Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
I didn't even know Prusa had a dedicated distributor in the U.S. until a buddy at work told me. I've ordered from them once as I only had a few very small parts to order for my old mk3s (a teflon hotend insert, a heatbreak and v6 nozzle). Despite how small and lightweight these parts are, I still paid $17.56 in shipping... and they took >7 days to arrive, 4 of which were waiting for Printed Solid to actually ship them.
So here I am today, contemplating another order and noticed a 234% price difference between nextruders on Printed Solid vs. Prusa3D.
Aggressive markups and slow shipping aside, they are generally out of stock on many "more common" things.
I read Prusa acquired Printed Solid to be their U.S. distributor but trying to understand if this is simply a deal gone wrong or whether I'm missing something. Anyone have any insight as to what's going on here?
RE:
This has been discussed here many times. The best explanation is that Prusa needed a local distributor for the US customer segment that is mandated to purchase locally. For most hobbyists or privately owned print shop it's not a reasonable alternative. I can get stuff often cheaper and faster ordering directly from Prusa.
I have used PrintedSolid occasionally but most replacement parts I buy on Amazon or from other US sellers. Would I love to have a Prusa subsidiary that sells at a reasonable price, with fast and cheap shipping? Sure. But there are better alternatives for now.
The one area where they're missing out I think is Prusament. It's great stuff, just looking at how beautifully it's spooled gives you goosebumps. But PrintedSolid doesn't cut it in that department and ordering from Europe only makes sense when using Prusameter points on double or triple packs, otherwise I'm very happy with Overture or Polymaker off Amazon, thank you very much.
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- https://foxrun3d.com/
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
I ordered a GPIO board and Accelerometer from Printed Solid. They actually had them in stock and shipped right away, but shipping was ridiculously high. Not much Prusa in stock, generally.
MK4S/MMU3
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
I am looking to buy a CORE One and would like to support local production (in the US) so I am dismayed by the reports of unreasonable markups and out of stock notices. Hope that as they expand these issues are fixed.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
Let me add a little detail: for me, EU based, the 0.4 mm brass nozzle is listed for €22.- approx., VAT included. That makes a nett price, ex. VAT, of about €18.-. , or, roughly, $18.50
Still that would be a considerable difference, but apparently they keep base prices for the US low to avoid end bills going through the roof.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
I didn't even know Prusa had a dedicated distributor in the U.S. until a buddy at work told me. I've ordered from them once as I only had a few very small parts to order for my old mk3s (a teflon hotend insert, a heatbreak and v6 nozzle). Despite how small and lightweight these parts are, I still paid $17.56 in shipping... and they took >7 days to arrive, 4 of which were waiting for Printed Solid to actually ship them.
So here I am today, contemplating another order and noticed a 234% price difference between nextruders on Printed Solid vs. Prusa3D.
Aggressive markups and slow shipping aside, they are generally out of stock on many "more common" things.
I read Prusa acquired Printed Solid to be their U.S. distributor but trying to understand if this is simply a deal gone wrong or whether I'm missing something. Anyone have any insight as to what's going on here?
The Prusa nozzle and the E3D nozzle are not the same thats why the price is different.
They have free shipping over $50.
I highly recommend their Jessie filament!!
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
The one area where they're missing out I think is Prusament. It's great stuff, just looking at how beautifully it's spooled gives you goosebumps. But PrintedSolid doesn't cut it in that department and ordering from Europe only makes sense when using Prusameter points on double or triple packs, otherwise I'm very happy with Overture or Polymaker off Amazon, thank you very much.
Where are Overture and Polymaker made? Have you tried Printed Solids Jessie filament?
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
Try Partsbuilt.com. They sell tons of prusa parts and ship very quick.
RE:
I didn't even know Prusa had a dedicated distributor in the U.S. until a buddy at work told me. I've ordered from them once as I only had a few very small parts to order for my old mk3s (a teflon hotend insert, a heatbreak and v6 nozzle). Despite how small and lightweight these parts are, I still paid $17.56 in shipping... and they took >7 days to arrive, 4 of which were waiting for Printed Solid to actually ship them.
So here I am today, contemplating another order and noticed a 234% price difference between nextruders on Printed Solid vs. Prusa3D.
Aggressive markups and slow shipping aside, they are generally out of stock on many "more common" things.
I read Prusa acquired Printed Solid to be their U.S. distributor but trying to understand if this is simply a deal gone wrong or whether I'm missing something. Anyone have any insight as to what's going on here?
The Prusa nozzle and the E3D nozzle are not the same thats why the price is different.
They have free shipping over $50.
