Shipping Costs
I just ordered my MK3...if I try to order parts later, will there always be a $40-$50 shipping fee for consumables and replacement parts? Is there a USA distributor for official parts?
I noticed that shipping was discounted to $50 for the MK3, but I'm shocked the that the shipping for a printer kit is normally almost $100 and that the MK3 Multi Material Upgrade shipping was going to be another $50.
Re: Shipping Costs
Last thing I ordered for my MK2 was a new E3D hot end and a PINDA probe. A rather light shipment. The parts were $81.19 and the shipping was $27.75 to Metro Atlanta.
Re: Shipping Costs
I think shipping costs can't be helped. Prusa stated in an interview they are working on a US distributer. Fortunately many parts can also be found from other companies. Misumi for bearings and rails. Fillastruder, printed solid, etc for hotend components. And so on.
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Are they coming from overseas? That's still a lot of shipping costs for such small items. IT also seems that we are paying per piece, instead of having the pieces consolidated to one box.
Re: Shipping Costs
Are they coming from overseas? That's still a lot of shipping costs for such small items. IT also seems that we are paying per piece, instead of having the pieces consolidated to one box.
Yep, from Prague.
Re: Shipping Costs
Cool. Thank you for the notes. If you think of other US based distributors for parts I may want to order, please let me know...
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Yes, me too.
I've been thinking about the possibility of group buys for consolidation if we could get a US user's group organized, too.
It's not clear to me yet, though, just what parts we must buy from Prague (those for which there is no appropriate local/generic substitute). Is there a list anywhere? If not, should we set out to make one?
Re: Shipping Costs
Well the real tricky parts are the bed, Pinda, and main board. Also Prusa usually doesn’t start selling those separately until the backorders have caught up.
However I’ve done some self sourcing and a big part is finding quality parts from a source that don’t break the bank. For example if you go to Misumi for all 10 linear bearings they will cost $200 alone. The trick is it’s very difficult to find say $10 Bearings. The next option is $1 Bearings from China or $3 Bearing from someone who bought the Chinese Bearings and marked them up. There are similar situations for rods, motors, etc. After trying a half dozen sources for each one of these components you might find the right Chinese components.
Lastly once you finally nail down a source, next time you need more there is a chance the source doesn’t have more. This happened several times when I was buying bearings.
Re: Shipping Costs
Hmmm....
Maybe I made a mistake, but I priced the bearings at Misumi US this afternoon - LMU8 - at $5.85 each and the steel rods PSFJ8 at $12 each - so $94.50 for the lot.
But I understand what you are saying. However, putting money in the hands of a non-value-adding party isn't doing anything for us or for Prusa, so we should seek a better situation than we seem to have now on parts from them.
The other parts I haven't yet looked in to myself.
Re: Shipping Costs
Oops, embarrassing calculation error above - 6 rods at $12, not 3, so $36 short. Correct total is $130.50.