RE: Prusa Delays
Does it even matter if they lied or not?
Well since i pay a small "premium" on their prices for "customer relations" for me it matters for you not. The difference? Nothing much on the XL. I waited for a toolchanger up until now ill go for it. My future comments about Prusa to whoever asks? Will include this situation also along with the positive ones. Will Prusa care? Probably not. Next time i ditch prusa? Probably not but surely i wont take their claims to face value. Again will they give a damn. Probably not.
About iphone and the smile on your face. That was for your comment comparing apples and orange. I'm an android guy and cant get the hype about iphones. But you seem to like them.
RE:
Then we agree on everything. What you write describes 100% what I thought after the MMU disaster (but mostly because it wasted so much time and filament and I never got it running for long). Personally I don't give a damn about customer service any more. I've had good and bad experiences, whether I paid extra or not. It helps to know there is a large user community though.
RE: Prusa Delays
I agree with@diem
If you look at the MMU design as a whole and work within it's limitations it works okay. If you stick with pla + something like the verbatim bvoh for soluble it functions with a a somewhat reasonable rate of reliability. PETG(without trying to do anything soluble) with color changes work ok too. I still never count on it to work as reliably as the base MK3 and I don't at all try to do things like TPU with it. I have a second non-mmu mk3 for doing tpu stuff. because the whole design is a bit of a kludge, I wouldn't expect the MMU3 to fix things like being able to do TPU or reliably allow anything non-pla and something like bvoh to work together.
The festo connectors mod is really the only thing I think is REQUIRED to make the MMU2s function reasonably.
I endorse your recommendation to give MMU 2.0 customers that have had headaches to move to the front of the line. I bought an MMU when it first came out and it still hasn't worked! It still sits on my desk so when I have time to try new fixes I can see if I can get it working.
Hey; what about those of us that got it working perfectly well as designed - only to discover that the design didn't encompass what we desired and so discarded it?
Cheerio,
RE: Prusa Delays
I don't want my 3D printer as a CNC. Maybe as a laser etcher. I have a laser etcher and it is going to be rebuilt in the near future. A CNC is a messy situation. Depending on the material you are cutting, you may be needing lubrication and you don't want that around your heat bed. Where I work, we have a combo unit and it is large and requires a lot of work going from CNC to 3D printing. Due to the bed for the CNC aspect, it takes about 30 minutes to get the heat bed up to temp. Also very expensive.
Yes, a laser can work but as stated, safety is an issue. My laser etcher is in a closed box to block the laser from being seen. It is low power but still very dangerous to the eyes. I would rather have multiple machines so they can run at the same time.
The XL with a laser head may be interesting since you could print and then do some cutting or trimming for precision.
RE: Prusa Delays
Has an MMU2s on an Mk3s working ok, other some minor stringing / curled filament issues.
Many Thanks
RE: Prusa Delays
So, from the latest PrusaLive where they launched the Mk4, the 5 head units were not out yet- but close. So let’s say after Easter. A month to evaluate and then a month to get the information back and incorporate it. So middle/late June to start shipping- but only the pre-assembled one, with the one that needs assembly have a different testing, so more time. And there we are getting into August, which is vacation time.
Merry Christmas!
RE: Prusa Delays
I wonder what you all will complain about once the semi-assembled 5-head XL orders are caught up? Granted, that will probably be quite some time yet. That's what I ordered 3 weeks after the announcement. I'm still figuring out where to put it & how to pay for it. In the mean time, I'm designing things to print, but testing concepts on the MK3s.
Whatever you find to do with your hands, do with all your might!
RE: Prusa Delays
It’s my opinion that they saw the X1C and thought oh hell! We need to get something out asap to compete with that! The MK3S is their bread and butter printer. The X1C will have decimated sales of it. The XL needed to be sacrificed to get a MK4 out asap.
The issue here is not anger at everything they do. My personal and humble opinion (and no im not starting a fight) is that there could be more honesty. For two years now people wait for an item they advertised. They claimed lack of resources, changes in design, electronic parts shortage, PSU shortage etc. During that time though, you had another product with similar design on some of its parts (board, PSUs, nextruder etc) which for some reason was going for extensive testing for a year now. Not development but testing. Which mean it was ready a year ago. You don't want to unveil it because you are afraid that this would caused mk3s sales to drop? Maybe its an understandable excuse but not when you gave scarce to no updates to your already delayed one. And when you gave a light update every 3 to four months was always the same. Shipping difficulties, nextruder redesign, psu problems etc. You manage to develop in house boards for the MK4 a year ago but electronics for the XL where a problem? PSU for the MK4 are ok but for the XL there are hard to find? Maybe there are actual reasons for this but Prusa had a terrible approach to how it communicated with their customers. My personal opinion -and probably an erroneous one- is a portion of the problem with the XL was that they were actually developing two products in parallel with not enough resources. And instead of admitting that and trying to avoid complains they decided to keep silent for the MK4 and "blame" everything on the supply chain. The same supply chain that was used in developing MK4.
