Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
I currently have a Creality Ender 3 Pro, which I have been learning to loathe for weeks. While I was interrupted by a power outage to my workshop for almost 2 months, I've spent over a month working with it and have not been able to get it to print even a good 1st layer. (Even after spending a long time tramming and auto-leveling it multiple times.) I'm reading good things about Prusa printers, such as that they actually work out of the box and you can actually print with them instead of spending most of your time adjusting them.
I don't need a perfect machine, but I need to be able to actually print with a 3D printer.
A few questions
1) If I buy the kit version, after assembling it, what will I need to do for testing and calibration before printing? Is it a lot of work or minimal?
2) What do I need to buy with the printer? Are there items I'll be wanting almost right after getting the printer? (For instance, will I need to replace any items on the printer with something that will work better? Or will I find, after a couple weeks, that I am going to want to upgrade parts quickly?)
3) How well will a Prusa printer work with Octoprint? (My current printer is continually throwing errors and that leads to Octoprint continually disconnecting from it.)
4) Other than OctoPrint, I am aware of PrusaSlicer. Does that also handle sending files to the printer if I have a USB connection? Or is the only way to print a file by putting it on a medium like an SDCard and then putting that in the printer? (If possible, I like the idea of using OctoPrint, since it has a webcam on it. My printer is in the workshop, in my barn. With OctoPrint, I can send a file to a printer for printing while I'm in my study, in the house, and check on it periodically and not have to make an extra trip to the barn until it's done.)
5) Is there any problem with importing STL files from Blender into PrusaSlicer?
6) I know this is a silly question, but how is Prusa pronounced? (Just kind of want to know!)
Thank you for any help, insight, additional advice and thoughts on these questions or this situation.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
You probably will get better and more spesific answers, but I'm in the same situation, thinking of buying a second printer, and should it be another Prusa i3 MK3S. First was the kit, and from what I remember:
1: minimal work. After you have eaten all the gummy bears, 99% of work is done.
2: you don't need any upgrades, of course if you want to print colorful things, then get MMU. Otherwise, just filament and nozzles.
3: I've used Octoprint with the current printer over 2 years, I haven't had a single disconnect-error.
4: I send all my files from PrusaSlicer to Octo, via internetz.
5: I'm about to learn Blender, so can't help you with this
6: I'm a Finn, so I say things as they're written. Checked from google translate how it's prononuced there. There's only one "u", not 3, but otherwise, pretty close to how I say.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
5) Many people use Blender to produce 3d models. Including myself. You have to have Blender setup correctly to output files at the correct scale but its not hard. Especially with the newer versions (post 2.82+). There's a also a few things to learn about the export process when it comes to the options, but again this is easily picked up and once you are familiar with the process its pretty much automatic.
Theres plenty of tutorials on Blender online/youtube and if you have any specific questions then please start a post in the Prusa Software and others part of the forum (way down at the bottom) https://forum.prusa3d.com/forum/general-software-discussion/ I'm sure those of us who use Blender will be quite willing to help.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
OK, so.... first, not trying to sound like a salesperson here as I normally do not like them, (sorry for any salespeople reading this).
So these are just my honest opinions as I first started out with Prusa as a customer.
#1, After the assembly process you would go through the initial testing and first layer calibration to make sure the printer was assembled correctly and is working. The printer comes with a full 1KG roll of filament so you would have more than enough to pass the calibration process and start printing with. As far as the amount of work goes into the testing and calibration. It really depends on how well you assembled it for the self test, and for the calibration, it can take some time depending on your level of experience. Since you already have some experience with calibrating a printer, it should not take a lot of time.
#2, That is going to be a matter of opinion depending on who you ask. For me, I've ran a small farm with about 18 Prusa machines and all were stock, ran very well and didn't need to upgrade anything. On the flip side, go on line and others will say to replace this and that right off the bat. My suggestion would be to run it stock till you are fully comfortable with the machine and see how you feel about it. As far as replacement parts due to damage, most common would be either a full hotend, or parts of the hotend (thermistor, heater cartridge, nozzle, block, heat break) so in case you have a blob that damages that, you have a back up on hand. You could also grab some PETG and print out a set of plastic parts and have them on hand in case a part breaks. If you are in the US, and with the acquisition of Printed Solid, you will have the opportunity to order spare / replacement parts from them and help cut down the time and cost of shipping as well.
#3 I've ran octoprint on a lot of Prusa machines and didn't have a problem at all, and ran very well. I did eventually stop using it because of something similar to what you said. With the MK3 series of printers, there is a power recovery mode, so if the power goes out, the printer will resume when the power is back on. If you have a octoprint unit plugged in, controlling the printer and the power goes out, it will reset your octoprint unit and when the power comes back on, the printer will not resume. IF running octoprint is vital for you and you do not have long power outtages, you could put both a printer and octoprint on a battery back up system.
#4, Yes you can control / print from your PC. Me, personally, I would not recommend it as if the PC goes into sleep mode, crashes or have a power outtage, it is similar with the octoprint, you would have issues with resuming the print. Depending on how far your barn is away from your house and if there is wifi in there. One other option would be a wifi SD card . Blog post here.
#5, personally I can not answer either way as I do not have personal experience with that
#6 Proo-sa (easiest way I can think of writing it as its sounded)
#7 (bonus answer) One thing to keep in mind as well, and I bring this up as a peace of mind consumer point. The printer comes with a 1 year limited warranty on the electronics. So say if a motor, or something else fails on its own, it's covered. (but say you take a hammer to the machine... that would not be covered). Also there are several different ways to get support for the machine. Our forums are community based and there are people who like to help out, then you have articles, guides and blog posts on the website(s), to emailing support directly, or even pulling them up on chat to assist. Support of the printer is not limited timewise, So if you have your printer for a year or 5 years, you would still be able to reach a tech agent to answer questions or assist in troubleshooting a problem.
Hope this helps.
