1st printer MK4S+MMU3+Enclosure
zoweee!
Long time lookylou finally prints 1st object. I’m an avid DIY and open source advocate so choice of printer (MK4S+MMU3+Enclosure) was easy to make, or so I thought.
Been ogling printers for about a decade and finally on Nov 19th I hit Apple Pay on the Black Friday MK4S kit special.
While waiting for delivery I happened up the Core One announcement and immediately felt regret. Why didn’t Prusa inform me they had a brand new model for almost two weeks which is better in all respects to the aging MK4 bed slinger when I placed one in the basket?
Ah well it came and I started the build. Stroked by Prusa’s web site claiming the fastest time to build a mk4 is just two hours I cleared a space and set out Saturday morning. About 20 hours later I set off the preflight check
My expectations at that point had hit a deep low. The meagre crappy tools included (Joe - either add a proper tool kit as an option or at least include a sensible bit driver)
Eventually I had to dig out a multibit driver to keep from screaming.
Some of the component designs and fasteners had me thinking there must be better pieces and connectors that don’t rely on you to fidget with assembly, dissasembly and reassembly wondering why it has to be so contrived. (I know it stems from reprap ideology, but until QA and material strength improve it makes more sense to just injection mould or stamp out more metal parts. Heard the Core One is all steel. Excellent decision!
After one broken X-end-idler and many nearly stripped threads, one lost nut (big thanks for the spares!) I finished exhausted and my back aching from being hunched over the skeleton.
After the preflight finished without complaining I sent off the spatula example from the USB. Wow, the euphoria that followed was amazing! Prusa has really iterated his reprap design to a kit product that lives up to (most) of his promises.
My next adventure will be tackling the MMU3 build with enclosure. Keep up the greatness Prusa people and thanks for keeping (most of) the business in EU!
2nd print - obligatory benchy, while printing this I noticed how it’s slinging the huge metal archive cabinet it’s sitting on. Gonna have to build a better base.
RE: 1st printer MK4S+MMU3+Enclosure
It's a bummer about missing the announcement for the Core-One. Did you at least get the discount voucher for upgrading to it in the future? A friend of mine was in a similar boat, but did catch the core-one announcement before ordering. Despite that knowledge, he went ahead and jumped on the black Friday Mk4S deal anyway because of the discount voucher, and will be hopefully building his own kit soon. He worked out that by first building the Mk4S and upgrading later, the price difference was reasonable compared to waiting and going directly to the kit Core-One. At least this way he can get printing in the meantime with what is already a great printer. I'd say the only bummer for you is that you included the enclosure as well. Apart from that, I think there is little room for regret. Since you haven't built it yet, could you possibly return the enclosure and just use the open printer and put the refund into the Core-One when it comes available?
-J
RE: 1st printer MK4S+MMU3+Enclosure
To give the silver lining out of this, you'll be more prepared for the Core upgrade kit when the time comes. Having modded an assembled MK3S, I wasn't bumbling through the MK4S kit build.
I expect Bambu and Prusa's competition will bring many new innovations in the next few years as they go back and forth one upping each other.