I'm sorry, but this looks like you will be angry no matter what they do. I'm not trying to start a fight or defend a company (lmao, it ain't a person), but I really don't know anymore what they should do to appease the customers that feel angry at the way they were treated. I get your frustration, but I don't know what do you expect to happen to stop feeling you were treated badly.
The XL situation started 2 years ago. They've learnt their lesson and you can clearly see it in MK4's launch being much better, with no needless teasing for years. Why are people angry that they're trying to learn from past mistakes? If they didn't have a good launch and instead had a repeat of XL, people would instead be angry that they didn't learn a thing and are disrespectful towards buyers again. I don't get it, what else is there to do?
The shortage is for specific items. For example: Product X can have issues due to needing item 1, 2, 3 and 2 + 3 not being available. Product Y can have less issues due to needing only item 1, which is available. They share some parts, but not everything. It's absolutely possible that the parts they had the most trouble with were used in XL, but not in MK4.
Also, the XL is literally shipping right now. MK4 started shipping after XL. It is possible that the shortage affecting parts shared between the printers cleared up just this very year, allowing both to be shipped. It's just - one wasn't announced prematurely.
I also wouldn't be surprised if they had MK4 ready to go (minus input shaping) for a while now, but waited to avoid pissing off XL customers. I dunno, no one knows sans Jo. Did people want them to wait an entire year to announce MK4 just to ship after XL orders clear up? Or what exactly? Because I do not see what else could they do in this situation aside from traveling back in time to postpone the XL announcement.
At the end of the day, this is all speculation on both your and my part. I have a preorder for a 5 toolhead, fwiw, and I will be ordering a MK4 kit once they become available. I'm not angry that I have to wait for the XL, I'm happy that they've learned something and didn't botch the launch of a new product after that XL situation.
RE: Prusa Delays
It’s my opinion that they saw the X1C and thought oh hell! We need to get something out asap to compete with that! The MK3S is their bread and butter printer. The X1C will have decimated sales of it. The XL needed to be sacrificed to get a MK4 out asap.
If you have seen the last prusa live, they said, that they started the development of the printer at about the same time as the XL. So i don't think that they where afraid about the Bambu Lab printers.
RE: Prusa Delays
I'm also sure I heard in one video that Prusa have been running the MK4's in their print farms for about a year now, in order to tinker and ensure the product was completely stable before official release. It has been around, and tested, for a long while now - a very well kept secret!
--> MK4 - MK4S - MINI+ - Accelerometer Guide <--
RE: Prusa Delays
What else are they going to say? Sure development started as they were developing the XL. The constituent parts are the electronics and the extruder. The rest is minor upgrade territory. All that development and no accelerometer or IS? As I said it’s just my option which is speculation.
RE: Prusa Delays
All that development and no accelerometer or IS?
It is not clear if an accelerometer is needed when IS is coming to the MK4. As far as i know, the XL does have an accelerometer. Prusa says that the MK4 will geht a "special" profile for IS. They also doing there own implementation of IS.
As you say... all speculation. 😉
They simplest reason, releasing the MK4 now is: Because it was ready for release. 🙂
RE:
The problem here is there are many things you dont know, like a year ago they not only had a working Nextruder but it was an an i3 Mk3s which is now called an Mk4... soo with that in mind, what about the industrial printers that stack and have a robot arm that moves the complete print to you, ive seen / heard about this in a stream somewhere that Prusa are working on.
The issue here is the classic communication problem "SECRETS" no one likes them, especially said company congratulates all the public for making as big as they are then go on about products claimed to be made to make the paying clients want more... really this was simple, they should of just said "we have an Nextruder and are testing it", the question is, "when" was the Mk4 going to be released, as once they say they are testing it, questions would of arrived about how are they testing, once people work out its on the Mk3, then that question "ok, so when are we getting that", so the fact this was never mentioned seems to say they never wanted anyone to know about the Nextruder on the Mk3s until they decided to tell you (if ever), hence they never said it was being tested in house on an i3 Mk3.
Many Thanks
RE: Prusa Delays
The issue here is the classic communication problem "SECRETS" no one likes them
Oh no, thats not true. As a hobbyist, i like banger coming from nowhere. 🙂
RE:
For what it's worth.