I currently have a Creality Ender 3 Pro, which I have been learning to loathe for weeks. While I was interrupted by a power outage to my workshop for almost 2 months, I've spent over a month working with it and have not been able to get it to print even a good 1st layer. (Even after spending a long time tramming and auto-leveling it multiple times.) I'm reading good things about Prusa printers, such as that they actually work out of the box and you can actually print with them instead of spending most of your time adjusting them.
I don't need a perfect machine, but I need to be able to actually print with a 3D printer.
A few questions
1) If I buy the kit version, after assembling it, what will I need to do for testing and calibration before printing? Is it a lot of work or minimal?
2) What do I need to buy with the printer? Are there items I'll be wanting almost right after getting the printer? (For instance, will I need to replace any items on the printer with something that will work better? Or will I find, after a couple weeks, that I am going to want to upgrade parts quickly?)
3) How well will a Prusa printer work with Octoprint? (My current printer is continually throwing errors and that leads to Octoprint continually disconnecting from it.)
4) Other than OctoPrint, I am aware of PrusaSlicer. Does that also handle sending files to the printer if I have a USB connection? Or is the only way to print a file by putting it on a medium like an SDCard and then putting that in the printer? (If possible, I like the idea of using OctoPrint, since it has a webcam on it. My printer is in the workshop, in my barn. With OctoPrint, I can send a file to a printer for printing while I'm in my study, in the house, and check on it periodically and not have to make an extra trip to the barn until it's done.)
5) Is there any problem with importing STL files from Blender into PrusaSlicer?
6) I know this is a silly question, but how is Prusa pronounced? (Just kind of want to know!)
Thank you for any help, insight, additional advice and thoughts on these questions or this situation.
Shane (AKA FromPrusa)
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
I went through this recently except for the part about buying an Ender first. My machinist buddy who has an Ender toldme to get an Ender and that Prusa was overpriced junk. Did my own research came to the conclusion that I would spend nearly as much on the Ender and when I was done have something maybe almost as good as a Prusa if I was lucky. I ordered the MK3S+ kit back in early February. It arrived at the beginning of March and it took me basically an entire day to get it together and working.
I fix airplanes for a living and consider myself fairly mechanically adept and careful, and I still managed to crack a couple of the printed parts. Since I didn't have a working printer to make replacements and they seemed like they might hold together, I proceeded on with the assembly, and once I had it working, those were the first 2 parts I printed followed by a complete extra set of the structural/functional parts. I have yet to replace those 2 cracked parts. I will get around to it eventually, but in the meantime the printer doesn't seem to care. But yeah, be careful, and I don't think there would be anything wrong with buying an extra set of parts off Etsy or somewhere if you can't get your Ender working well enough to print replacement parts if needed. They won't cost a lot and will probably arrive before your kit does.
Besides the cracked parts, I initially had some trouble with the X and Y losing their place which ended up being due to having the belts too tight. There's a belt tension gauge that's fairly popular here, but again, you need to have a working printer first in order to print it, so it's the chicken and the egg again. The build manual for the Bear Upgrade (a Prusa with a beefier/modified frame) mentions putting a tuning app on your phone and tuning the belts by sound to a particular note, which seems like a good idea and you can do it without first being able to print a tool.
Long story short, once I got it tuned and printing correctly, I liked it so much I used it to print all of the plastic parts for a Bear Upgraded version with a taller Z, mostly for the experience of doing so. I just finished the second printer a couple of days ago and am really enjoying having 2 of them. Would absolutely buy the kit again, with the caveat of maybe having a second set of printed parts on hand, mostly so I wouldn't have had to choose between using the parts I cracked, and asking my friend to print them and having to listen to him say that he told me so (which was unacceptable).
As for your questions;
1. It depends? My second printer, despite being a scratch build with mods on top of mods, mostly went together easier, because it was my second printer. There's nothing particularly difficult about putting the kit together, but there's a definite knowledge curve. I bet the 3rd one will be a breeze, but don't underestimate it. You are literally assembling and adjusting every part, every piece of hardware, and some of the printed parts are kind of fragile. Everything's straightforward, but there are plenty of opportunities to screw something up.
2. Besides filament, if you want to print in materials besides PLA, you'll probably want to invest in the textured and possibly the satin sheet. Be careful if you are in the US, because adding 2 additional sheets will put the order value above the $800 limit that triggers customs charges. Straight isopropyl alcohol if you don't already have some, a silicone sock for the hotend maybe. You don't need a lot extra right away. I ended up with more filament than I really need because I bought a mix of both PLA and PETG and I discovered that I prefer using the PETG most of the time. I bought a complete spare hot end too but that ended up in the second printer... 🙄
3. Dunno, ask me in a few weeks. I ordered a Raspberry Pi yesterday and just finished printing a case for it to mount on the Bear. If it works well, I will do the same with the stock MK3S+.
4. It's my understanding that Prusaslicer can load gcode directly to Octoprint (unless I am mistaken), but I don't know if you can do it without using Octoprint as a middleman.
5. No idea, while I use a Mac primarily, I looked at what CAD is available for it and set up a basic PC for CAD.
6. No clue.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
Finnish mugged all the slavic tongues in a dark alley and took all their vowels.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
You probably will get better and more spesific answers, but I'm in the same situation, thinking of buying a second printer, and should it be another Prusa i3 MK3S. First was the kit, and from what I remember:
1: minimal work. After you have eaten all the gummy bears, 99% of work is done.
They include gummy bears? Cool! 😉
5) Many people use Blender to produce 3d models. Including myself. You have to have Blender setup correctly to output files at the correct scale but its not hard. Especially with the newer versions (post 2.82+). There's a also a few things to learn about the export process when it comes to the options, but again this is easily picked up and once you are familiar with the process its pretty much automatic.
Good to know!
As for scale, is it possible to resize an object in an STL file once it's in the slicer? I had not thought about the scale issue and I'm thinking being able to resize an object in the slicer could be quite useful.
