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I'm not aware of a single clone of the prusa designs that have been as good as prusa's. Prusa's machines are expensive but by and large "just work", and keep o

I'm not aware of a single clone of the prusa designs that have been as good as prusa's. Prusa's machines are expensive but by and large "just work", and keep on working, and have a strong reputation for this, backed by them eating their own dogfood, producing printers with their printers. The clones are almost always require a lot of tweaking/fixes/upgrades and aren't durable or reliable. Some of them are downright dangerous in terms of being fire hazards, with things like heater bed wires that fray and short out, underspec'd electronics that overheat, shitty firmware, etc. He's got a thousand (mostly) Chinese copycatters who immediately download the design, figure out how to squeeze every penny out of the BOM, modify it slightly to give their marketing people something to brag about being "better" (as well as try and force people to go to them, and only them, for replacement parts), and print money from tens of thousands of people on reddit and Facebook 3d printing forums who think they're scoring some sort of great deal. None of these people are adding anything of value; in fact, all the effort spent fixing the shitty clones that are very poorly supported, probably results in millions of person-hours wasted. If I were Prusa, I'd be exhausted, too. It's not an understatement to say that he has been not-quite-single-handedly carrying the hardware side of the enthusiast/cottage-industry FDM market for well over a decade. Sure, you have the corexy and delta designs, but they're definitely a minority.

kadoban 4y ago
What will change from that if they don't publish their designs? Knockoff producers will figure it out anyway, that's their entire business and they're good at it. The only people hurt are the actual customers, who probably don't have as much experience reverse-engineering.
- groby_b 4y ago
  You know what - tough for the actual customers. Who largely keep buying knockoffs. You want the cheapest shit without any innovation, you'll sooner or later get your wish.
  - kadoban 4y ago
    You're punishing the wrong people. The people most affected are the ones that _gave you money_, not the ones that don't. If your goal is just to collectively punish all consumers, maybe just get out of the business of selling stuff, because that's pretty toxic.
    - Brian_K_White 4y ago
      This. Everyone who bought a clone was never a Prusa customer in the first place. They aren't costing Prusa anything. Nobody stole anything from him because all that money he's so worried about was never his in the first place. He tries to complain about other people's character but that attitude exposed right there is worse. Closing up your ip only hurts your own customers and turns some who might have been customers away. It does not create a single new customer or increase any good will. These companies get their start 100% thanks to open source, then decide they don't like it any more after they get off the ground. I will somehow survive just fine while never buying any of e3d's new Revo stuff. It's cool, but you know, it's not cool enough to compete with open-ended infinity. Or Slice. Slice trying to claim patent on freaking textbook basics. These guys have absolutely no argument for all their crying. What they call parasites are what I call the rest of an entire ecosystem, and no one gets to live without a big ecosystem to live within. I guess I'm pretty much just repeating the article. She's right on.
      - groby_b 4y ago
        As a Prusa customer: Close it up. Let the freeloaders learn a lesson. I'm so tired of the entitled whining of "the money was never his in the first place"
        Brian_K_White 4y ago
        But his whining is ok. Got it. Not that I see how the critics are whining anyway. He makes the charge that someone else is bad because why exactly? Because they don't "give back"? Whatever that is supposed to mean. So how is he different? Oh right, because he produces hardware and software that other people can use. Except now he doesn't want to do that any more. So, he is becoming exactly the people he just said are bad. Now tell me he's different because he makes his own new stuff instead of copying. Whining indeed. I call projection whiner.
Fomite 4y ago
Word has it the Sovol SV06 is giving the Mk3S+ a run for its money.
- postalrat 4y ago
  Yeah and a few years ago people were saying ender3 was as good or better than mk3. People have a tendency to believe dumb stuff.
glompers 4y ago
Good perspective for businesspeople who tend to create a false equivalence between being a successful fast follower in the market and being a successful innovator, as though the market oxygen which fast followers seek were simply something that would still be 'in the room' without innovators' R&D and commercialization first putting it there.
cowl 4y ago
> It's not an understatement to say that he has been not-quite-single-handedly carrying the hardware side of the enthusiast/cottage-industry FDM market for well over a decade In fact it's not un understatement, it's plainly a false statement. Nothing of Prusa is an original Idea, everything has come from the community and they have refined and calibrated it. The differentiating factor Prusa Had was a pre-calibrated Printer and more quality control on the parts. If you rigtly say that the refinement is the important part, there's plenty of refinement on various things also on the "clones"
- blkhawk 4y ago
  I would argue that the genius in the prusa printer is not directly that its calibrated - its in little details that become obvious once you have experience them during upgrades of your own printer. Say the magnetic bed and the elimination of bed springs. Or where exactly stepper motors are placed. Details of cooling fan ducting. If you add good calibration to that you end up with a very well working printer. this means that if you copy it exactly the printer will work well even with inferior parts. So companies that are cheap and innovate are punished and do not know why exactly.

