Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?  

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Do you think that Bambulab will announce its new printer version long before? 

Prusa made an offer with the MK3 and many found it worth the price.  But everyone could think that something new is coming. 

For me, the MK3 was out of the question.  Maybe because I have a Mini+.  I've been waiting for the successor for a long time and bought the kit right away. 

Time will tell who is right.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I would think they at least would make their price of the similar but older unit more competitive before dropping a better version. As they have done so right before the release of the p1s. 

I dont even care about being right or wrong and I truly wish prusa to succeed. But I hope it will be due to their product and not because emotional customer bias. Which I have my self but its not adding value in any way.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Hello everyone,

First, let me share a spoiler: I loooove the MK4 and like the X1C. I bought my first Prusa in April and knew about Prusa in January (both 2023), so I'm not an expert and don't want to become one. Mainly because experts only seem to print 3DBenchys; I could not care less about that, and on top of that, I don't like to tinker with printers. This may not be your particular cup of tea, but it is mine, and it is essential to give some context to my following opinions. 

Some time ago, I shared that I was waiting for my Prusa MK4 on this thread, and I took delivery of mine a week after that. Boy, how things have changed since that moment. 

In the beginning, I was a little disappointed with the MK4 until they released the Alpha version with Input Shaper (whatever the hell that is), and even with the alpha situation, I got seriously in love with the thing. 

First, let's talk about speed. I don't use either Sport or Ludicrous mode on the Carbon because even then, I use an Ikea Bror shelving for my 3D printers (I live in a small apartment, so everything is in our living room) the Bambu shakes so hard I wonder if it will demolish the building, and the prints are not particularly strong using those modes in my experience. Another thing is I only tinker with supports, infill, etc. There may be ways to improve everything, but that would be comparing the operator and not the printer. 

A tripod double-sided screw on the MK4 and the X1C:

Prusa: 11 Minutes:

XIC: 17 minutes.

Now, you may or may not agree the above is important or relevant because I'm using my printer to print a part I need and not a 3dBenchy but let me show you how sometimes speed can be irrelevant. I said sometimes, so obviously, there are times when speed is beneficial, but let's go back to one of those moments where speed is not what it seems: 

Let's look at the X1C together with an AMS. This is an entirely different subject. AMS is the best implementation in the consumer market for multi-materials in a single print head printer. Now let's see the same screw with PVA supports compared to a dual extruder printer (I don't have the MMU3 for my MK4 yet):

X1C: 1 Hour 42 minutes.

And a dual extruder:

Let's give the details a closer look and make your conclusions:

My point is that talking about how fast something is or how slow another maybe is just looking at one side of the story. The MK4 is not slow by any measure, and the X1C is not the fastest in any situation, and yet a speed-only conversation is even more irrelevant in my next point. Once again, this is based on my personal experience as a dumb user. A superb printer should make better parts, regardless of the person playing with it. 

Print quality: 

This is a very delicate point because quality is in the eye of the beholder. In my experience and according to my priorities, the MK$ is hands down better than the X1C. Yes, the surface prints coming out of the X1C are very good. Still, the MK4 is just better everywhere: From more resistant printed parts out of the box to better dimensional accuracy, not to mention printing with engraved details on your first layer is always fantastic on the MK4 but not that great on the X1C.

Now, let's address the over criticism against Prusa for not delivering a new printer every 5 minutes because they only want to nickel and dime their prospects. I respectfully disagree. First, having a new model every 5 minutes without an upgrade path IS the way to milk customers. I don't know Prusa that well, but I fail to find Prusa as a powerful multinational corporation. They have around 600 people employed in their HQ, and I saw a video on YouTube by a very young lady comparing Prusa's output with Apple. That is just preposterous! 

For a company like Prusa to launch a new product, they need to design, prototype, test, debug, try again, and then, whenever they find what looks like a finalized product, they need to start building a production line for this new product,  start perusing the market for parts and materials, try to fit everything into their existing real estate, even design and order their boxes. This is a huge undertaking for a company the size of Prusa, with 600 people, including management, logistics, support, production, HW development, and SW development. They produce high-quality filaments, four printer models (Mini, MK3s+, MK4, XL), two MMU versions, and one resin printer. Everything is developed and produced in-house. Those 5 minutes companies just buy some printers and reverse engineer all they can, then they look for the lowest bidder in a manufacturing facility two blocks away, and then they send their printers to every single 3D-Bencher on YouTube that will use the printer for three weeks (at best) printing 3d-Benchies and some flexible reptiles. 

