Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Piling on the hot end/extruder suggestions: easy swapping would be nice. The LulzBot solution is pretty solid and simple. It would be awesome to be able to swap between:
Also more build volume (at least in X and Y).
I'm an OctoPrint fan, but setting it up is so easy as it is, I don't see the point of including it. Easier access to the Einsy header would be good though, without uncasing it or clipping vent dividers.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
No thanks. Cost would be a factor here. Not everyone uses OctoPi so people who don't use would view this as a negative. Besides, the option works fine so why change it.
Might be a good idea if Prusa offered an OctoPrint kit seperately. A pi configured and ready to plugin with no soldering or setup beyond wifi config.
Why would you want that?
The hardest part of an entire OctoPi setup is the wifi config. I'm pretty sure that if you can use a 3d printer that you can copy octopi on an sd card, connect a Raspberry Pi to power and your printer and boot it? 😕
Keep in theme with the solder-less assembly and also allow for better integration, ie would be nice for a lot of people if they could buy a daughter board and install by simply plugging in to the side of the control board case.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
We won't do enclosure, as noone would buy it. It would be much more expensive than the IKEA LACK thing. We developed one but with reasonable BOM and margin it would be $250+ 😯
Graphic LCD and better MCU sounds reasonable. But we will never get rid of control encoder and buttons. Small touchscreens are clumsy 🙂
Since you don't plan on releasing, any chance you could throw the design online? :]
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Hi
I'm new here.
When I look at the MK3 it looks to me that a Linear bearing rail for the X axis would be a nice upgrade.
Maybe even for the Y and Z axis as well
Something like this 
http://www.tbimotion.com.tw/product/category/15/1/en.html
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
I don't think they are really necesarry. Such rails are meant for bigger forces (CNC) which are not present here. It would only increase total price of printer and gain nothing.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Hi
I'm new here.
When I look at the MK3 it looks to me that a Linear bearing rail for the X axis would be a nice upgrade.
Maybe even for the Y and Z axis as well
Something like this
http://www.tbimotion.com.tw/product/category/15/1/en.html
The TierTime printers (Up, UpBox, Cetus3D) all use linear rails, and I've always been impressed with the consistency and reliability of the print quality.
I have no idea what the cost impact would be. I suspect this may be one of those things where a hobbyist trying to buy a handful would find it prohibitively expensive, but a manufacturer willing to commit to tens of thousands of units could get a good price.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
A better MCU will allow to run at more stepsper mm, so round corners would be much smoother. I would really love to see a better MCU on the Prusa...Otherwise the printer really is good as it is!
I second this. I don't know for sure if more resolution is required but I think the mcu needs more heft and this could allow better calculations for acceleration profiles and flow control of the filament (linear advance)
Next step should be something like Cortex M4F so that not only do you go 32 bit you also have floating point. My guess is that the current problems with firmware are due to simple overloading of the micro.
I am totally in support of this. Just swap the Einsy with the DuetEthernet or DuetWifi. It's 32bit, TMC drivers, and very expandable.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
...
I am totally in support of this. Just swap the Einsy with the DuetEthernet or DuetWifi. It's 32bit, TMC drivers, and very expandable.
Am I the only one, who like more Einsy that Duet2? I mean in electrical engineer way. I have just checked their PCB design and I don't realy like it, because the Einsy is much more mature (great PCB stack with 6 layers, EMC/ESD protection, connectors etc).
Also Trinamic TMC 2130 and TMC2660 costs almost the same money in large amount (approx. $4-5) so it doesn't make so much difference in comparsion of other components.
Finally, the 32bit is not a guarantee of better performance/reliability on low level.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Am I the only one, who like more Einsy that Duet2? I mean in electrical engineer way. I have just checked their PCB design and I don't realy like it, because the Einsy is much more mature (great PCB stack with 6 layers, EMC/ESD protection, connectors etc).
I can't speak to that as I know nothing about PCB design. However, while important, it's not why I like it.
Also Trinamic TMC 2130 and TMC2660 costs almost the same money in large amount (approx. $4-5) so it doesn't make so much difference in comparsion of other components.
The comparison was only to highlight that one of the big advantages to the Einsy (the Trinamic drivers) is also present on the Duet.
Finally, the 32bit is not a guarantee of better performance/reliability on low level.
The 32bit architecture, in itself, might not be (although streaming instructions would benefit a lot - think memory copy). However, everything else in the upgraded Cortex core is (clockspeed, memory, improved instruction set, etc.)
