Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?  

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @iftibashir

I was tempted to ditch my MK3S+ and move to Bambu as I just wanted to print with ease. Im not a tinkerer etc - I just want to send my model across and print. 

Fortunately Ive had zero issues with my MK3S+. I hated the first layer calibration stuff, but once done, I've not been back to it and all my models have been fine. However, I have been scared to try PETG even though I have a roll of it, and even though I have the textured sheet, just because I know I have to recalibrate the Z axis all over again, and the way PETG can yield different results while printing - blobs etc. Hence why I considered the Bambo instead.....

Now that the MK4 has auto calibration, that's a big deal for me. I'm now looking to replace my printer with the MK4, and I will be happy to try the textured sheet with PETG now, knowing I can just change filament and sheet, and let the printer re-calibrate and just do its thing - at least that's how I think it works?? As long as I select the correct filament in the slicer, the printer should do the rest?

Just use the PETG filament profile and go for it. PETG is the Prusa's specialty. It's unlikely you'll need to recalibrate Z.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I own a Bambu and have followed Reddit, Facebook, and their forum posts.  It is a low volume, but sales for Bambu are smaller than Prusa.  Reportedly, most issues are faulty parts.  I had difficulty with the first layer and needed support.  It took a few days to get resolved.  Others have had issues with the carbon rods and their heat beds. It is hard to tell if they are resolved because so few post about resolution.  

https://www.reddit.com/r/BambuLab/comments/z8xthk/major_problems_and_horrible_tech_support/

Reddit theads like that almost chased me off.  I have to agree that it is a decent printer.  It prints well and fast.  The price is coming down and the quality is increasing on 3D printers.  We owe a lot of that progress to Prusa and the open source market.  

I also agree that the future of printers will be close to what an X1 is but I do think that it will be more open source and more user repairable.  

Posted by: @richard-d

The vast majority of consumers want something that just works, with plug & play functionality.

Hobbyists want the ability to tinker, upgrade and improve; they value user-serviceability and replacement parts much, much more highly. 

 

Clearly 3D printing is still in that hobbyist phase, but I wonder whether it will remain there or will make the jump to mainstream.  3D printing is not even close to mainstream yet, but Bambu Labs are taking it further in that direction than Prusa.

As for issues with parts wearing out, I suspect that if Bambu Labs had issues in that regard we'd have heard about them by now.  Will the machine keep going for 5+ years?  Probably not, but I bet what we have in 5 years time will look more like an X1 than a Mk4.

 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @iftibashir

I was tempted to ditch my MK3S+ and move to Bambu as I just wanted to print with ease. Im not a tinkerer etc - I just want to send my model across and print. 

Fortunately Ive had zero issues with my MK3S+. I hated the first layer calibration stuff, but once done, I've not been back to it and all my models have been fine. However, I have been scared to try PETG even though I have a roll of it, and even though I have the textured sheet, just because I know I have to recalibrate the Z axis all over again, and the way PETG can yield different results while printing - blobs etc. Hence why I considered the Bambo instead.....

Now that the MK4 has auto calibration, that's a big deal for me. I'm now looking to replace my printer with the MK4, and I will be happy to try the textured sheet with PETG now, knowing I can just change filament and sheet, and let the printer re-calibrate and just do its thing - at least that's how I think it works?? As long as I select the correct filament in the slicer, the printer should do the rest?

If you can't be bothered with recalibrating sheets, you can also simply print on the smooth sheet, as long as you are using an adhesive stick (for example regular magigoo or if that sticks too strongly for PETG, try Magigoo PC). I know many look down on using such sticks as they are not necessary in most cases but they do make life easier and you can relax the IPA wiping regime too when using those and still be on the safe side. 