Ultimately, the best printer is the one that better fulfills your needs. There's no single printer to rule them all, so which is better is a simple question with no simple answer. For me, the Prusa MK4, with the enclosure, is way better, and it is worth the wait and the price difference. For you, that may not be the case. The great thing is you have choices. If price is the only thing that matters to you, Prusa may not be your best option. The same happens with real estate, cars, food, and everything else in life. 

My little factory is in our living room. These thoughts are based on my experience of having a very demanding day job and a fantastic wife. I don't have time to waste exploring the depths of 3d printing. I struggle enough with designing my parts while learning Rhino, so when I hit "Send to printer," I expect it to work as out of the box as possible. 

Cheers!

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Why not use the same layer height on both machines? That should increase strength and speed on your bambu. Also how do both printer compair with functional parts printed in abs, asa, pa-cf ?

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

For a fair comparison, remember that when you buy a Prusa you are also donating something to the 3D printing world, because all the open source work of the company. So with MK4 you get an awesome and supported printer AND you are doing The Right Thing.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @antirez

For a fair comparison, remember that when you buy a Prusa you are also donating something to the 3D printing world, because all the open source work of the company. So with MK4 you get an awesome and supported printer AND you are doing The Right Thing.

Great point. 24/7 chat support. And that support people are awesome!

I had a chat session to ask what I should do to use a hardened Bondtech CHT nozzle in my MK4 with the adapter. I bought a couple of heat blocks, a thermistor, and a heating element. I needed to know if I had to put some thermal paste or do I need to configure a high-flow nozzle on settings, you know, that kind of stuff you need to know to use a third-party nozzle on my under-warranty 3D-Printer. You know what? I got all of my questions answered. Not a single “use the original part or else…” 

Another thing is, at an engineering level, designing a complex product like a top-notch 3D printer that people can assemble, hack, and tweak by themselves, requires real talent and a special kind of coj…. Also when I got my enclosure, I was amazed at the incredible attention to detail and how precise everything was. It was a feast of good design. 

Somebody has to really take pride in what they do here. From the way, the filaments are spooled to the high-quality documentation and level of support you won't get without a service subscription in lower-level commercial 3D printers. 

I haven't tried to get support to use third-party parts inter-working  from the Bambu but somehow, I don't think they will encourage me to tweak my printer. Even when since I’m not a power user, my tweaks would be mainly to change a nozzle or to use a different build plate. 

Regarding using ASA OR ABS, I don't use any of those. As I previously said, I live in a small apartment so toxic fumes are not exactly my preferred air accompaniment, and nylon, while possible, is complicated to print in both I rather do PC-Blend. 

Cheers! 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

The Discord is also awesome. I've directly interacted with Prusa staff on issues and I regularly see people brainstorming with them on certain problems. Josef also jumped into a conversation we were having a few weeks ago. 

I've been outspoken about my frustrations with Octoprint support and it led to a real-time conversation that relaxed my concerns considerably. 

Point is, they're an active, dynamic part of the community.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Well, now that Bambu printers around the world (?) decided to just start printing on their own because of an issue with their cloud... this reinforces the notion that connecting to their cloud to control the printer is a bad thing.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/16/23064592/bambu-print-asleep-cloud-outage

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Even if you deactivate the cloud functionality in the printer, you can never be sure it's not doing something in the background with the cloud.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

This is a real thing.  My printer just started printing on its own the other day.  I now turn it off as soon as it is done printing.  It was printing one of own designs, but I have no idea why.  

Posted by: @mysticgringo

Well, now that Bambu printers around the world (?) decided to just start printing on their own because of an issue with their cloud... this reinforces the notion that connecting to their cloud to control the printer is a bad thing.

https://www.theverge.com/2023/8/16/23064592/bambu-print-asleep-cloud-outage

RE:

The problem with deactivating the cloud is that it reportedly halts some of the features, such as the Camera.  

Posted by: @nikolai

Even if you deactivate the cloud functionality in the printer, you can never be sure it's not doing something in the background with the cloud.