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
I don't know the specifics of the boards, but it sure seems like the very limited MCU is causing a lot of challenges in making the software run well after adding new features on the Mk3. Given that software engineering to jam in features into limited space is expensive, while faster CPUs are not much more expensive, I'd think that in the long run moving to a controller with more resources would be a "win". Of course, there are transition costs (porting/debugging, etc.) but once Prusa was on a new controller with more head-room, features become much easier, a long-term competitive advantage. I wonder if putting a Pi Zero W plugged into the controller was a first step in that direction - they could move more complex features onto the Pi, leaving the Arduino for low-level stepper control (for example), moving accelleration, motion planning, gcode parsing, etc., to the Pi, which has more resources?
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
I usually add custom gcode to either unload filament and/or play a short tune when the print is done. Quite often I change my mind during the print. Maybe I decide I want to continue with the filament I am using, or the print is taking longer than I thought soI go to bed and don't want it to play the tune.
My feature request is to have those options in firmware changeable during prints. Unload filament when finished. And beep something when finished.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
I usually add custom gcode to either unload filament and/or play a short tune when the print is done. Quite often I change my mind during the print. Maybe I decide I want to continue with the filament I am using, or the print is taking longer than I thought soI go to bed and don't want it to play the tune.
My feature request is to have those options in firmware changeable during prints. Unload filament when finished. And beep something when finished.
To have beep after end print, just add some M300 gcode in Slic3r end-code.
Have a look at my models on Printables.com 😉
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Hi
can you add a vote for just a dual extrusion upgrade, I loved Josef's video about supports
https://www.prusaprinters.org/printing-soluble-interface-supports-prusa-i3-mk2-multi-material/
But i am not interested in printing with multi colours at the moment so wont be purchasing the MMU upgrade, i think they should develop a dual extrusion upgrade for those of us just interested in using another material for supports which i would definitely buy .
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
High on my wish list is durability. My MK3 machine has been running 24/7 since Christmas and its been stopped 4 times waiting for parts. The parts I'm doing now building take about 15 hour of printing each and span the extreams of the printable volume. Strain relief on all the cables need to be re-examined.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
...
Finally, the 32bit is not a guarantee of better performance/reliability on low level.
32 bit, no but every 32 bit processor is faster than 16mhz.... Where do you think a bunch of the firmware issues are coming from? they have to monitor filament sensor, stepper EMF (there is no interrupt on SPI stepper drivers, you got to poll those), Fan RPM... all during a print.... while trying to print 80mm/s and DO linear advance. they just disabled linear advance and have to do low level optimizations just to make the thing work. it's unreliable and a waste of time when you get down to debugging critical timing issues due to lack of headroom. Also they're the same price. a simple cortex M0 at 40mhz would be much better....
Also newer 32bit CPU's have more hardware level things to offload the CPU, quadrature decoders, DMA, fast SPI... no reason not to use one other than having to re-write/port the firmware. which is most likely why they didn't do it with the MK3 but they should of since they designed a new board.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
High on my wish list is durability. My MK3 machine has been running 24/7 since Christmas and its been stopped 4 times waiting for parts. The parts I'm doing now building take about 15 hour of printing each and span the extreams of the printable volume. Strain relief on all the cables need to be re-examined.
They need to ditch the cable bundle and use a proper flex ribbon cable with breakout boards at each end. Slightly more expensive, but 10x more durable and maintainable.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Only have two major gripes so far after upgrading parts:
1. Revamp the E-axis wiring, maybe just put individual connectors or a single "prusa connector" on the X-carriage so its easy to remove the extruder without fiddling with wire wrapping, zip ties, and a bunch of crowded rambo connectors.
2. Move the X-axis idler out from behind the Z-screw, so you don't need to disassemble a whole bunch to change a failed bearing. This was a major pain for me today and only kind of worked because I printed the upgraded Z-mounts with a cutout in them, so i could get the Z-screw out of the X axis without having to unwire the extruder and take it all off.
I originally had a #3 for making Z-axis lift a single button thing, but read earlier in this thread to just long press the current knob. That was a huge timesaver for me.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Definitely needs a touch screen, many small one's (around mobile phone size) can be very easy to use, it all depends on the skill of the programmer! Also why does it have to be small particularly?
As a side note for the MMU for the MK3S/4 I would like to see the direct drive motor left on the extruder body and the other motors used to feed the filament to it for loading, this should be easy now that the MK3 has a filament sensor and would get rid of a lot of the problems people report with the MMU in my opinion. Also this would surely allow them to reduce the waste that is purged as they will know exactly how much filament is flowing?
In an ideal world I would like to see the build area be 300mmx300mmx300mm.
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Definitely needs a touch screen,
Noooo, it definitely does not. 😉
Re: MK3S / MK4 Wishlist
Ok, let's face it: regarding touch we will never agree. So, i guess to please all it's best to add touch screen AND encoder. So everyone would be able to use it's favorite 😀