The auto-levelleing by the MK4 is however certainly a big quality of life improvement, especially for beginners. Yes, it should work like that, but whatever sheet you prefer on the printer and the auto-calibration should do the rest. 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

If you are talking about mk3 you will need to redo z setting if you use different sheets not only that, if you were using the rough and switch to smooth and forget to switch settings in the LCD you will gouge you smooth sheet. The auto z of the mk4 is huge. PETG works very well on mk3 with textured sheet. I prefer it to PLA

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @richard-d

The vast majority of consumers want something that just works, with plug & play functionality.

Hobbyists want the ability to tinker, upgrade and improve; they value user-serviceability and replacement parts much, much more highly. 

 

Clearly 3D printing is still in that hobbyist phase, but I wonder whether it will remain there or will make the jump to mainstream.  3D printing is not even close to mainstream yet, but Bambu Labs are taking it further in that direction than Prusa.

As for issues with parts wearing out, I suspect that if Bambu Labs had issues in that regard we'd have heard about them by now.  Will the machine keep going for 5+ years?  Probably not, but I bet what we have in 5 years time will look more like an X1 than a Mk4.

 

Bambulab X1s are too young yet for getting an idea how well they are holding up long term. They aren't trash, that much is certain already so they don't fall apart within months but that is not the same as having a product which is pushing way beyond 2 years life span. Unless we are going towareds a market where printers are semi-disposable things (for that, also X1s are a bit expensive) I do in fact expect that I can have a well working printer for 5 years+ with some basic maintenance or at least repairs which are not unnecessarily complicated and well documented, with replacement parts that are easy to get. 

This is also the criterion I would measure an X1 against. Maybe it will look good in that regard, maybe it won't. 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I have to agree with PETG. I get nearly equal results to PLA when my settings are right.  I would never print PETG on a smooth plate.  

Posted by: @crab

If you are talking about mk3 you will need to redo z setting if you use different sheets not only that, if you were using the rough and switch to smooth and forget to switch settings in the LCD you will gouge you smooth sheet. The auto z of the mk4 is huge. PETG works very well on mk3 with textured sheet. I prefer it to PLA

RE:

Posted by: @netpackrat

Unfortunately at the consumer level, equipment that is designed to minimize cost of manufacture at the expense of useful life and repairability, tends to run equipment that is designed for long service life and repairability out of the market, based mostly on price.  Maybe things will turn out differently for consumer/hobby level 3d printers, but I don't think that is the way to bet.

Yeah, it could end up like that. I just hope it doesn't. Not that I don't see the market for the mass market, easy to use, harder to service 3d printers. But I would hope that the Prusa concept at least survives in a niche. What will certainly survive is the Voron et al. niche. That is because it really doesn't need that many customers to work. It is developed by hobbyists and the kits are sold by Chinese companies which can cope with a limited but well informed customer base. Prusa is a bit differen though as it still offers easy to setup and use printer but they are strong on repairability and open source as well. We will see if this market is going to be squeezed out from both sides of the spectrum. 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I have a P1P and although I am happy I can see it is not perfect in some ways. It being my first printer it really eased me into the 3d printing world so there is something to say about that.
Now I am looking at the purse mk4 and I am liking what I am seeing. I see an easy to maintain machine, with easy to find parts and a track record and it got my attention.
Now the one thing that the p1p has in favour is the ability to easily enclose it and the footprint of the machine. 
I am yet undecided but mk4 could potentially be my 2nd printer.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @thejiral

I think with Bambulab the model is moving more towards a traditional home appliance business case. Things that are not designed for easy repairability but great performance with a rich feature set, at the most competitive pricepoint possible. Compromises have to be made for that. Maybe that is the future as 3D printing is going more mainstream. 

Maybe the market will split with a certain customer base sticking to machines where repairability and modability is at their core, ready to pay a bit more for them. Maybe it will be even split into more parts. Prusa combines very low entry obstacles with high repairability and modability. A Voron and similar printers are even better regarding modding and combine it with better performance but they do involve more know how to build, even if good Voron kits have become fairly straight forward too, nowadays. 

I value reparability in appliances too. I had a Samsung fridge. I wanted to reverse the fridge door opening direction. Normally, this is something all fridges can do with about a dozen screws removed, reposition the hinges, and reinstall. The Samsung? NOPE! Gotta order a different middle hinge, the top and bottom hinges are swappable from left to right, but not the middle one.

