Prusa Mini Clone from China  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Posted by: @crawlerin

Aaaand anothe thing discovered when I wanted to assemble it ... T nuts that attach XZ to Y don't fit into printed plastic parts of electronics enclosure. They are like 1 mm longer than notches on printed part (which can be fixed), and part protruding from extrusion is too thick (which is something that cannot be easily fixed). When screwed all the way in, they don't grip onto extrusion because of their thickness and whole part can easily slide around despite both side screws being tightened all the way. I don't want XZ just hanging on one single top screw. I will have to grind those down, as well as ridge on the plastic box to more reasonable thickness as I don't have spare matching M3nE nuts.

This whole clone really looks like "randomly sourced cheap parts thrown together, it looks similar, it should work". Definitely not for beginners, even if you dare to order it, be prepared to source your own parts anyway.

That is 100% certain - this should not and cannot be your first printer!

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

I've noticed that support chat from PR now asks you for the printer serial number. I'm betting that's partially to help combat providing support for cheap clones and wasting time trying to diagnose issues like this...

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

@vintagepc

Probably.  There are ways around that if you integrity is in question.  Mine is not.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

@vintagepc

That's expected, their inventory system should be able to track it down to components and who packed them. Don't they do it for MK3S already?

Anyway, this printer makes me more frustrated that I initially expected, and I am pretty patient person when it comes to assembling stuff. It's always something discovered in next step that needs some workaround - which would be fine and expected had I sourced everything myself, but this was sold as a kit, I expect at least some compatibility with its own parts.

If you are tight on budget and find original MINI expensive, definitely go with something from Creality, Big Tree Tech or Artillery than these clones.

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Prusa question about the serial number is easy to understand. Who wants to give expensive and complex support for cheap clonware. Imagine you had your own company - would you offer support for third-party products?

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

They have never asked my my serial number.  I have them on my account I guess.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Interesting, it was one of the fields I had to enter when starting a chat, along with order # etc

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

@vintagepc

I always read that as my order number.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Posted by: @charles-h13

They have never asked my my serial number.  I have them on my account I guess.  

The one case where I had an RMA on one part, they asked for the order #. Based on that they can pull any information from it.

I think it depends on the question. Sometimes it's easier to just answer it. Serial # lookup also takes time. Maybe they introduced this additional step in the support to minimize the flood of the support requests for non-prusa products. Maybe they had recently more cases where after long discussions with the customer and after providing pictures, videos they realize it's not an original Prusa printer. Usually a support process is being modified every time based on the requests they get. Asking for serial # as a first step reduce some load from the support team, so the actual customers can be served better.

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Serial Number (or order number) equals ship date equals warranty status equals help or not help.  Simple enough logic for any business.

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

@tim-m30

They have always tried to assist me regardless of the order date.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

I am waiting for more square nuts.  I used them to assemble my printer and now I can't get them out of my prints.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Posted by: @charles-h13

@vintagepc

I always read that as my order number.  

It was an explicit separate field this time, order number and serial number. 

It's still there, just under 'Product' and above 'printer type'.

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

@charles-h13

The square nuts are sometimes really difficult to remove. The things are quite cheap and for this reason I always have a large stock of the M3, M4 and M5 variants (like this one) in stock.

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

@karl-herbert

I have been cussing all night that I ran out.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

SerIal number registering can also be used to count how many support has been required per particular printer. Each support case should be registered for particular printer for printer history registration.

Knowing the printer issues history can help you resolving the present issue.

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Posted by: @charles-h13

@tim-m30

They have always tried to assist me regardless of the order date.  

Well known customers are brobably well known. 😉 

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

@zoltan

Being well known is not always a bad thing.  Infamous is another thing.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

This weekend will be photo fest of my build.  I have it running now.  I reprinted some parts with PETG and the grinding and squeaks stopped.  

RE: Prusa Mini Clone from China

Only $100 less for a clone of unknown quality and materials, and the way it sounds completely un-assembled?

Hard pass from me.

But I already have a first run Mini 😀