#2, That is going to be a matter of opinion depending on who you ask. For me, I've ran a small farm with about 18 Prusa machines and all were stock, ran very well and didn't need to upgrade anything. On the flip side, go on line and others will say to replace this and that right off the bat. My suggestion would be to run it stock till you are fully comfortable with the machine and see how you feel about it. As far as replacement parts due to damage, most common would be either a full hotend, or parts of the hotend (thermistor, heater cartridge, nozzle, block, heat break) so in case you have a blob that damages that, you have a back up on hand. You could also grab some PETG and print out a set of plastic parts and have them on hand in case a part breaks. If you are in the US, and with the acquisition of Printed Solid, you will have the opportunity to order spare / replacement parts from them and help cut down the time and cost of shipping as well.
Good info here (and on your entire post - thanks!). What this tells me is I can order the printer and use it and build a few accessories and that, like most of us, I'll want to customize it over time, but that I can use it effectively without having to buy additional parts. That's important to me. (On the Ender, I had to upgrade the springs that hold the bed in place and replace the original print bed - it just does not seem right for original parts to not be good enough to do the job well.)
#3 I've ran octoprint on a lot of Prusa machines and didn't have a problem at all, and ran very well. I did eventually stop using it because of something similar to what you said. With the MK3 series of printers, there is a power recovery mode, so if the power goes out, the printer will resume when the power is back on. If you have a octoprint unit plugged in, controlling the printer and the power goes out, it will reset your octoprint unit and when the power comes back on, the printer will not resume. IF running octoprint is vital for you and you do not have long power outtages, you could put both a printer and octoprint on a battery back up system.
We're in the boonies. While this is a well populated county, in this area, it's more spread out. I couldn't get good internet until we just got Starlink. Considering the rural nature of this area, when we built the house, I included a standby generator that can power the house and barn (where my workshop is). The issue is the 40-50 seconds it takes the generator to kick in. So all computers, entertainment centers, and sensitive equipment are on UPS devices. I don't need high power ones, since they only need to power things for less than a minute. With a power outage, the main shop computer, the printer, and anything between them wouldn't even "know" there was an outage.
I was also thinking, because the firmware on the Ender is problematic, of getting a touch screen and printing a case so OctoPrint could basically take over the functions of the firmware. (It wouldn't replace it, but I'd be able to do whatever I needed through the touch screen - as well as send files down to the workshop for printing from my study via Octoprint.)
#4, Yes you can control / print from your PC. Me, personally, I would not recommend it as if the PC goes into sleep mode, crashes or have a power outtage, it is similar with the octoprint, you would have issues with resuming the print. Depending on how far your barn is away from your house and if there is wifi in there. One other option would be a wifi SD card . Blog post here.
My primary concern was what OSes would it work on, but I found the download link. For now, the shop computer runs Linux. I'm hoping Apple comes out with the kind of iMac model I want (that they promised last year). If that happens, my current iMac goes to the shop and a new one replaces it in my study. I like the *nix command line and use it a lot, so I wanted to be sure I could use software for Prusa from macOS and Linux.
...
#7 (bonus answer) One thing to keep in mind as well, and I bring this up as a peace of mind consumer point. The printer comes with a 1 year limited warranty on the electronics. So say if a motor, or something else fails on its own, it's covered. (but say you take a hammer to the machine... that would not be covered). Also there are several different ways to get support for the machine. Our forums are community based and there are people who like to help out, then you have articles, guides and blog posts on the website(s), to emailing support directly, or even pulling them up on chat to assist. Support of the printer is not limited timewise, So if you have your printer for a year or 5 years, you would still be able to reach a tech agent to answer questions or assist in troubleshooting a problem.
Hope this helps.
Thank you - yes, a lot of info and, honestly, just the answers I was hoping for! (I like honest answers, even if they're not what I want to hear - so it's cool this tells me I'm on the right track!)
I find that for tech devices I often get the best support from forums! At the start I tend to be studying and observing, so my learning curve looks slower, but when I finally can jump in and get used to it, everything comes together in a hurry. I like when I move from only asking questions to helping others.
I went through this recently except for the part about buying an Ender first. My machinist buddy who has an Ender toldme to get an Ender and that Prusa was overpriced junk. Did my own research came to the conclusion that I would spend nearly as much on the Ender and when I was done have something maybe almost as good as a Prusa if I was lucky. I ordered the MK3S+ kit back in early February. It arrived at the beginning of March and it took me basically an entire day to get it together and working.
One reason I looked at Prusa was because, in the Creality forums where I've been, I see, every now and then, someone saying they're fed up and getting a Prusa. The Creality owners get quite angry and attack them as something like a traiter. That anger has to come from somewhere, so, like you, I did the research. I'm not an idiot, but taking over a month to just get a first layer on a printer and for other users telling me that it can take time is a red flag. I just spent a long time tramming and then auto-leveling my bed, then I printed and it's a messed up test pattern. That tells me that I'd have to adjust my print bed even after it's trammed properly and auto-leveled. Even for a hobby machine, that's not good. Having the chance to learn new things is good, but when what you're learning is how to adjust something over and over, it's not helpful knowledge - it's a sign that printer is low end and for hobbyists, not people who want to do things with printing.
I see what's going on - people buy the low end and pride themselves on making it work and on all the ways they learn to manipulate it. But at the same level, they're jealous of the higher end models that "just do it." Well, I'm close to 60, I have a lot going on in my life and a lot I still want to do. I don't have time to diddle around with a printer that may or may not do what I want when I need it!
I fix airplanes for a living and consider myself fairly mechanically adept and careful, and I still managed to crack a couple of the printed parts. Since I didn't have a working printer to make replacements and they seemed like they might hold together, I proceeded on with the assembly, and once I had it working, those were the first 2 parts I printed followed by a complete extra set of the structural/functional parts. I have yet to replace those 2 cracked parts. I will get around to it eventually, but in the meantime the printer doesn't seem to care. But yeah, be careful, and I don't think there would be anything wrong with buying an extra set of parts off Etsy or somewhere if you can't get your Ender working well enough to print replacement parts if needed. They won't cost a lot and will probably arrive before your kit does.