Okay, lets see. Oh, I can't buy it anywhere. In fact, roughly 1/2 of the total replacement parts for the fridge, which was 5-10 years old, were available! The rest? Discontinued. Even if you wanted to repair this $2000 fridge, or have someone repair it, you COULD NOT! (most likely, depending what parts may still be available, but the most common to fail parts are probably gone)

In contrast, the KitchenAid dryer, of roughly the same age, had every single part available when the door switch went out. And when the temp sensor failed. Both were replaced and got the (expensive) appliance working again.

Then the KitchenAid dishwasher, also about ten years old, started leaking. The tub had some holes in it. I looked into it and again, ALL the parts for the dishwasher could be purchased for replacement. Even the tub that was leaking! Now, I wasn't going to buy the tub for $250 and then painstakingly disassemble the entire dishwasher to assemble it on the new tub, but I could, if I wanted to.

I swore off on buying Samsung appliances forever, and I will definitely be strongly biased towards buying KitchenAid appliances in the future due to the ability for them to be repaired. Either by me or an appliance tech. Because even if you don't care to fix your own stuff, an appliance repair company that could probably fix your $2000 appliance for $250 can't if the company doesn't supply spare parts.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

But that is the way of the world - appliances that 'just work", but with very little user-serviceability or repairability.  As for lifespans, I think that 5 years is what they'll be aiming at - given that no other type of printer I have owned in the last 30 years lasted much longer than 5 years (just like fridges, washing machines and everything else these days).
The downside is clearly the waste associated with such a business model; the upside is that we get the benefit of improved technology. 
As an aside, how many people are reading this forum on a computer or other device that is older than five years?  How many of us would be happy with a phone that is 5+ years old, whether it still worked or not?  I bet that the answers to both questions are "not many" (where "not many is under 10%).

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I don't own a BL, but even if i get frustrated with prusa sometimes, for the time being i would not prefer a bambu over MK4. With the release of MK4 the gap between the MK3 and BL current features is almost non existent. But  thats not the main reason that personally i would go with the mk4 over BL (i ordered an XL so ill skip the MK4 all together). Reprap. Is not like there is a dealership near me to send the BL in case something needs fixing. Maybe there are really steardy and never break down but when it happens what are my options? Pack it send it in the other side of the world and wait for it  to come back? And if it is not fixed properly? Send it again? A normal paper printer breaks down and half the time you have to come back and forth with the dealership for its problem to be solved. And its a few km away. Its not a matter of tinkering. I like making things but i 'm not fond of "making" my 3d printer. Thats a tool for me that needs to work. But i dont consider it tinkering to be able to easily fix/reprint a broken piece, find various aftermarket components to quickly fix the thing and go back to work. I consider it a feature. Prusa's printers are a good balance between a ready to print reliable machine and a modular, easily upgradable and modifiable printer. With BL everything its fine until there are arent. MMU2S is wasn't a success. 50% failures for me and even if it works it has a lot of time overhead from single to multi material. Even if AMS works flawlessly it suffers from the same delays. The toolchanger is probably the answer to this so i dont consider AMS to even be an incentive. 

Heck i can find E3d nozzles, heatbreaks, etc quite easily. Yes it needs a bit of work to change a thermistor or a heating element. But i prefer it over sending the printer to another country and hoping they'll fix it.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I am not long enough into the hobby yet. So I can only judge a bit over 3 years so far. But I don't see why one would have to throw away an Mk3 or Mk4 after 5 years. A general overhaul might be due by then but that can be done at relatively low costs.

In the end it is a personal decision, yes the mainstream market might be for throw away applications which aren't designed to last longer than 3-5 years. But I would dare to claim more than 10% of the market want someting better, especially if the uptick in price is fairly manageable.

PS: My phone is now around 5 years old. Why should I get rid of it when it is still working?

