Observations from my first few days with the XL  

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

I think I made a rookie mistake, but one that some may learn from so I think my problem is now solved! 

I did run the 3mf file through the slicer, changed the printer profile but it must have kept some old gcode from the mk3 and didn't add the new XL gcode. That gave me a world of hurt. 

What I did, I opened a new slicer file re-added the STL's and then sliced it. I  now had the probing (which is slow) and all the XL pre print fun. So I think that is why I was not getting a perfect first layer.

Posted by: @aki3d-ca

I resliced a file that I used to print perfectly on my mK3. On the XL, the first layer came out slightly squished which means my print doesn’t fit together well. Any suggestions? 

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

That would do it.  We have all done that mistake.  

Posted by: @aki3d-ca

I think I made a rookie mistake, but one that some may learn from so I think my problem is now solved! 

I did run the 3mf file through the slicer, changed the printer profile but it must have kept some old gcode from the mk3 and didn't add the new XL gcode. That gave me a world of hurt. 

What I did, I opened a new slicer file re-added the STL's and then sliced it. I  now had the probing (which is slow) and all the XL pre print fun. So I think that is why I was not getting a perfect first layer.

 

Posted by: @aki3d-ca

I resliced a file that I used to print perfectly on my mK3. On the XL, the first layer came out slightly squished which means my print doesn’t fit together well. Any suggestions? 

 

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Hi, can you tell me if there is a noticeable speed difference between the MK3s and this new printer? If I had a print that was a 20hr print at .3mm on the MK do you think it would print much faster on the XL

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

You don't need to guess or wait for an answer. The slicer profiles are there, just run your model through. Spoiler: Currently the XL is faster, but the milage depends on what your expectations are. I personally was deeply disappointed in comparison to other corexy. Input shaper seems not to be activated until now, although I have strong doubts this will really make up to my personal expectations.

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Posted by: @huskyte

You don't need to guess or wait for an answer. The slicer profiles are there, just run your model through. Spoiler: Currently the XL is faster, but the milage depends on what your expectations are. I personally was deeply disappointed in comparison to other corexy. Input shaper seems not to be activated until now, although I have strong doubts this will really make up to my personal expectations.

Why do you think that even with Input Shaper being properly implemented the speed of the XL will not meet your personal expectations? I don't see a reason why the XL should be meaningfully limited in speed based on its hardware. The issue right now is the software. 

There is probably a bit more weight to the x-axis but that shouldn't make a drastic difference. 

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Well, no offense meant here. That's why I used the word "yours". The eprsonal expectation is always based on your experience and environment. It's highly subjective. 

For my personal view: I had a look at the small amount of reviews that focus on speed and share practical results (not their interpretations). It looks as if the default profile run at 120%-140% has already a serious degradation of quality. All subject to change, could be the early beta phase we are in.

In addition to that, in the last two years the world went further, also mine. At the point of ordering (first minute) I had just bedslingers around. Out of pure need my next corexy wasn't a XL, well, and just saying, the difference between the XL printing at 120-140% or default speed versus another (also my) corexy speed and qualitywise is CURRENTLY and IMHO so massive that it does not meet MY initial expectations.

As you were curious about my personal opinion why the hardware wouldn't be up to it: I can just guess, but I would say the Nextruder is not up to the volumetric flow as well as the steppers/drivers won't cut it. No even knpowing if the collosal Nextruder can even be accelerated without a rocket engine. And input shaper would also be of a great advantage, but SHOULD NOT be needed at the default speeds already. <- This is only out of my experience and only my hypothesis.

Don't get me wrong, I will still purchase the XL as soon as my order notification mail arrives, and I sincerily hope that it will reach quite a bit higher speeds that it currently does while keeping the high quality standard.

just a side remark: My corexy is currently limited to 55 mm3/s volumetric speed (new hotend is arriving soon) and it cannot make use of all the speed/acc the machine could offer. In comparison, a V6 does around 10-15. Looking at the nimble Nextruder I might guess it to be a bottleneck and not even exchangeable. Also here, you can do the tests yourself in Prusaslicer. Push every speed up to 1000 mm/s except everything that is external (limit it to 200 mm/s), acc to 20-30k and adjust the volumetric flow in the filament settings. Have a look at the sliced model, view the speeds. My bet is, with an anticipated low volumetric flow of a Nextruder high speeds will be limited. But this is also a guess without having a look at specifications.