I'm taking this as a warning to be careful while assembling. I will be careful and will be printing replacement parts rather quickly and storing them, too. Thank you for including this!
Besides the cracked parts, I initially had some trouble with the X and Y losing their place which ended up being due to having the belts too tight. There's a belt tension gauge that's fairly popular here, but again, you need to have a working printer first in order to print it, so it's the chicken and the egg again. The build manual for the Bear Upgrade (a Prusa with a beefier/modified frame) mentions putting a tuning app on your phone and tuning the belts by sound to a particular note, which seems like a good idea and you can do it without first being able to print a tool.
Again, a good warning. I'll pay careful attention to that.
Long story short, once I got it tuned and printing correctly, I liked it so much I used it to print all of the plastic parts for a Bear Upgraded version with a taller Z, mostly for the experience of doing so. I just finished the second printer a couple of days ago and am really enjoying having 2 of them. Would absolutely buy the kit again, with the caveat of maybe having a second set of printed parts on hand, mostly so I wouldn't have had to choose between using the parts I cracked, and asking my friend to print them and having to listen to him say that he told me so (which was unacceptable).
As for your questions;
1. It depends? My second printer, despite being a scratch build with mods on top of mods, mostly went together easier, because it was my second printer. There's nothing particularly difficult about putting the kit together, but there's a definite knowledge curve. I bet the 3rd one will be a breeze, but don't underestimate it. You are literally assembling and adjusting every part, every piece of hardware, and some of the printed parts are kind of fragile. Everything's straightforward, but there are plenty of opportunities to screw something up.
While I haven't put together a Prusa, I'm thinking having built a printer will help me with this. You've also mentioned a few things that I can watch for while building it.
2. Besides filament, if you want to print in materials besides PLA, you'll probably want to invest in the textured and possibly the satin sheet. Be careful if you are in the US, because adding 2 additional sheets will put the order value above the $800 limit that triggers customs charges. Straight isopropyl alcohol if you don't already have some, a silicone sock for the hotend maybe. You don't need a lot extra right away. I ended up with more filament than I really need because I bought a mix of both PLA and PETG and I discovered that I prefer using the PETG most of the time. I bought a complete spare hot end too but that ended up in the second printer... 🙄
PLA - good point. I have some spools I bought for my Ender from Amazon. I've seen mixed comments in reviews and answers about if this can be used with a Prusa. The most useful comment was to use a higher temperature than normal. What do I look for to be sure I'm getting PLA that works well with a Prusa?
I have read about using wood grain or something like that. Eventually I want to look into that and I have read it is better to use a special print head that can handle that material. (That's down the road - after I get it working and printing stuff I want.)
Customs charges - so if I'm in the US and ordering more than $800 of goods, then I trigger another fee? So I'm better off breaking it down and not ordering it all at once, then? (I've already decided that when they come out, I need to get the cage for it, since I'm also using a CNC in the workshop and that kicks up dust!) I have considered that a spare hot end would be a good thing to get. Do those come only from Prusa, or is that something I can get from a supplier in the US?
Thanks for the input!
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
Besides triggering the customs fee, what I found was adding much to the order (I wanted to add an extra spool of filament) will increase the shipping cost tremendously. They can throw an extra steel sheet (or, I assume, other small parts) in the box with the kit and it ships for the same amount and stays under the $800 customs threshold. Besides the price difference between the kit and the assembled unit, and the potential customs fee, there was a significant difference in shipping cost between the two versions. So the savings is a lot more than just the $250 purchase price difference.
I bought my spare hot end (which is now part of the complete spare printer I fabricated) from Amazon because Prusa is out of stock of a lot of the spare parts. If you do this, be sure to get the Prusa specific genuine E3D hot end. In this time of supply chain issues, Prusa is obviously using all they can get of some items in new printer production, and they aren't able to get enough to sell as spares. I bought some of the parts for the scratch build direct from Prusa but most of it I had to source elsewhere.
Another thing I found is that if I have to place an order from Prusa for small parts anyway, I can generally add one spool (but not two or more) of Prusament to the order without adding much if at all to the cost of shipping. Otherwise it's not cost effective to buy Prusament if you live in the US. It's great filament and all, but nt really worth paying the shipping premium otherwise. This may change somewhat in the future given that Prusa just purchased Printed Solid to be their US distribution operation.
Besides Amazon, I ordered a bunch of stuff for the scratch build from partsbuilt.com, and I highly recommend them. They aren't an official distributor but they appear to buy a lot of their stuff direct from Prusa and resell it. I found Printed Solid to be a bit of a pain in the ass to deal with but I think that's specific to my location in Alaska and their automated system only allows the most expensive shipping options to AK (this is an annoyance common to many vendors in all industries, so when I find a vendor that's willing to ship to AK at a reasonable cost, I treasure them, and shun the others). Printed Solid did ship me some stuff via USPS for actual cost but it took a bunch of back and forth emailing to get it done.
Stay away from OEM3d.com... I ordered some parts through them and there was zero contact beyond the initial automated "thanks for ordering" email, and my email inquiries to them all bounced back as undeliverable, and there turns out to be no contact phone number for them. I ended up disputing the change through my credit card company.
Ordered my heatbed and y carriage from kb3d.com and the shipping was fast and for reasonable cost. They were obvious clone components (the only ones I used in my build) and I got what I paid for... The parts are working but I may have to revisit them at some point since there seems to be some issue with tramming. The mesh bed leveling built into the Prusa system is successfully compensating for it, but it's there. I made my own aluminum bed spacers on my lathe and matched them all to the length of the shortest one, so I know they are exact and not the issue.
If you are interested in reading about my scratch build, I made a thread at another forum here:
https://www.theguncounter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29800&sid=121e0fa00b0a1278784b7e133e983e7e
It's not a 3d printing site (it's a shooting forum) but it's where I mostly hang out although it's a little quiet these days.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
Guess what I did? I just ordered a i3 MK3S+ kit!
