bought the MK3 and here's my 2 cents.

I'm sure there are good reasons for some people to choose a preassembled printer (time constraints, lack or fear of technical aptitude skills, anxiety of the build, etc.), but I really have to wonder why you would. First of all the built in delay to get one preassembled would be agony for me because if you guys are anything like me, I may take a while to pull the trigger but when I do I don't mess around I just do it and then having to wait after that decision would kill me. I took the opportunity before purchasing to review the instructions on the build process (a rare opportunity for most things that have some assembly required or such) I wasn't 100% sure how hard it would be but was confident I could probably handle it. When the box arrived at the house 48hrs after ordering (not just shipping time, the time from me clicking buy to it on my doorstep) from it from Europe ( I live in the US) I was impressed, when I actually got to apply the instructions to the build process I was thoroughly impressed, more than enough detail is provided in almost every single step (in fact I probably took longer reading it in some cases than doing it). I got it all together without really any issue until I went to turn it on and it didn't want to load up the calibration menu like it said it was supposed to do, however after a little research I finally got it to do the various calibrations and then went right into printing the prusa logo that was pre installed, it ran without any issues as if it had always been assembled, instead of every piece being in a box or bag that I had to put together. I'm very pleased and the process of assembling it was actually rewarding in and of itself. Not to mention that the money saved by doing this makes it that much more attractive for those of you that are looking at budget.

This is my first printer period so I can by no means truly speak to its capabilities advantages/disadvantages over the other brands out there, however I would be hard pressed to believe that there is a better printer for the features and capabilities of it coupled with the price point. I'm sure someone will say my x1000s of dollars one is way better or maybe my x100s of dollars cheaper one is perfectly fine/better, but really at the end of the day I don't think you can go wrong with this printer.