[Solved] Should I keep waiting for the MINI?  

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

I would say it comes down to what you plan to do with the printer. While their print quality is similar they are not really meant for the same people. an MK3 is a larger printer with a wider range of printable materials and a more solid and tested device type. Where the Mini is meant for smaller build volumes and pretty much just PETG and PLA (but it can do more than that) It is also going to have the built in network functionality which the MK3 does not have out of the box.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

1. Do you need the size of the Mk3?
2. Do you need the ability to print the range of filaments of the Mk3?
3. Can you afford the Mk3 without a problem?
4. Do you need to get started soon?

These are the big qualifiers. After filtering on these questions, it's mostly a question of preferences. The Mini is smaller (somewhat in terms of area needed) and cheaper. Does that matter? Do you have the ability to defer gratification until the Mini ships, anticipating another month or so of delays? 

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

I waited almost 4 months for mine. It's my first 3D printer and I'm glad I waited. This thing is awesome!

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Mini is going to be my first printer I did not go to the MK3s because of its price, connectivity and overall size. I wanted to see how often I am going to use the Mini and if print size is going to be sufficient for my use. Overall I have seen some amazing prints from both printers and I believe quality is pretty much the same for the average user. Mini will have many updates in the future concerning connectivity and network features and will continue evolving probably. MK3s is a tested and sturdy machine which needs some extras in order to have the same features.

As the others said it all comes down to your needs, budget and workspace. I ordered on November 1st and I have been tempted to order the MK3s many times but I haven't. 

Cheers.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Thanks everyone! That's good perspective. I'll wait it out until the end of the month to decide and make a move. I think I might be leaning towards Mk3S for use-case, but we'll see!

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

If you have the money, go for MK3s. There is nothing MINI can do better than MK3s.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Posted by: @nikolai-r

If you have the money, go for MK3s. There is nothing MINI can do better than MK3s.

Except save you half the money 😉 

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

@steve-4

Sure. With all the limitations like smaller print size, bowden extruder, no MMU2 support ...

During the wait time I've rebuild an MPSM v2 to something similar like Mini. And my conclusion so far, I don't want a bowden extruder. It doesn't matter how well it performs. Direct extruder is so much easier to handle and I don't want to miss it. That's why I still recommend everybody to go for MK3s if you can afford it.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Pick the MK3S! I was in the same situation. Buy cheap or the real deal -->> PRUSA MK3S Baby 😀

Luckely a german online store has them in stock, so i picked one last week. Im glad i did. Press the button and dont look back.

I am using the printer only for fun. In the near future i will upgrade to MMU 2.0 for sure, because it looks like a lot of fun printing with several filis.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Posted by: @fyferoni

Alright, all of you who have already received your MINI, I've got a tough question for you.

I originally preordered the MINI at the end of December, which puts my ship date late April with an arrival in early May. At the time the wait wasn't a problem as my current printer was still up and running. Recently however, my current printer (Anycubic i3 Mega) went belly up and needs parts I'm not willing to invest in, as the printer itself is poor quality and not something I want to invest heavily in.

I can probably make the jump to a Mk3S happen by the end of the month, with an arrival date early March.

My question is, should I just wait and stick with the MINI, or go with the Mk3S? Would there be benefits to the MINI that I would miss out on with the MK3S? 

Any advice from some Prusa veterans would be great! Thanks!

Agreed. after hours and hours wasted on them cheap knock-offs i ordered the mini. I'm waiting for paypal to refund me and not dealing with anycubic again. The customer service is terrible and they don't respond that quick either. The bed was warped upon initial setup and then finally the glass cracked and the coating peeled off only 7 prints in. The y rods are also not aligned and the mounts bent. Seriously not good. Don't waste money on the Chinese knock-offs unless you have ALOT of time to invest.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Posted by: @fyferoni

Alright, all of you who have already received your MINI, I've got a tough question for you.

I originally preordered the MINI at the end of December, which puts my ship date late April with an arrival in early May. At the time the wait wasn't a problem as my current printer was still up and running. Recently however, my current printer (Anycubic i3 Mega) went belly up and needs parts I'm not willing to invest in, as the printer itself is poor quality and not something I want to invest heavily in.

I can probably make the jump to a Mk3S happen by the end of the month, with an arrival date early March.

My question is, should I just wait and stick with the MINI, or go with the Mk3S? Would there be benefits to the MINI that I would miss out on with the MK3S? 

Any advice from some Prusa veterans would be great! Thanks!

I have the MK3 (with various upgrades to make it "S" level), the SL1, and as of yesterday, the mini.

The MK3S is larger, more rigid, and easier to tune up. It has a larger build envelope, more material options, better industry support, more mature firmware, etc.

The mini is smaller, cheaper, and in my case, requires shimming and other work to get it in square. It's also more flexible than the MK3 and must be put on a stable and very flat surface. Currently, the only supported way to get prints on to it is a USB thumb drive.

The mini has a nicer UI, but doesn't currently have network support or USB device support. Once those show up in the firmware (assuming at least the network support is similar to the SL1), it'll have better connectivity compared to the MK3S.

The Mini kit isn't really a kit. It's mostly pre-assembled. It's two parts you need to bolt and plug together. The manual devotes almost as much space to the Haribo gummies as to the rest of the assembly 😉

The MK3S kit is a lot more work to assemble. I bought my MK3 (not S) pre-assembled and calibrated, but have since added the Multi-material and other upgrades. If you search for "i3 mk3s kit" on YouTube, you can see what's involved in building it.

