Why are Prusa printers so good?  

RE: Why are Prusa printers so good?

Lots of folks do mod the Prusa as well.

Yeah. And how many posts do we see along the lines of "my model came off the sheet and after searching the internet I did the following mods" followed by a long list, ranging from "improved" shrouds to silicon bed leveling to extruder upgrades to Bear upgrades etc etc until the printer is unrecognizable… and the models still come off the sheet...

It's the search for elusive solutions to often basic issues when--in this example--adjusting live z and/or scrubbing the sheet could have done the job.

I haven't felt the need to do any serious mods

Same here.  The only serious change to the basic configuration I have done was moving to Dragon hotends. Not because there was anything wrong with the E3D;  I change nozzle sizes a lot and the Dragon makes nozzle swaps just much more convenient. I'm not saying that there are no situations in which mods may not enhance a printer's performance. But for what I print, I just didn't have an incentive, and when I tried stuff like alternative shrouds I ended up with equal and sometimes inferior quality (for overhead test models as well as my own designs ), so back to stock it was. I just appreciate that with the Prusas I own (unlike other systems I owned in the past like Wanhao or Flashforge) I don't have to be a tinkerer and can focus on designing and printing. 

RE: Why are Prusa printers so good?

Yes, you are preaching to the choir.  😉

I've seen countless stories, here and on other boards, where a (usually new) user has a simple issue and then goes off on tangents of either tweaking the slicer parameters beyond recognition, or performing expensive hardware modifications in the hope that something, anything, will fix it.

It's been my experience that Prusa (and Ultimaker and Lulzbot and Uprint and Popeil and ...) printers will far more often than not print properly using common set-ups and default slicing.

RE: Why are Prusa printers so good?

Amen.  

Posted by: @jsw

Yes, you are preaching to the choir.  😉

I've seen countless stories, here and on other boards, where a (usually new) user has a simple issue and then goes off on tangents of either tweaking the slicer parameters beyond recognition, or performing expensive hardware modifications in the hope that something, anything, will fix it.

It's been my experience that Prusa (and Ultimaker and Lulzbot and Uprint and Popeil and ...) printers will far more often than not print properly using common set-ups and default slicing.

RE:

Prusa printers are the only printer I've ever owned. Which is a really good thing. I bought them to print, not experiment on. I have three i3 MK3S+, two Prusa Mini+, and two Prusa i3 MK3S+ kits that I've yet to assemble. Assembling the kits will be my learning experience. I've successfully completed several small repairs just by using the online documentation. I absolutely love these printers. They work every single day doing what I ask of them.

I can see the appeal of building your own (that's why I bought the kits), but I want something that works. Prusa printers work!

I've 59 years old and did want to spend my time being frustrated. I have a good friend that bought another brand of printer and spent a lot of time tinkering with it (he enjoyed that part) but eventually quit working with it as the printer became more of a hassle. I have another friend that spent a bit of money on a cheaper printer and has had the same experience. I'm a model builder (and a Science Fiction Novelist). Getting into 3D printing has allowed me to model, then build all sorts of great Science Fiction models. When I bought my first two Prusa printers, I printed a lot of other people's models (STL) that I purchased (Dragon Rest and others). They were and are still awesome models. However, since I start building my own models (just on TinkerCad so far, learning FreeCad is next), I pretty much print only my stuff, with a few exceptions as there are a lot of cool models on printables.com.  I haven't regretted one dime I've spent on my Prusa 3D printers. I've also tried other filaments, but honestly, I really love Prusa filament as well. It is consistently great. I never have any issues with it (but I use dryers and keep the filament at 10% humidity while printing). I also store my filament in sealed plastic boxes, use desiccant, and never open anything but what I am printing. So far most of my experience has been in PLA and PETG. PLA is what I do most of the time, but PETG is awesome for things I use outside or in other "harsh" environments (lol).

I'm glad I came to this hobby as a late adopter. I've gotten to learn from everyone else's experience. 

Great forum as well!

RE: Why are Prusa printers so good?

My experience with prusa is really good,

It is basically European and higher quality. Also more expensive. Akin to Wera. Kinda has a community to it.

Prusa's website supports model sharing, they sell their own filament (great quality) and offer a great, and free, slicer program.

Creality is a little more on your own. 3d printing community can give you all the upgrades you'd ever want to get to the same level as a Prusa.

Personally I avoid stuff made in China, so I own a Prusa. I've used Creality printers with success. Some of the other Chinese printers are down right dangerous and have burned down homes. If you're going cheap, go Creality.

Look at matterhackers for parts, filament, etc.

The higher end enclosed printers are very nice, they're also expensive and have weird idocrincies like needing their own brand filament, or only using their own slicing program. Lots of fantastic higher end printers if you have the budget. I made an enclosure for my Prusa. Good enough for home use.