First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
Prusa XL with 5 heads arrived today. Here my my first observations:
1) It took 5 hours of assembly to get the "Assembled" printer assembled. Granted, I am careful and diligent, but it really was five hours of work to assemble this "assembled" printer" and get everything calibrated.
2) It is a massively complicated device. It has an almost insane level of complexity when compared with all other Prusa products. It looks well built and will hopefully not require much service. But there is a plethora of things to go wrong.
3) It vibrates and oscillates and shudders and has resonant frequencies. I have a rock-solid table for it to sit on. But the front arms and build plate visibly vibrate and shake and rattle when viewed from 18" away. Surprisingly, the print quality is good nevertheless. But the abundance of sheet metal and lacking front support arms clearly is a less stable box than I had expected.
4) It weighs 77 pounds in the box.
5) It comes with a humongous bag of gummy bears.
6) It cannot be used with Apple Safari, either a Mac or an iPhone. The PrusaLink will not allow a Safari device to log in. This is quite disappointing as I use PrusaLink to send files to the printers.
7) It is not a speed deamon. It didn't seem much different from may Prusa Mini, although I haven't benchmarked it. But it is clearly nothing like the MK4.
8) Pre-print "probing" of the platform is a long, long process. Attached is a photo showing "probe point 143".
9) Quality of prints seemed to be good.
10) Nozzle on the only tool I have used appears to "leak" melted filament. It oozes above the brass nozzle. (See photo)
11) I miss the feature on my Prusa Mini where it would show me the estimated print completion time. The XL shows how long is remaining, but not the estimated completion time.
12) I see no ability for the XL to switch from one tool to another when filament runs out. I would have expected that I could define a "pair" of tools with the same filament type and color, and when one runs out it would automatically switch to the other member of the pair, so that printing large objects would be continuous and filament would be used to the end. Nope. This is a rather conspicuous missing function.
13) Supposedly came with an adapter to allow use of third party nozzles. I got ONE thing that says "adapter" but it is unclear quite what to do with it or how to use a third party nozzle. I would have expected a 5 head machine to come with 5 such adapters, not just one.
14) Installation has an abundance of error messages and spontaneous reboots. (Before I was able to upgrade to newer version). Here is a sampling of them:
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
If that is not the adapter with a regular V6 nozzle, how is it even possible for it to leak? Shouldn't it be a single piece from heatbreak to nozzle? I am not owning an XL, just being curious.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
And then, there is the photo.
What other explanation is there?
RE:
There is the photo indeed. I've never seen leakages myself first hand but it sure does look like one to me. I guess there is only one way to find out.
Can it really be a defect in the nozzle/heatbreak? I am surprised to see such an issue but with the chaos of late at Prusa what do I know.
Mk3s MMU2s, Voron 0.1, Voron 2.4
RE:
Update:
- Very very slow at getting going. Seems to be about 10 minutes before printing actually starts from the time you tell it to start. The bed probing is lengthy, the heating is lengthy, and then there is the 6 minutes of "Absorbing Heat" where it just sits and sits. After that there is an unexplainable pause of 30~60 seconds when it says "Printing" but absolutely nothing is happening. For small objects, my Mini+ is done and finished before the XL has even put down the first trace.
- Wife says that the XL sounds like a modem from the 1990's. It makes similar squealing and buzzing sounds continually while printing.
- Print quality seems very good using PETG.
- Sometimes it shows the print job completion time, sometimes it shows N/A and doesn't. Odd and irregular.
- The feature I am most surprised is missing is the ability to automatically switch to another tool when the filament runs out. I don't need 5 colors. I need to have printing continue overnight when at a filament roll-end occurs. It seems like such an obvious, simple feature: Each tool specify the next tool to switch to when the filament is empty.
- Noticed that the default infill type is now diagonal boxes (which the XL does with minimal motor action) instead of gyroid. Gyroid is stronger and better, but it terribly and visibly vibrates the XL...much like an overloaded washing machine.
- The side lighting does an excellent job of lighting up the belts, and a not-so-good job of lighting up the printed project. They are nice to have but ⅔ of the light output goes nowhere useful.
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
Thank you for your detailed experience. I'm following closely as I hope to have my fully assembled 5 extruder xl soon. Yours and others' feedback definitely has me strategizing what kind of table/desk/workbench I'm going to put this one when it arrives. It's disappointing it seems to be lacking some basic features like the spool pooling. But I'm sure prusa will make it better over time.
RE:
so my 5 Cents to the post..
1. the time is very dependant on material and size of the print. the hotter the bed the (much) longer it takes. I would say starting takes 1 to 10 minutes.
2. It is much louder then the mk4 and 3.
3. Qualtiy is the same like mk3/4 will be interesting what IS and PA will do
4. print time is shifting... it starts with will end 22:34 and over the print it is allways getting later. in the end it is 23:10 (just examples)
5. yes this is stupid
6. its the new (old) standard since the IS profiles for the MK4 I use the infill that is the best for the specific part.
7. the leds are not perfect, but ok. there is no other place for them.
i had a not complete filament sensor with my kit. after 2 hours in waiting and chat prusa send me a new one... the wrong one... 1 hour in chat later they will send me the right one.. QC and service are not what they used to be 5 years ago.
the table: https://rau-gmbh.de/produkte/gesamtprogramm/werkbaenke/werkbaenke-8000/produktinformationen/werkbank-8000-1221 fits perfect with 70cmx125cm and is heavy enough that there is no shakeing. (50kg)
RE:
i had a not complete filament sensor with my kit. after 2 hours in waiting and chat prusa send me a new one... the wrong one... 1 hour in chat later they will send me the right one.. QC and service are not what they used to be 5 years ago.