I have completely given up on this company, I have been using there hardware and software for five years in the form of MK3 and MK3S machines, (Great machines BTW) and software in the form of PrusaSlicer up to 2.4.2. After that that software took a dive, BIG TIME, and the current versions are trash 2.5 and up. I waited years for the XL, I even wrote an E-mail to the management after the mini was released, complaining that they went the wrong direction and that I wanted a larger Prusa quality printer based on the MK series. I was given no good answer. I stuck with them though because the MK3's were so reliable, and until the 2.5 release of the software, it was good as well. However after the 2.42 release the software took a quick dive into the< we don't care about our users area, as well as going against the opinions and sayings of the development team, and has only gotten worse since that version.
They announced the release of the XL (very prematurely Big time ) and its saving grace was supposed to be that it could actually print with multiple materials, unlike the (Lie) that was the MMU, oh sure if you were willing to mod your MMU and make all the changes that never came from PRUSA, and you were willing to work your ass off modifying, and accept many many failed MMU prints to date, it was fine. However it never was what it was claimed to be. I bought one and I'm no idiot, it was a lie.
Now we have the release finally of the XL but try and find information about it, as best I can tell only 4 people actually have one out in the wild, and as expected they have many problems, I canceled my order, Prusa dropped the ball in a Big Big way, they first provided extremely poorly developed software to us to distract us from the fact that they couldn't deliver what they promised when they promised. (I'm aware of the supply issues they effected me as well at my job) this was beyond that.
Prusa started a campaign of smoke and mirrors, to fool the public and new users especially, in order to fool you as there intentions. they failed the management made extremely poor decisions, you need to be aware of this. The company dose not have your best interest at heart. You can look at this any way you like I'm not here to argue the point I'm making, I'm posting this to inform you, New users will not be aware of this, this is a company that wants your money, beware your interest (betterment) is not there motive. I've watched this over the course of 5 years here on these forums. Don't just listen to influencers.
Look Prusa Dropped the ball, they have dropped it massively, they messed with the forums and caused massive problems here to effect communication between users to try and slow the spread of this kind of information. then they have only sent out a fraction of the information they promised to give over the years of development of the XL and now you can only find information about the MK4, a machine that only takes away from your promise XL machines and still can't offer the promise performance of the MK4. basicly forsaking all those that held faith in the development of the XL only to be dismissed by the MK4$ users who took our multi extruder XL's from us while still not providing the new MK4 users with the promised performance.
In my world, we call companies like this failures, perhaps millennials look at this differently.
Be careful.
RE: Prusa Delays
There have been very few people posting about their XL, but I see that as probably a good thing. I received mine, and since I wasn't the first to order it, nor am I the luckiest man in the world, I'm going to assume there are hundreds of others in people's hands by now. The lack of posts complaining suggests most are probably working pretty well, wouldn't you think?
Now we have the release finally of the XL but try and find information about it, as best I can tell only 4 people actually have one out in the wild, and as expected they have many problems, I canceled my order,
RE:
However after the 2.42 release the software took a quick dive into the< we don't care about our users area, as well as going against the opinions and sayings of the development team, and has only gotten worse since that version.
Could you explain a bit more what you mean? Arachne changed a lot of things for the better for me, and I've personally did not notice any problems/crashes/disappearing features etc. Genuinely curious.
as best I can tell only 4 people actually have one out in the wild, and as expected they have many problems
Well most people are not Youtubers and even more people are not on this forum 😉 What are the problems you're referring to? All I've seen was user error, UI glitches and unfinished firmware. Which is not nice, but will certainly be fixed before most customers have their unit. Build quality, noise and print quality seemed good overall. Speed seemed ok considering it doesn't have input shaping yet (which was not promised when it was announced iirc).
RE:
That long post up there never enlightens us what is so terrible about Prusa Slicer 2.5, oddly enough to me it appears vastly improved since 2.4.2 with many very useful features it had lacked before. But if you think the opposite, no one is forcing you to use something newer than 2.4.2. That Slicer is for free after all and the basis for numerous other forks which might be more to your likening. Arachne is fully optional btw.
Regarding the MMU, it is just not correct that MMUs can't work without heavy modding or that even when dialed in, frequent failures are unavoidable. They aren't.
But in case, if someone is not happy with Prusas commercial or free products, by all means, buy and use something else. No one is forcing anyone to use anything from Prusa.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE:
Good it works for you, but he's got a point about MMU. I never got mine working reliably (MMU1/2/s/various mods). When it worked, it only worked until the next nozzle jam (which I never had when not using MMU). Eventually I gave up, and nobody will convince me it is not a fundamentally flawed product. Also it's not really a multimaterial unit, unless you call different colors multimaterial. Temperature changes on swaps are simply not practical. This might all change with MMU3 in combination with a Mk4, but I certainly would not try upgrading a MMU2 or using this with a Mk2/2.5/3.
I totally did not get the point about PR wanting our money though. Which company doesn't 😉