Had a bit of trouble - the charge was rejected, but last time someone made a bunch of fake charges on my card, my bank gave me a magic number to call when I had issues like that, so it's taken care of and now I just have to wait - a lot!
Besides triggering the customs fee, what I found was adding much to the order (I wanted to add an extra spool of filament) will increase the shipping cost tremendously. They can throw an extra steel sheet (or, I assume, other small parts) in the box with the kit and it ships for the same amount and stays under the $800 customs threshold. Besides the price difference between the kit and the assembled unit, and the potential customs fee, there was a significant difference in shipping cost between the two versions. So the savings is a lot more than just the $250 purchase price difference.
Thanks for the warning on that! I'll pay attention to it.
Speaking of orders and shipping, I ordered via DHL. They say 2-3 day delivery in the US and longer in Europe. That's confusing. Are they shipping kits from warehouses or factories in the US? Or can I expect my kit to come from their headquarters? (And for now, there's also a 3-4 week wait.)
I bought my spare hot end (which is now part of the complete spare printer I fabricated) from Amazon because Prusa is out of stock of a lot of the spare parts. If you do this, be sure to get the Prusa specific genuine E3D hot end. In this time of supply chain issues, Prusa is obviously using all they can get of some items in new printer production, and they aren't able to get enough to sell as spares. I bought some of the parts for the scratch build direct from Prusa but most of it I had to source elsewhere.
Yes - a lot of planning and prep these days to deal with supply chain issues. Again, thanks for the warnings so I know just what to look for. When I was thinking about ordering, I searched for "Prusa" on Amazon and found very little. Maybe I had specified the model or something that limited the search.
Another thing I found is that if I have to place an order from Prusa for small parts anyway, I can generally add one spool (but not two or more) of Prusament to the order without adding much if at all to the cost of shipping. Otherwise it's not cost effective to buy Prusament if you live in the US. It's great filament and all, but nt really worth paying the shipping premium otherwise. This may change somewhat in the future given that Prusa just purchased Printed Solid to be their US distribution operation.
Didn't you say you're in the US? How long do you find it usually takes once they ship a part to you?
Besides Amazon, I ordered a bunch of stuff for the scratch build from partsbuilt.com, and I highly recommend them. They aren't an official distributor but they appear to buy a lot of their stuff direct from Prusa and resell it. I found Printed Solid to be a bit of a pain in the ass to deal with but I think that's specific to my location in Alaska and their automated system only allows the most expensive shipping options to AK (this is an annoyance common to many vendors in all industries, so when I find a vendor that's willing to ship to AK at a reasonable cost, I treasure them, and shun the others). Printed Solid did ship me some stuff via USPS for actual cost but it took a bunch of back and forth emailing to get it done.
Stay away from OEM3d.com... I ordered some parts through them and there was zero contact beyond the initial automated "thanks for ordering" email, and my email inquiries to them all bounced back as undeliverable, and there turns out to be no contact phone number for them. I ended up disputing the change through my credit card company.
Ordered my heatbed and y carriage from kb3d.com and the shipping was fast and for reasonable cost. They were obvious clone components (the only ones I used in my build) and I got what I paid for... The parts are working but I may have to revisit them at some point since there seems to be some issue with tramming. The mesh bed leveling built into the Prusa system is successfully compensating for it, but it's there. I made my own aluminum bed spacers on my lathe and matched them all to the length of the shortest one, so I know they are exact and not the issue.
If you are interested in reading about my scratch build, I made a thread at another forum here:
https://www.theguncounter.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=14&t=29800&sid=121e0fa00b0a1278784b7e133e983e7e
It's not a 3d printing site (it's a shooting forum) but it's where I mostly hang out although it's a little quiet these days.
I went through your post. I'm not completely clear. So the Bear upgrade is basically a reinforced structure? I had done some searching on it and one page said something about using it for a bigger build area.
Meanwhile, dealing with my current printer (the Ender 3 Pro) is becoming interesting.. Been asking for help for a good while on it and have posted pics of printing samples. I asked in a new forum and someone suggested my gantry may be out of square. I couldn't check that until this evening, when I brought home some shims to use to level the printer. (It was real close to level as it was.) Then I checked with a level. One upright and the bar that holds the printhead so it can go back and forth are seriously out of square! And it looks like nobody knows how to fix it. When you mention, in your post, the things that the Chinese printers don't have - well, I don't see how things could be so far out of alignment unless there was a real problem with quality control. And it's interesting that only ONE person has asked if that could be the case.
That whole issue has just convinced me that printer is a hobbyist toy - not a device to be used like a reliable tool that lets you focus on a job instead of how to fix the tool so it can do a job.
Oh - like what you said about Prusa being the Apple of printers "It just works." Yeah, life is too short to waste time messing around with something that needs a lot of adjustments all the time!
RE:
Didn't you say you're in the US? How long do you find it usually takes once they ship a part to you?
I am in Anchorage, Alaska, which sometimes adds a layer of complexity to shipping anything from the rest of the US. Ordering in-stock parts from Prusa, I find it takes about a week between ordering and receiving, which is often better than ordering from the Lower 48. Fedex has a hub here in Anchorage so typically an order from Prusa will go from Europe to the hub in Memphis, and then directly here. If I tried to order the same size box of anything via fedex from the rest of the US, it will usually cost several times as much.
I went through your post. I'm not completely clear. So the Bear upgrade is basically a reinforced structure? I had done some searching on it and one page said something about using it for a bigger build area.
Yeah, it's basically a stiffer, stronger frame made up of v-slot extrusions and using somewhat beefed up printed parts. The beauty of the upgrade, is that if you stick to the standard dimensions and the original extruder, then you can use the factory Prusa firmware, and your printer "thinks" it is a regular Prusa. Whether it is worth it, I dunno. My understanding is that the Bear upgrade came about when the Prusa machines were still using the threaded rod frame, so it was a bigger difference then. The current Prusa frame is pretty good. It's not as stiff as the bear, and I did see one video interview of a guy who was making car parts commercially, said he sees a difference in print quality on taller parts that are near the Z limit of the printer.