I highly recommend their Jessie filament!!
Appreciate the clarification! Besides the fancy inscription on the side with the nozzle size and serial number (perhaps?), what's different about them? What features do they offer that have it priced above the high flow nozzles? And despite being different than the picture from the Prusa site, why do the nozzles I ordered direct from Prusa at their published price have exactly the same inscription on them? I assumed the photo on Prusa's site was simply outdated.
Though it somewhat reiterates my curiosity... I'm still struggling to understand why Prusa would acquire a company as a distributor who is out of stock on most of their filaments and don't carry even the most fundamental consumable replacement parts such as a standard 0.4 brass Prusa nozzle (if your statement is fact)? I'm all for offering more selection (even at a markup). If someone wants a nozzle with fancy writing on the side that nobody will ever see after it's installed, and willing to pay 200% more for it, who am I to judge? I might even buy one myself if I could get it faster... but my experience is that I get parts faster when ordering from CZ.
Funny thing - Printed Solid Changed their picture, lol. Plot thickens. And the CHT nozzles are now $2.10 more expensive than the standard shown above.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
Have you thought about calling or emailing PrintedSolid and asking them your questions? If you do let us know what they have to say. I would like to hear their answers to your questions.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
Jessie is good. We especially like the transition spools, because we do a lot of proof-of-concept prototype printing, so the color doesn't matter much. Nice quality across the board from what we have tried thus far. I can't vouch for the glitter/galaxy spools, but only because we have not tested them yet.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
I dealt with printed solid. I had a good experience with them.
Back in November of 2024 I bought a new prusa SL1S resin printer. Turned out the unit had a factory defect.
I used prusa support and we quickly came to the root of the issue was a incorrectly built Core Tower assembly. the person that had assembled the unit had failed to tighten the bolts that hold the isolator together. Prusa wanted me to the return the unit but i could repair it myself using the assembly manual for the SL1 printer.
prusa compensated me with a gift card so i could buy more resins from printedsolid.
the owner of printed solid contacted me that he wished i contacted them first, but i felt it should have gone through prusa's main support because prusa needed to flag the defect in case machines built around that same time had issues.
long story short printed solid gave me credit from prusa and i purchases more resins.
over the next few months i bought more consumables and repair items for he SL1S and each time the orders went out promptly and i had no issues using them.
due to changes in international shipping and VAT and tariffs ordering from overseas the last 5 years has been increaseingly problematic
nice to have a more local distributor.
“One does not simply use a picture as signature on Prusa forumsâ€
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
Denise Bertacchi spoke to Josef Prusa at USA show - and talked about Printed Solid, He added that in the near future, all MK4S and CORE One printers for the US market will be made at Printed Solid.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
in the near future
Remember, that is in Prusa time. As in "Core One conversion kits/filtration units/etc shipping shortly"...
Formerly known on this forum as @fuchsr -- https://foxrun3d.com/
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
I suspect they have an incentive at the moment to speed up Printed Solid building printers/kits.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
I wouldn't count on Printed Solid to speed up anything, at least not anytime soon. Especially if you buy a printer kit from them, wait for it to arrive, discover that it has broken (non-printed) parts and try to get a replacement. Even if you have a chat transcript from Prusa themselves admitting that it was a part that should've never made it out of QC, you'll still have to wait more than a week to (hopefully) get your replacement part, and then gamble on whether or not it's going to be broken too. Going on three weeks now. Almost wish I would've either paid the import tariffs myself or just bought a properly QA'd assembled printer for even more money. I know Prusa is turning out a lot of product, but this stuff should've been caught in QA. And, in the event something like this slips through the cracks... replacement parts should always be expedited, especially if you offer to pay the difference so you can get back up to speed as quickly as possible. Even a gift certificate or promo card for some consumables would've offset it a great deal, or even a partial refund on the expensive shipping I paid for the kit itself.
That aside, I'm not saying my experience is indicative of the norm, because I don't know. This may be one of the "0.3% failures" Prusa talks about in their promo material. I bought a Prusa for a reason, and this isn't a dig at them in general, but so far... you know. Time is money, and not all of us are rich in that regard. I know I probably sound bitter, but I'm not. Guess I just got unlucky with a fringe issue compounded by abysmal shipping.
I'll update this post if and when the replacement part ever makes it here. 😀
I suspect they have an incentive at the moment to speed up Printed Solid building printers/kits.
RE: Printed Solid: Good or Bad for Prusa & customers?
Update: Printed Solid sorted me out, at least as far as the part goes. Assembly finished, calibration/self checks passed and the machine is printing. I rescind my previous quip about their speed and performance. 😆