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 -- until all hell broke loose with the forum software...
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.