Having finished the build of the Bear from scratch, I have no current plans to do the upgrade on my stock Prusa. Part of me wants to do it but I doubt if I will mess with it during the warranty period at least. It was worth doing on the scratch build because I wanted the capability of having a taller printer even if I never need to print anything at that height, and I wanted a little more challenging project as a warm up to building something like a Voron printer later on if I decide to do that. Having to print accurate functional parts and then assemble them into another printer taught me things that would have taken much longer to learn just using my printer to make trinkets and organizational items.
One thing I did right away was to get the spool holder off the top of the frame. When you are printing, you can see the frame flexing a little since the heavy spool rocks around as the extruder pulls filament from it. I made some spool holders that are mounted in the cabinet that sits over the printer, and on top of the frame there is just a printed fairlead to guide the filament down to the extruder. I haven't really seen a difference in print quality, but I also haven't printed anything near the top of the Z limit. I do know I can see the difference in terms of less motion in the top of the frame. (Edit: talking about the stock Prusa machine bere)
That whole issue has just convinced me that printer is a hobbyist toy - not a device to be used like a reliable tool that lets you focus on a job instead of how to fix the tool so it can do a job.
Oh - like what you said about Prusa being the Apple of printers "It just works." Yeah, life is too short to waste time messing around with something that needs a lot of adjustments all the time!
The printers we are talking about here are a consumer grade, hobbyist level machine. Yes people do use them commercially, but if you want an industrial quality tool, there are industrial level printers to be had for tens of thousands of dollars. Just like yeah, you can make a mini-mill into a CNC, but that's a far cry from having a Haas or Fadal or whatever in your garage.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
Didn't you say you're in the US? How long do you find it usually takes once they ship a part to you?
I am in Anchorage, Alaska, which sometimes adds a layer of complexity to shipping anything from the rest of the US. Ordering in-stock parts from Prusa, I find it takes about a week between ordering and receiving, which is often better than ordering from the Lower 48. Fedex has a hub here in Anchorage so typically an order from Prusa will go from Europe to the hub in Memphis, and then directly here. If I tried to order the same size box of anything via fedex from the rest of the US, it will usually cost several times as much.
Okay, I'm just on the East Coast, so if it comes from Eastern Europe, that might cut a day or two off from a delivery time to Alaska. I ordered using DHL. It cost less, but we have had serious issues with FedEx. When we first built this house, when the driveway lead up to where I was parking my tractor and all we had of the house were ditches dug for the footings (and the footings weren't even in), one afternoon I was in my car, taking a break and playing a game on my iPad when I heard a noise and looked up. The UPS truck was there - in the middle of the freaking woods! He had to back up a few times to turn around, but he did it and then left a package (for my contractor) up against a tree near the tractor in a way he made sure it could be seen.
Nine months later, after everything was done, and after we had moved in and had our wedding just about where I was sitting when I watched the UPS driver, FedEx was dropping packages beside the driveway in the 1,100 foot stretch between the road and the trees - right in the middle of a 150' x 1,000' field! They finally got ahold of the driver and she said, "I didn't know if the driveway was safe." I told them Mazda Miatas had driven on it and so had fully loaded 74,000 pound (fully loaded weight) dump trucks and that, from where she stopped, she could see the driveway was safe for several hundred more feet!
Now? They apparently see the long driveway, don't want to drive that far, log a delivery exception and drive on. They do that 3 days in a row then, on the 4th day, they deliver. I don't know how DHL works and if they drive a big truck for deliveries or a panel truck or what - but I don't see how anyone can do as poorly as FedEx!
I went through your post. I'm not completely clear. So the Bear upgrade is basically a reinforced structure? I had done some searching on it and one page said something about using it for a bigger build area.
...
Having finished the build of the Bear from scratch, I have no current plans to do the upgrade on my stock Prusa. Part of me wants to do it but I doubt if I will mess with it during the warranty period at least. It was worth doing on the scratch build because I wanted the capability of having a taller printer even if I never need to print anything at that height, and I wanted a little more challenging project as a warm up to building something like a Voron printer later on if I decide to do that. Having to print accurate functional parts and then assemble them into another printer taught me things that would have taken much longer to learn just using my printer to make trinkets and organizational items.
It's definitely not something I'll do until after warranty - at least not on my first system. (If I get more, that first one becomes "prime" and doesn't get modified unless I've checked things out - always want one tool working well and reliably!)
One thing I did right away was to get the spool holder off the top of the frame. When you are printing, you can see the frame flexing a little since the heavy spool rocks around as the extruder pulls filament from it. I made some spool holders that are mounted in the cabinet that sits over the printer, and on top of the frame there is just a printed fairlead to guide the filament down to the extruder. I haven't really seen a difference in print quality, but I also haven't printed anything near the top of the Z limit. I do know I can see the difference in terms of less motion in the top of the frame. (Edit: talking about the stock Prusa machine bere)
My current printer has that, too. I really hate the "spool on top of frame." I see the spools jiggling a bit and I do worry about what it does to the frame in the long run. I had planned, with the Ender, to print a spool holder to go on the side as soon as I got it working.
That whole issue has just convinced me that printer is a hobbyist toy - not a device to be used like a reliable tool that lets you focus on a job instead of how to fix the tool so it can do a job.
Oh - like what you said about Prusa being the Apple of printers "It just works." Yeah, life is too short to waste time messing around with something that needs a lot of adjustments all the time!
The printers we are talking about here are a consumer grade, hobbyist level machine. Yes people do use them commercially, but if you want an industrial quality tool, there are industrial level printers to be had for tens of thousands of dollars. Just like yeah, you can make a mini-mill into a CNC, but that's a far cry from having a Haas or Fadal or whatever in your garage.