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Ok, if your expectations are 55 mm3/s that explains it pretty much. Then the Nextruder won't satisfy your expectations, even with a Nextruder HF nozzle which has been anounced by Prusa. 

If we compare however to an X1 for example and what it can achieve in stock specifications, I would be surprised if the XL will be much slower at comparable quality, once input shaper is properly implemented. Maybe the X1 hotend manages a bit higher max vol. flows but I would expect that a CHT nozzle jquick fix should be able to bridge that gap already. I don't know however how the stepper driver performance of both printers compare. That is an interesting question indeed. 

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

I guess we will wait and see what the final specs are. It wasn't my intention to go for bashing and you also might remember the day it was announced and everyone was making up whatever came to her/his mind. 

As a side note we just had a little issue/hassle in between mk3s and corexy in regards to BTO prints (printer parts) with a little price competition. The price in itself is also calculated on the machine hours, quality/geometric print settings are fixed and controlled. The difference nowadays is: MK3s 130 hours (already maxxed out) versus 22 hours on corexy (probably also optimized for speed, but without sacrifying quality). So, competitivewise a speed upgrade of 20-40% of the XL in regards to a mk3s won't bring the bill down in this business case (not even talking about the write offs and so on).

Personally, I would love to see at least some improvement in speed just out of the reason that the print bed is so massively huge compared to the i3. I will still love the machine, it is just that it could do a bit more (and hopefully will) as the current state suggests. It just seems unlikely that it was optimized in that direction, at least as far as I can see it (based on the little information I have beside some fancy, sparse press releases).

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Sure, those are very valid points. I would expect a much higher speed improvement for the XL than 20-40%, once the software is actually mature. That is of course speculation and I will not buy either Mk4 or XL before Prusa hasn't gotten the software in order to be honest. Then it will be also possible to buy based on facts rather than speculation. 

There is one factor which I think is very crucial too and wasn't mentioned in your post: robustness. High speed printing, even if you don't overwhelm the hotend, can lead to less robust parts. Less harsh cooling settings (and slower more homogenous cooling), which are only enabled by slower prints can potentially improve robustness, especially layer adhesion. This depends of course on the material and other settings so it is a bit hard to generalize. For ABS or ASA that is a fairly important aspect, probably less so for PETG, which features better layer adhesion under a broader set of conditions. 

Another factor is probably maintenance, very high speeds also mean more wear, probably not only per time but per comparable print. Noise on the other side is probably not that relevant in a print farm but can be a big factor in both office type prototyping or hobby applications. Fast printing and low noise don't go together very well. 

Either way, I think the XL is a truly extraordinary offer but just for a very specific niche. And there it is almost without competitition, certainly if you are looking for a plug and print machine at that price point: That niche is a large print volume tool changer. X1, P1P, M5, K1 ... all don't compete in that niche. That is also the reason why I am not sure that the 1-single toolhead XL is such a convincing offer, unless as a stepping stone towards a multitoolhead versions.

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

I fully agree with the ruggedness point. Care needs to be taken and is probably one of the things quite a few won't focus much on (and maybe don't need to). Prusa usually does a good job to make sure the default is okayish for most use cases. And I fully understand that most users don't want to extrude with 40 °C above optimum and Cpap annoying their neighbours. But it is doable with little compromise, just not within the comfort zone of everyone. And not out of the box.

As for robustness of the printer we will see how that goes. I remember the two MMU2s machines. And although they worked great for me I acknowledge that probably 99%+ of the owners don't share my experience here. While most tried 20 times to get one successful change done I had both of them running over 2 years non stop and did an average of over 20000 filament changes without a single failure. I hope the XL really excels here. True enough there is no filament change, but there is a head change. Under ideal lab conditions this might work well, but lets see how dusty, dirty, non ventilated, worn out... conditions work out. No experiences there so far.

As for the wear my thoughts are there: No experience so far for the XL which is perfectly normal. The mk3s had in over 5 years constant abuse only minor issues and are basically in pristine conditions, so unbeatable. Corexy at high speed, I honestly don't know how long it will last. There is a massive strain on everything, mechanically and electronically. On the other hand, the long prints in the modern times really tax the energy bill a lot. Total cost of ownership would be a cool number to figure out. 

