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Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?  

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Ben
 Ben
(@ben-4)
Trusted Member
Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

I am waiting for my Mk3 to arrive. I have read several times from several users that the Mk3 print quality is not as good as the Mk2 quality. I am hopeful that improvements to the Mk3 firmware have brought its capabilities up to at least par with the Mk2. I hope I have not made the wrong move going with the Mk3 versus the Mk2s!

Posted : 28/05/2018 1:35 am
rob.l6
(@rob-l6)
Honorable Member
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

It is a fallacy to believe that all mk3 printers have an issue with quality, so it will be difficult to tell what yours will be like until you actually use it.

Posted : 28/05/2018 3:47 am
JoanTabb
(@joantabb)
Veteran Member Moderator
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

My mk2 mmu was rubbish. I have received some new parts and it is much better...

There is no absolute 'better' option.

I could loan my good printer to a friend abd pretty much guarantee that she would get poor prints...

She knows all the answers. And uses the bull in a china shop approach to delicate adjustments...

The person behind the controls can make a huge difference to the achieved results.

Regards Joan

I try to make safe suggestions,You should understand the context and ensure you are happy that they are safe before attempting to apply my suggestions, what you do, is YOUR responsibility. Location Halifax UK

Posted : 28/05/2018 12:03 pm
Ben
 Ben
(@ben-4)
Trusted Member
Topic starter answered:
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

That makes sense. I spent a lot of time fiddling and adjusting and upgrading my Mendel and my Solidoodle. I enjoyed the process at first, but with those two printers I could not find a set of parameters that would just give a good print each time I sat down without the dance.

I received my shipping notice today (ordered on april 10), so come friday I will begin to find out for myself.

Posted : 28/05/2018 2:11 pm
toby.k
(@toby-k)
Trusted Member
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

I think we're almost there... I rebuilt with the R2 parts (all except the Y axis), installed the new drivers and flashed firmware 3.2.1 a week ago and have run about 40-50 hours on the MK3. Results are pretty good. Still have problems feeding TPE and TPU, so I still run those on the MK2. I run the Toshiba FlashAir WiFi SD cards on both, so I have no idea if Octoprint or Pronterface are working well. I also have the filament sensor set off, but I did run Linear Advance on some larger PLA prints pushed to 133% of the default speeds and I was happy with the results.

I still need to print a more diverse group of objects...but all in all, it's looking pretty good so far.

Posted : 28/05/2018 8:24 pm
Zitman
(@zitman)
Eminent Member
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

I have a MK2 and a MK3 and this weekend i have been printing on both. A friend of mine has just received his MK2 to MK2.5 upgrade kit and theere are no plastic parts shipped with it just a spool of PET-G and a note saying where to find the printable files. His MK2 has never worked well or relaibaly for some reason so he cannot print them and therefore asked me to.

I started printing them on the MK2 as there are pre-sliced G-Code files on the Prusa site. The results were OK. I then sliced them myself for the MK3 and the results were better, not hugely so bu noticably so. I have read a lot of posts on here aboout people getting poorresults from their MK3s but to be honest mine has printed well.

I have had the odd faiure but nothing major and usually due to my not having cleaned the bed well enough before the print. I checked on the stats menu last week and the print time is in excess of 29 days and I can count the number of failures on one hand.

My MK2 however is starting to develop a couple of issues, the most prevalent one is the part of the extruder where the PINDA sensor mounts is broken and the sensor is held in with a cable tie which means I have to frequently reset the Z-hight. I printed replacement parts on the MK3 and just have to assemble them - need to get around to that!

Z

Blog: http://ianmarshall.me

Posted : 29/05/2018 4:29 pm
warren.l
(@warren-l)
Active Member
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

Mine is printing perfectly. It started making noise and printing crap on the 3rd print or so, but I re-ran the calibration and it started printing perfectly again. I think my jury-rigged spool holder pulled on the head and blew the initial calibration.. No worries

Posted : 29/05/2018 7:00 pm
dimprov
(@dimprov)
Noble Member
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

IIRC, Tom Sanlanderer did a comparison where MK3 seemed to print better than the MK2, allegedly becausesof the Trinamic drivers, which the MK2 doesn't have as stock. After all, why wouldn't the MK3 print better?

Posted : 29/05/2018 7:23 pm
djkirkendall
(@djkirkendall)
Trusted Member
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

My MK3s were printing better than the MK2 right out of the box using prusa control for slicing. I don't understand all of the chatter about reduced quality, I haven't seen this.

My only issue is I can't seem to get the zip ties on the harnesses at the X-carriage "just right", and I have had to spice part cooling fans and PINDA probes several times as a result after a couple hundred hours of printing on 2 of my 6 machines.

I bought 3 more (10 total, 1 is a MK2 MM) to support Prusa, and I'll probably buy 20 more over the next year.

Posted : 30/05/2018 3:21 pm
Nikolai
(@nikolai)
Noble Member
Re: Are folks Mk3's printing as wellas the Mk2 yet?

I'm printing with MK2S and MK3. Both printers are really good work horses for me.

Often linked posts:
Going small with MMU2
Real Multi Material
My prints on Instagram

Posted : 30/05/2018 10:50 pm
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