I have long range plans and a target for what I want to print and sell. After a month trying to get that other printer working and finding not one single hit on straightening out the frame, and nobody seeming to know how to fix that, I'm about to give up on that printer for good. I'm not making car parts or things that need super-fine tolerance. If I get to that point, I have plans on how to handle it, though. What I'm planning needs basic 3D printing and CNC abilities. When things start working well with what I make with those, then I'll deal with upgrading.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
I rent a box at the UPS store, and all of my mail and packages go there since I don't want stuff left on my doorstep or in an insecure box on the street, so not a problem I have. Some might consider that a pain, but I grew up in a rural community with no mail delivery, where everyone got their mail at the post office, so it makes the most sense to me.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
I rent a box at the UPS store, and all of my mail and packages go there since I don't want stuff left on my doorstep or in an insecure box on the street, so not a problem I have. Some might consider that a pain, but I grew up in a rural community with no mail delivery, where everyone got their mail at the post office, so it makes the most sense to me.
It's 1/3 of a mile from the road to our house. During the winter we can see one house through the woods, but not during the summer. Our bigger concern is idiot delivery people who take the wrong fork in the driveway and end up in an area I'm still working on, then they wonder how to turn around or get mad because they have to back out through a long road with a number of turns. (I specified which way to go for Amazon - yet some drivers don't read the delivery instructions. I point that out to them - it's THEIR fault!)
Eventually, I'm going to build my own Tardis and add a turn-around area in the front field, over a ridge where it can't be seen from the road, and leave a sign: "Leave all deliveries in the blue box unless otherwise instructed. Amazon drivers, this includes you!"
When I get that done, I'll be glad to not have drivers coming to the house anymore, since it's so private they're a distraction and interruption.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
It's hardly the delivery drivers' fault that you chose to live in an out of the way place, with unusual access considerations. I am pretty sure that such scenarios are exactly why the USPS chose to forego delivery completely, and make everyone get a PO box, in communities such as the one I grew up in. Situations like yours are the norm there, rather than the exception.
I grew up in the freight business and made my share of deliveries before selling my part of the business and changing careers. The whole concept of just dropping a package off on the porch (or in a field, WTF?) is entirely foreign to me since without a signature and a time/date of delivery, we didn't get paid. But that seems to be the way it is done now. Faced with a situation like yours with nobody home and unclear directions, the shipment would likely have sat in my warehouse or office until somebody showed up to collect it. There's only just so much trouble it is worth going to over a delivery for which the company gets paid a flat fee regardless of difficulty. Fortunately in a small town where everybody knows everybody, it wasn't usually an issue.
But yeah, this is why I rent a box at the UPS store. I don't have to worry about my stuff getting dropped off outside in view of the street, I don't have to worry about random $%^+bags stealing mail out of my mailbox, I don't need to make sure I am home at a certain time to receive an important delivery, and it makes my home address slightly more private since I don't have to provide it to everyone I do business with.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
It's hardly the delivery drivers' fault that you chose to live in an out of the way place, with unusual access considerations. I am pretty sure that such scenarios are exactly why the USPS chose to forego delivery completely, and make everyone get a PO box, in communities such as the one I grew up in. Situations like yours are the norm there, rather than the exception.
Out here many houses are well off the road. Compared to some, I have a short driveway. Aside from distance, the quality of the road or anything like that was not an issue. Also, other than one trucking company that will not come onto anyone's property and only does curbside drop-off (unless you sign a waiver), nobody else has had any issues - that's why I mentioned UPS as a comparison. Their driver checked it out by driving along as long as it was safe. Amazon drivers haven't ever complained (and many times they comment on how cool the house is), the one pizza place that comes out this far has never had a problem with it, either.
I grew up in the freight business and made my share of deliveries before selling my part of the business and changing careers. The whole concept of just dropping a package off on the porch (or in a field, WTF?) is entirely foreign to me since without a signature and a time/date of delivery, we didn't get paid. But that seems to be the way it is done now. Faced with a situation like yours with nobody home and unclear directions, the shipment would likely have sat in my warehouse or office until somebody showed up to collect it. There's only just so much trouble it is worth going to over a delivery for which the company gets paid a flat fee regardless of difficulty. Fortunately in a small town where everybody knows everybody, it wasn't usually an issue.
We get very few packages that require a signature these days. Sometimes computer equipment does, so I make sure I'm home and in the house when something like that is due. (Or, if it's FedEx, I have it delivered to a branch office of theirs in a Walmart.) I remember the days, though, when most packages were signed for. After that, and before we moved out here, I used the Delivery Manager features of both FedEx and UPS to specify to deliver to the back door when I was at my old house. That was out of sigh of other houses. (Even in the 'burbs, I was surrounded by trees.) That eliminated security issues with people taking packages.
But yeah, this is why I rent a box at the UPS store. I don't have to worry about my stuff getting dropped off outside in view of the street, I don't have to worry about random $%^+bags stealing mail out of my mailbox, I don't need to make sure I am home at a certain time to receive an important delivery, and it makes my home address slightly more private since I don't have to provide it to everyone I do business with.
As I mentioned, eventually I'll be putting a Tardis out where drivers don't have to come all the way back here so it's easier for them and so we have more privacy. What I haven't looked into is if I can specify a combo to provide to the delivery services so they can unlock it, drop a package off, then let it lock again soon after that.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
A friend of mine had a couple of lockable boxes near his front entry, with open padlocks inside with instructions to put the package in the box, and slap a padlock on it. He said most drivers would do as specified when dropping off a package. Could be something as simple as placing one of those job site boxes and anchoring it in place suitably.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
A friend of mine had a couple of lockable boxes near his front entry, with open padlocks inside with instructions to put the package in the box, and slap a padlock on it. He said most drivers would do as specified when dropping off a package. Could be something as simple as placing one of those job site boxes and anchoring it in place suitably.
We've done a lot of work on making the house and barn and entire area look special. Once you get past the front field, and start driving through the woods, it's like you're leaving the real world. That's why I'm going to do this as a Tardis - also because sometimes we get bigger deliveries, so almost everything we'd get would fit in a Tardis.
Most of the delivery people do a good job, but we have had some that never read the delivery instructions. I had an Amazon driver last week who wouldn't follow the simple directions they have for our house that state, "Stay left at the fork." I almost backed into him with the tractor because I was working on the ending of the road to the barn and there is no reason ANYONE should have been down there other than me.