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I was about to purchase an X1C or a P1S, but then I had to abandon the idea, since they are too much loud. I live in a multi floor building, and the noise of the Bambulab that spread through the wall would be intolerable for the neighbourhood. When I was in a shop of a reseller, he told me (yes, against his interest) that when he prints at home from his bedroom on the second floor, he can clearly heard the vibrations spread through the walls till in the basement! But he lives in its own house, so he has no problem.

I took a FLSUN V400 Delta, since the Prusa delta cost like Tesla 😜  I never had a delta printer, and I wanted to try its incredible speed that is near or above the Bambulab. I got it for a good price, around 800€, and I am getting more and more into its input shaping, Klipper, and parameters, since it is also "almost" open source.

But I have also purchased the new MK4, just arrived weeks ago, so I will test once the IS Firmware is more stable.
However I don't think I could buy any closed source 3D printer any more. Even if the X1C or P1S would be quieter I would not have purchased due its closed source.

And you know, as the today's tendency of the industry is the "pay per use", and "everything is locked", what would be the customer reaction if in two years, suddenly BambuLab decide to stop all the printers unless the customer do a subscription plan 😱,  may be pay per use, yearly 365, or even pay per print, or pay by filament meters.... 

I am kidding..😝 , but with closed source where you do not have the control of what you own, all is theoretical possible... and the list of recent events (e.g.  CANON disabling old scanners that did not have a refill ink full, BMW that suddenly decide that the heat sets feature should be part of a yearly subscription plan, and many others...) is long enough.. 😎 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I came across this article about the Bambu and cloud printing and thought I would share it.  A Chinese company with a USA office.  How much data is sent to China?

Why these cloud-connected 3D printers started making junk all by themselves

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

That happened to me and I had to replace my thermistor.  

Posted by: @robin_13

I came across this article about the Bambu and cloud printing and thought I would share it.  A Chinese company with a USA office.  How much data is sent to China?

Why these cloud-connected 3D printers started making junk all by themselves

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

More on the story of Bambu cloud mess, if you are interested.

The printout may be dead but that beast of a print queue lives on

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I lost 😠 a thermistor—se la Vie.  I have learned a valuable lesson.  Do not leave your printers on sitting idle.  

Posted by: @robin_13

More on the story of Bambu cloud mess, if you are interested.

The printout may be dead but that beast of a print queue lives on

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

I always switch my printer off when it’s not printing. Did it with my MK3S+ and do it with my MK4 as well. I don’t see the point in it being on when not in use??!

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @antimix

I took a FLSUN V400 Delta, since the Prusa delta cost like Tesla 😜  I never had a delta printer, and I wanted to try its incredible speed that is near or above the Bambulab. I got it for a good price, around 800€, and I am getting more and more into its input shaping, Klipper, and parameters, since it is also "almost" open source.

I am wondering, is the FLSUN V400 less loud than the Bambulab X1 if you operate it at comparable speeds? 
Apparently one can jailbreak the V400 without too much hassle and install completely open source stock Klipper on it. That would be a big plus. 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

If you buy one, let me know.  I have looked at one to replace my Predator.  

Posted by: @thejiral

 

Posted by: @antimix

I took a FLSUN V400 Delta, since the Prusa delta cost like Tesla 😜  I never had a delta printer, and I wanted to try its incredible speed that is near or above the Bambulab. I got it for a good price, around 800€, and I am getting more and more into its input shaping, Klipper, and parameters, since it is also "almost" open source.

I am wondering, is the FLSUN V400 less loud than the Bambulab X1 if you operate it at comparable speeds? 
Apparently one can jailbreak the V400 without too much hassle and install completely open source stock Klipper on it. That would be a big plus. 

RE: Prusa MK4 vs Bambu?

Posted by: @thejiral

1) I am wondering, is the FLSUN V400 less loud than the Bambulab X1 if you operate it at comparable speeds? 

2) Apparently one can jailbreak the V400 without too much hassle and install completely open source stock Klipper on it. That would be a big plus. 

For question 1)
Very silent, very few vibrations, just little more than the MK3S. I could print till midnight and the little noise was acceptable. Nothing to do with the Bambu pneumatic hammer .... 🤣 

For question 2)
Yes. There are many Klipper repositories on GitHib where you can install exactly the same FLSUN installation, but with full admin rights. I did not do so, because in the initial warranty period I want to test what FLSUN offers, and what what improvement they do for their printer. Another reason is that I am not still skilled on Klipper, so I prefer do not mess up too much.