Pete

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

@pete-b3

In the notes on the 4.0.3 github page ( https://github.com/prusa3d/Prusa-Firmware-Buddy/releases/tag/v4.0.3 ) it says "In some scenarios, the Ethernet connection of the MINI 3D printer can be overloaded with requests, which may lead to a system crash. The fix will be available in the next version of the firmware along with a new web interface. In the meantime, we decided to keep the Ethernet connection disabled by default in order to ensure a safer experience." so hopefully not much longer to wait for ethernet connectivity.

Gordon

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

@nikolai-r

Not entirely true.  The mini has a nicer screen and often prints faster.  In my case, it seems to print some things better than my mk3s too.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Posted by: @fyferoni

Alright, all of you who have already received your MINI, I've got a tough question for you.

I originally preordered the MINI at the end of December, which puts my ship date late April with an arrival in early May. At the time the wait wasn't a problem as my current printer was still up and running. Recently however, my current printer (Anycubic i3 Mega) went belly up and needs parts I'm not willing to invest in, as the printer itself is poor quality and not something I want to invest heavily in.

I can probably make the jump to a Mk3S happen by the end of the month, with an arrival date early March.

My question is, should I just wait and stick with the MINI, or go with the Mk3S? Would there be benefits to the MINI that I would miss out on with the MK3S? 

Any advice from some Prusa veterans would be great! Thanks!

So what did you decide??

I'm in the same boat as you. Except I ordered in Feb so I'm looking at June as the soonest delivery. Knowing that the Mk3s has been proven over time makes me want to go that route. Price is a concern being twice the price over the Mini but I really only want to buy it once and feel that I probably won't regret the Mk3s due to it's track record. The Mini hasn't really proved itself yet but it looks good so far.

How easy of a process is Prusa refunding the money and going with the MK3s. Is that a chat thing or does it need to be a phone call?

Steve

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

I also ordered the mini in early February, then cancelled and ordered the MK3S instead.  It arrived yesterday and I'm working through building it.  All I did was use the online chat, and they issued me a credit code which I then used on the MK3S order.  And a bonus, it only took 7 days from order to delivery!  

While I was optimistic about the mini's capabilities, I saw several issues with shimming the axes so I was a bit worried.  Plus, I've kind of dived into this and didn't want to wait until June after all.  The cost increase was hard to swallow, but I felt that the MK3S would give me the best chance of success due to it's proven platform.  

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Posted by: @cmonroe01

I also ordered the mini in early February, then cancelled and ordered the MK3S instead.  It arrived yesterday and I'm working through building it.  All I did was use the online chat, and they issued me a credit code which I then used on the MK3S order.  And a bonus, it only took 7 days from order to delivery!  

While I was optimistic about the mini's capabilities, I saw several issues with shimming the axes so I was a bit worried.  Plus, I've kind of dived into this and didn't want to wait until June after all.  The cost increase was hard to swallow, but I felt that the MK3S would give me the best chance of success due to it's proven platform.  

@cmonroe01 

I just cancelled my Mini order and ordered the MK3S myself.  I have someone wanting to buy my current Ender 3 Pro and really don't want to wait till June to have a printer again. The Mini will no doubt be a success and I'm sure they will have all the bugs worked out by then but I'm too impatient to wait that long. 

It took me all of 15 minutes via chat to take care of it.

How is your MK3S build going? Hopefully I'll be doing it real soon myself!

Steve 

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Posted by: @smlemoine

Posted by: @cmonroe01

I also ordered the mini in early February, then cancelled and ordered the MK3S instead.  It arrived yesterday and I'm working through building it.  All I did was use the online chat, and they issued me a credit code which I then used on the MK3S order.  And a bonus, it only took 7 days from order to delivery!  

While I was optimistic about the mini's capabilities, I saw several issues with shimming the axes so I was a bit worried.  Plus, I've kind of dived into this and didn't want to wait until June after all.  The cost increase was hard to swallow, but I felt that the MK3S would give me the best chance of success due to it's proven platform.  

@cmonroe01 

I just cancelled my Mini order and ordered the MK3S myself.  I have someone wanting to buy my current Ender 3 Pro and really don't want to wait till June to have a printer again. The Mini will no doubt be a success and I'm sure they will have all the bugs worked out by then but I'm too impatient to wait that long. 

It took me all of 15 minutes via chat to take care of it.

How is your MK3S build going? Hopefully I'll be doing it real soon myself!

Steve 

Ha! I did the same! I cancelled my order and the MK3S was delivered on Monday! So far I am in no way regretting my decision. Even though I spent quite a bit more, I'm more than satisfied with this guy. It prints amazingly almost from the start (even with 16 hours of setup) and I've enjoyed every second with it so far. No regrets here. I honestly think I'm going to buy a MINI down the road to have a backup printer (2 is 1, 1 is none in my experience), but until then I'm a very happy camper. How did setup go for you? The extruder was by far the worst part for me.

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

Setup went fine, although somewhat stressful at times.  I'm really comfortable with building stuff and was confident, but there's still the unknown.  My PINDA was too high and calibration pushed down the bed.  I agree the extruder was the most difficult, as there is just so much going on in there.  I finished it last night and printed some things to get the Z in the neighborhood.  Benchy looks really good.  Even did a custom multi-color print already.  It is now running unattended because my kids were too excited to wait for me at work.  Fingers crossed for when I return home!

RE: Should I keep waiting for the MINI?

@cmonroe01

Congrats! I'm already queued up about 3 weeks out on jobs for personal and friends and family. Couldn't have come soon enough haha. Happy printing!