I totally agree with you. Previous experience with support always ended well and would get things solved in one or two chats. Now I am not sure they can get anything fixed. at least for the X!
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
My opinion is that the XL5 continues to have very serious design flaws.
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
Could you elaborate on what they are? Interested as mine is due to arrive on Friday.
RE:
My opinion is that the XL5 continues to have very serious design flaws.
Could you elaborate on what they are? Interested as mine is due to arrive on Friday
I think I did a pretty good job of illustrating them at the start of this thread. If those are not convincing enough, then you might refer to these threads: (Watch the videos!)
XL5 Battlebots between Tool 1 and Tool 2
and here are video links:
IMG_0557 - Buzzing in X and Y direction
Again, watch the videos in the thread and see the homing, probing, and Battlebots issues.
Aside from the plethora of missing features, slow printing time, and excruciatingly slow "Absorbing Heat" phase, the printer simply died. It will no longer home or probe the bed and just stopped printing. I went through technical support who simply could not help. After waiting three days for Prusa to get back to me I decided to return the printer.
I think Prusa is a quality company. I am happy with their customer service and a little unhappy with their technical support. But my opinion is that the XL5 is not polished or reliable. This is just my opinion, based on the one unit I purchased. As I mentioned, I asked for my money back and Prusa is cooperating...they seem like a quality company that has good intentions.
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
I think you got a lemon and I understand why you feel as you do. It’s unacceptable to have a new machine with so many problems. If those issues are design flaws I think is yet to be seen. Certainly QC seems to be a problem. Appreciate you sharing the links etc
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
Yes, whether the XL5 is a flawed product will depend upon the numbers. I have a single datapoint, so it isn't statistically representative.
But my XL5 has had many different issues. Starting with errors when first powered up and then Battlebots, inability to probe the bed, inability to home, and spacing out and parking tools in the middle of print jobs, it's been a lemon experience.
It is also missing a number of surprising features, such as spool joining (really?), wifi downloads are arduously slow, and then there is the 6~10 minute "Absorbing heat" delay at the start of every print job.
I'm happy with Prusa as a company. It is entirely possible I just got a lemon and that the whole XL5 line isn't problematic. Nevertheless, scrutinize your machine carefully within the refund period!
I wish Prusa well.
Ordered in January
Ordered in January for August delivery, then told September. Its now November 4th and nothing except I see a lot of negative reviews. Thinking I should just cancel my ordered and go with something else. Seriously disappointed, especially seeing seattledave say that by the time he got his it was over $5k
RE:
Just to say there are positive reviews and experiences you come across too - they just have a lot less prominence. And the people it’s working for have have a lot less reason to post in the first place.
If you want to cancel, obviously that’s fine, but you could also be cancelling one of the machines that just works, or can work well with a bit of tweaking.
Do be aware of forum bias to - people who are getting on fine either don’t post or have a comment here or there. It’s the issues that get the attention which can skew things. It’s clear there can be issues - some of which are easily resolvable like stringing etc. Other issues are trickier, but I think the general consensus is that there isn’t anything fundamentally wrong with the printer design or hardware itself, it’s just that Prusa have struggled to get to polished prior to launch or that there is higher machine variability than would be expected.
I guess it partly depends on what you’re looking for from a printer and in what timescale. I wanted the large build volume and multi material (not just multi colour) so I’m hopefully sticking with my XL for the long haul. There isn’t really anything like it on the market - certainly at this price point I don’t think. If you don’t mind a smaller build volume, are happy with multi-colour and don’t mind material wastage then Bambu is a good option - though reading their forum isn’t not all roses and sunshine there either. I guess you could wait and see if Bambu launches an XL - and if it’s fully multi-material.
I guess if you can wait, you could also save your money and wait a year or so before ordering again to see how the XL shakes out.
In terms of timescales, if you ordered a 5h in January, I’d imagine maybe early-ish in the new year or latest first quarter 2024 - a guess on my side. If you can wait, you’ll get a later production model so some of the issues will be resolved by then, and the firmware should be updated by then. I can imagine your frustration with timescales though.
Hope you reach a decision you’re happy with.
Ordered in January for August delivery, then told September. Its now November 4th and nothing except I see a lot of negative reviews. Thinking I should just cancel my ordered and go with something else. Seriously disappointed, especially seeing seattledave say that by the time he got his it was over $5k
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
FYI...
I am totally blown away by my XL-5. The more I print the more I am impressed. This is after 4 years with the E3D Toolchanger. It's made all my other machines totally obsolete.
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
While there are definitely some things to work out. I share the sentiment. How I got along with the MMU as long as I did, I have no idea. The multi extruder thing is totally the way to go.
Currently doing a tpu + pla support + aquasys 120 soluble interface print. Something I could have only dreamed about doing prior.
I'm really anxious to try out mixing filaments to see what fun things I can come up with.
RE: First Experience with XL-5: Has promise but not polished.
I agree, there are always more negative reviews than there are good reviews. Part of my frustration is that I had anticipated having the XL by late August 23, business' use. I have been told it will be June of 24.