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I am curious of the print times of the mk4 vs p1p.

if the mk4 can get close to the p1p I will sell it and get the mk4. I like the accesibility of the mk4 better.

How does the multiple filament on the mk4 compare to the ams?

sorry if this has been asked before, i am new completely to prusas

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Printers are far different than computers when it comes to expected reliability.  The moving mechanical parts and the myriad of electro mechanical sensors in a Bambu X1 does not bode well for years of reliability.   These machines are an order of magnitude more complex than others like a Prusa or a Qidi.   When they work properly they are amazing.  But when something is malfunctioning they can be a bit of a nightmare to fix.  Anyone can go on line on the Bambu site and see what one has to do just to replace a cable that goes to the heat bed.  Hours of disassembly just to replace a single cable.  I  am awaiting this cable from Bambu.  I  hope when I reassemble the machine I don't have the much feared extra parts left over. We shall see.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @print_fandango

I am curious of the print times of the mk4 vs p1p.

if the mk4 can get close to the p1p I will sell it and get the mk4. I like the accesibility of the mk4 better.

How does the multiple filament on the mk4 compare to the ams?

sorry if this has been asked before, i am new completely to prusas

That depends probably strongly on your print quality requirements. The P1P will probably have an etch on speed overall. But if you want highest print quality things get relative very fast. Also if you want best mechanical specifications of your printed parts, printing too fast can lead to problems, especially as the Bambulab stock profiles are so fast that the Bambulab hotends struggle to thoroughly melt the filament fast enough at the highest print speeds used by those profiles. CNC kitchen has a youtube video on that.

Mk4 multicolour can be achieved either by Prusas MMU or by using a non-Prusa Palette add-on. The MMU2s is rather a project that needs dedication and possibly some tinkering until it works splendidly. Ther will be an update MMU3 but no one has seen that so far. It should correct the big downside of the MMU2s that the error codes are so cryptic but also make some technical improvements. Is the AMS easier to use and more reliable? I don't know, as I lack experience with it. I do own an MMU2s though and I needed some serious trouble shooting in the beginning but now it works very reliable.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I'm trying to decide whether to upgrade my Mk3s (to either 3.9 or 4, probably 4 for a measure of future upgradability), but there isn't really enough documentation of exactly how they compare.  Input shaping should more or less close the speed gap.  I don't care about enclosures etc.  From what I understand, though, the AMS is far more reliable than the MMU (which has always been a fairly clunky design across iterations.  Mechanically far too complex to be reliable).  I wish prusa would have gone back to the drawing board, I'd have loved an affordable way to add support for just one more filament maybe (reliably).  I'm leaning toward upgrading to the MK4, but I'm not really sure it's worth the expense.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Unrelated… 

but was looking at printing times between my p1p stock settings for petg and stock mk4 and the mk4 came in 30 min longer print for the same.

p1p was 44 min and mk4 1hr 20 min.

just to clarify, this is just by looking at the estimated times off the slicer (I do not own a mk4)

I dont know if I care about thwt difference, I think the biggest deterrent for me is the lack of an enclosure.

the mk4 looks like it ie built as a tank.

another question I had, as I was watching videos online, mk4 does not have an accelerometer. 
how much of a disadvantage this is?

sorry for the basic questions, I am new to 3d Printing

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I think that's because the input shaping firmware/update isn't ready yet?  What exactly are you doing to compare.

You can add an enclosure to the MK4, but it's not needed for PLA/PETG which are the easiest to print anyway. 

RE:

I just ordered an mk 4 and am beginning to have doubts.  The bamboo seeme to offer more for the money.  Multi color and an enclosure are tempting me to cancel order for mike and buy the bamboo.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

That is a personal decision.  The decision needs to be based on what you want from the printer and its capabilities.  

Posted by: @henrysilverio

I just ordered an mk 4 and am beginning to have doubts.  The bamboo seeme to offer more for the money.  Multi color and an enclosure are tempting me to cancel order for mike and buy the bamboo.