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
Looks like you got a whole lot of good feedback on this topic. Smart to come to this forum and find out what users have to say. I wish I had done that first but, live and learn. My first 3D printer so nothing to compare to and no regrets having purchased a MK3S+ just under a year ago. Just could have saved myself some time getting things dialed in if I had started here earlier.
I will say that I downloaded the assembly manual as soon as I placed my order so I could start to familiarize myself with the parts and build steps prior to receiving the printer. As it turns out, that was a waste of time because the online assembly manual with interactive comments and updates is a far better tool that the "published" version. I read though the entire annual, including every comment, twice before I started the assembly. As I said, first 3D printer and had no idea what to expect.
I wanted to chime in re the spool holder comments from above. I never noticed rocking or flexing of the aluminum frame with the stock spool holder but I didn't like how the spool would randomly sort of 'thunk' over as it unwound. That would often cause the filament to tug on the extruder as it settled back into a normal motion and I just didn't like how it worked.
I found a good substitute which can be found on Printables here:
I also found a nice filament guide that compliments the spool holder design well here:
Below is a pic of the two sets I put on my otherwise mostly stock printer. Super quiet and no frame movement.
Cheers!
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
I am in Anchorage, Alaska, which sometimes adds a layer of complexity to shipping anything from the rest of the US. Ordering in-stock parts from Prusa, I find it takes about a week between ordering and receiving, which is often better than ordering from the Lower 48. Fedex has a hub here in Anchorage so typically an order from Prusa will go from Europe to the hub in Memphis, and then directly here. If I tried to order the same size box of anything via fedex from the rest of the US, it will usually cost several times as much.
I was thinking about shipping times and went back to this - remembered you had said something about that. So when you get shipments from Prusa, are they from Prague? And they only take about a week to get to Alaska?
Any chance you've checked progress while in transit and noticed how long it takes before they reach somewhere in the US?
My printer is due to ship "Within 7 days of 6/13." I'm already getting anxious and excited!
RE: Considering buying i3 MK3S+ - Questions
Looks like you got a whole lot of good feedback on this topic. Smart to come to this forum and find out what users have to say. I wish I had done that first but, live and learn. My first 3D printer so nothing to compare to and no regrets having purchased a MK3S+ just under a year ago. Just could have saved myself some time getting things dialed in if I had started here earlier.
When you stub your toe on enough rocks, you eventually learn to look down when you're walking on a rough path! I didn't ask questions before getting my Creality printer. Now, being in some forums on their printers, I've seen a lot of people who can't get their printers to print a single thing. Others say they're great. I'm not an idiot. I've run my own software business and I've been buying and working with new tech products since the 1970s, as a teen. As for 3D printing - well, I'm more behind the curve on this than I have been with most new things I find interesting. So, while I'm making a subjective judgement, I think it's odd that, with that kind of experience and background I can't get the Creality printer to print. I've seen others who seem quite intelligent with the same issue. But I've also seen many Creality owners get rather hateful when someone says, "I couldn't get it to work and got this brand..." I suspect their manufacturing is inconsistent, since a lot of intelligent people have a problem with getting them to just plain work. Too many people are having trouble with them for it to be just user errors. But the anger and need to blame people for any failures like that made me seriously uncomfortable with that brand and the community.
I wish I had checked out those forums before I bought one. I did research, but now I'm wondering about all the reviews and ratings and rankings I've see. Since I'm working on a new business, and I need my tools to work dependably, I decided that even if I got that printer working, I couldn't count on it being a reliable tool I could count on. The one name people that ticked off the Creality people the most was Prusa - so I started my search here and then checked out others. When I had ruled out most of the other printers, I came to this forum. (Easier than starting threads in forums for half a dozen printer brands!)
I will say that I downloaded the assembly manual as soon as I placed my order so I could start to familiarize myself with the parts and build steps prior to receiving the printer. As it turns out, that was a waste of time because the online assembly manual with interactive comments and updates is a far better tool that the "published" version. I read though the entire annual, including every comment, twice before I started the assembly. As I said, first 3D printer and had no idea what to expect.
I tend to be more of the "Review this stage multiple times before doing it" kind of person. But I'm already anxious and eager to get my kit, so I may be reading the manual through soon. (One issue I had with the other printer is that I had to go through some stages and redo them because the illustrations made part orientations hard to clarify.)
I wanted to chime in re the spool holder comments from above. I never noticed rocking or flexing of the aluminum frame with the stock spool holder but I didn't like how the spool would randomly sort of 'thunk' over as it unwound. That would often cause the filament to tug on the extruder as it settled back into a normal motion and I just didn't like how it worked.
That may be a moot point now. I'm looking at the Prusa case and may get that, since it's available soon (in July). My print station is in my workshop, which includes a CNC machine and a table saw. Lots of sawdust. For now I have plastic sheets I can throw over a printer or the CNC when they're not in use. A cage to protect the printer and so it can print while I'm doing other things would be great. I've considered making my own, but I've wasted so much time trying to get the Creality printer working I really need to get things up and running. At this point I don't have time to build a cage myself and I notice the Prusa cage has a reel holder off to the side.
It just seems topheavy to put full reels of filament on the top of a printer. You point out the thunk that happens when it needs to pull more off. With all that weight on the top of the frame, I'd be worried that it might create other issues along the way.
I found a good substitute which can be found on Printables here:
I also found a nice filament guide that compliments the spool holder design well here:
Below is a pic of the two sets I put on my otherwise mostly stock printer. Super quiet and no frame movement.
Cheers!
A few thoughts on that! First, I noticed how they're made of multiple smaller parts that have to fit together just right. I've been led to believe that it's difficult to print and do that.
I had a number of links saved for upgrades to my current printer once I got it printing. I'm still going to see if I can get it to work. If I do, I may still want to put some attachments on it, but I'm sure once I get and start using my Prusa, I'll be looking at what attachments I'll want to be making for that!