So, yeah, as every printer it certainly will have a use case and an interesting one as well. Looking forward to get my hands on a machine and find a proper use case. As with all market introductions not too many limiting facts are known, but at least I have some confidence in Prusa to ödeliver a great and unique product.

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Yes, the robustness of the toolchanging will make or break the deal with the XL. I just guess that is the reason for the even longer delay for multi-toolhead versions and I am very excited to see some reviews of the real world reliability of the tool changing. I think it is too optimistic to expect single toolhead reliability but it should have decent reliability if it wants to be a convincing niche package. 

It might very well be that the XL is a bit like the A380. Real cool offer for a tiny niche which just can't support the cost of its development because of the tiny size of that niche. But we'll see. Time will tell. So far Prusa is rather troubled by limited production capacities than limited demand. 

PS: You got some pretty impressive MMU2 reliability there. I got mine to a manual intervention every few thousand changes. But that has been for a while only caused by the odd stringing related event. Fixed in less than a minute and never leading to print failure, just a bit of delay. 

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Well, that came with a high price: Beside having major issues ironed out the MMUs needed to be kept under extremely constant conditions to work like that with procedures in place for maintenance. They weren't tolerating any change, so no playing around with temps. It even was always the same materials. Luckily I found one brand of ASA, one of PLA and one of ABS that worked. I was reluctant to get rid of them in the end. It is such a great freedom toying around with filaments and configurations, all wasn't possible as long as the MMUs were supposed to work. 

Posted by: @thejiral

Yes, the robustness of the toolchanging will make or break the deal with the XL. I just guess that is the reason for the even longer delay for multi-toolhead versions and I am very excited to see some reviews of the real world reliability of the tool changing. I think it is too optimistic to expect single toolhead reliability but it should have decent reliability if it wants to be a convincing niche package. 

It might very well be that the XL is a bit like the A380. Real cool offer for a tiny niche which just can't support the cost of its development because of the tiny size of that niche. But we'll see. Time will tell. So far Prusa is rather troubled by limited production capacities than limited demand. 

PS: You got some pretty impressive MMU2 reliability there. I got mine to a manual intervention every few thousand changes. But that has been for a while only caused by the odd stringing related event. Fixed in less than a minute and never leading to print failure, just a bit of delay. 

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Well, I guess my my MMU isn't so bad after all, I did not hold back on using various brands. Even if I printed multicolour primarily with PLA, some PETG and rarily ABS.

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

Dang you guys are definitely not giving me the warm fussy feeling I thought you would. I held out to get the multi head but now I am contemplating getting my deposit back and sticking with what I have. The build plate it the driving force now after I have read all this!

RE: Observations from my first few days with the XL

I wouldn´t be so quick on the decision. As me and Dejiral agree in unison, it depends on what you are after. We are both probably polarized by our environment and needs. This does not necessary translate 1:1 to you. The only thing, that is almost always certain, it won´t be the magic unicorn in a wetsuit that we will be receiving, and not to solve all wishes/issues we can think of. 

The concern, as far as I can see it, is: We don´t know enough right now and on some questions we won´t even have answers in a year or two (startig from the actual delivery date 😉 ). I assume Dejiral as well as me are already owning a few printers and has the basics covered, so this machine will be harder to slot in. I personally would like to have a bigger print bed, but only(!) if the multimaterial works. And in my case it needs to quicken up a bit to bring commercial value. If one of these three cannot be met I gladly take another route as it will be a better fit. But this is my personal situation and might not be your demand.

RE:

That's the right way to think about it. Different strokes for different folks. I for one got an XL not for size and certainly not for speed but with the hope (and at that point that's what is is) for multi tool capabilities more reliable and dependable than the MMU or Palette. Having said that, I admit that having a (single tool) unit now in my printer collection, I actually found the large print bed to be a lot more useful than I expected. Mind you,  I wouldn't have bought an XL if all I wanted was a large print bed but nonetheless a nice side effect, and I'm getting a lot more use out of it while waiting with bated breath for the multi tool upgrade. More speed would sure be nice but for the stuff I'm selling or printing for myself, speed is not the rate limiting step.