kadoban 4y ago

What will change from that if they don't publish their designs? Knockoff producers will figure it out anyway, that's their entire business and they're good at it. The only people hurt are the actual customers, who probably don't have as much experience reverse-engineering.

groby_b 4y ago
You know what - tough for the actual customers. Who largely keep buying knockoffs. You want the cheapest shit without any innovation, you'll sooner or later get your wish.
- kadoban 4y ago
  You're punishing the wrong people. The people most affected are the ones that _gave you money_, not the ones that don't. If your goal is just to collectively punish all consumers, maybe just get out of the business of selling stuff, because that's pretty toxic.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    This. Everyone who bought a clone was never a Prusa customer in the first place. They aren't costing Prusa anything. Nobody stole anything from him because all that money he's so worried about was never his in the first place. He tries to complain about other people's character but that attitude exposed right there is worse. Closing up your ip only hurts your own customers and turns some who might have been customers away. It does not create a single new customer or increase any good will. These companies get their start 100% thanks to open source, then decide they don't like it any more after they get off the ground. I will somehow survive just fine while never buying any of e3d's new Revo stuff. It's cool, but you know, it's not cool enough to compete with open-ended infinity. Or Slice. Slice trying to claim patent on freaking textbook basics. These guys have absolutely no argument for all their crying. What they call parasites are what I call the rest of an entire ecosystem, and no one gets to live without a big ecosystem to live within. I guess I'm pretty much just repeating the article. She's right on.
    - groby_b 4y ago
      As a Prusa customer: Close it up. Let the freeloaders learn a lesson. I'm so tired of the entitled whining of "the money was never his in the first place"
      - Brian_K_White 4y ago
        But his whining is ok. Got it. Not that I see how the critics are whining anyway. He makes the charge that someone else is bad because why exactly? Because they don't "give back"? Whatever that is supposed to mean. So how is he different? Oh right, because he produces hardware and software that other people can use. Except now he doesn't want to do that any more. So, he is becoming exactly the people he just said are bad. Now tell me he's different because he makes his own new stuff instead of copying. Whining indeed. I call projection whiner.

Fomite 4y ago

Word has it the Sovol SV06 is giving the Mk3S+ a run for its money.

postalrat 4y ago
Yeah and a few years ago people were saying ender3 was as good or better than mk3. People have a tendency to believe dumb stuff.

glompers 4y ago

Good perspective for businesspeople who tend to create a false equivalence between being a successful fast follower in the market and being a successful innovator, as though the market oxygen which fast followers seek were simply something that would still be 'in the room' without innovators' R&D and commercialization first putting it there.

cowl 4y ago

> It's not an understatement to say that he has been not-quite-single-handedly carrying the hardware side of the enthusiast/cottage-industry FDM market for well over a decade In fact it's not un understatement, it's plainly a false statement. Nothing of Prusa is an original Idea, everything has come from the community and they have refined and calibrated it. The differentiating factor Prusa Had was a pre-calibrated Printer and more quality control on the parts. If you rigtly say that the refinement is the important part, there's plenty of refinement on various things also on the "clones"

blkhawk 4y ago
I would argue that the genius in the prusa printer is not directly that its calibrated - its in little details that become obvious once you have experience them during upgrades of your own printer. Say the magnetic bed and the elimination of bed springs. Or where exactly stepper motors are placed. Details of cooling fan ducting. If you add good calibration to that you end up with a very well working printer. this means that if you copy it exactly the printer will work well even with inferior parts. So companies that are cheap and innovate are punished and do not know why exactly.