4 ms·

Prusa makes their products locally, the spare part situation is good, the company runs an open Makerspace in their basement, helps host conferences and has done

by zevon 1y ago

Prusa makes their products locally, the spare part situation is good, the company runs an open Makerspace in their basement, helps host conferences and has done a lot for Open Hardware in general. They also have offered consistent upgrade paths for old machines for a long time and the repairability in general is good. You can also talk to them. These things matter for purchase decisions. Same logic as per your Knipex and Wera example. I actually have a Bambu Labs at home for occasional use but I would not consider anything but Prusas for a general-use desktop FDM printer in basically any more serious setting. This has been the situation for many years now (over the last 12 years or so, I've had to make a few purchase decisions for batches of 5-15 FDM printers as well as different single specialty ones).

hyperbovine 1y ago
I want so much to like Prusa ... but the Bambu printer at my local makerspace costs half as much and is better in every way than the MK3S+ sitting in my basement. I'm fully aware that this is the result of shrewdness on the part of the Chinese, plus incompetence in the West, and it's so frustrating.
- sarchertech 1y ago
  It’s not better in every way. For long term reliability and ability to repair and upgrade, Prusa is far superior.
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    But you get better results from the Bambu. I care about the product of the manufacturing more than I care about the tools.
    - sarchertech 1y ago
      That depends on what you’re doing. For many things Prusa printers produce higher quality prints.
      - hyperbovine 1y ago
        > For many things Prusa printers produce higher quality prints. I have yet to have this happen, despite a lot of trying. The Bambu just works and the results are better. The Prusa requires constant recalibration and tuning, and still produces an inferior looking product. I'd love to be proven wrong here. It's probably the case that somebody with a ton of experience can squeeze better results out of a Prusa ... but that kind of proves my point.
        skybrian 1y ago
        We are a version behind and the Mk4 is supposed to be better. I think that would be a fairer comparison to the Bambu? I’m currently working on an upgrade to 3.5, which should at least give me better speed.
        sarchertech 1y ago
        You’re 2 essentially 2 versions behind. The Core One is basically equivalent to the X1C and it’s the same price. $300 cheaper if you buy the kit instead of the assembled version.
        sarchertech 1y ago
        My Prusa just always works. I spend virtually zero time doing maintenance or any kind of tuning. If you’re spending that much time fiddling with it, sounds like you either have much a much better eye for print quality than I do or you got a dud.
        trenchpilgrim 1y ago
        It makes a big difference if you're painting the prints - things that look okay out of the printer will turn into a disaster once paint brings out all the details. People are getting great quality out of the Bambus now - basically a slight tier below Resin, without any of the health issues that require PPE. https://youtu.be/R8fuNDTQJCY?t=725 https://youtu.be/R8fuNDTQJCY?t=725 (Old video, state of the art has advanced since. Also, the issue with his other printer turned out to be a simple maintenance item (dirty pulley) the video maker skipped over in Bambu's basic troubleshooting guide.)
  - thatnerdyguy 1y ago
    If your hobby is 3d printERS sure (and more power to you), but for many people (me included) the hobby is 3d printING
    - zevon 1y ago
      The point is not that Prusas need constant repair. The point is that they are reliable workhorses and repairable and usually also long-term-upgradeable.
  - ohdeargodno 1y ago
    Cool, but that's not why people buy things. I don't buy a bike for the pleasure of getting to repair it when I inevitably eat shit on a gravel road. While you're busy ordering parts for your Prusa and taking it apart, people just buy another A1 or P1P for basically nothing. While you're spending 5 hours trying to stabilise your printing plate and ensuring your nozzle isn't vomiting out super melted <weird filament you got>, the bambulabs go haha printing goes brrr thanks for feeding me shale oil it'll work great. If you're 3d printing enough that your printer breaks, you are 100% making enough money to just eat the costs of another printer.
    - zevon 1y ago
      You don't care how expensive and complicated it is to repair and maintain your mountain bike (especially if you plan to eat gravel a lot)? And your take on machines is that you better throw away a bunch of working 3D printers and replace them instead of upgrading the old ones and adding new ones as needed? Hope you have a lot of money to burn in your personal and business life. ;)
      - ohdeargodno 1y ago
        Another user made the point: maybe you care about 3D printERS. The vast majority of people care about the printed end result, and buying more printers in the case of massive failure (which is already rare) makes more sense. If you're 3D printing for fun at home, a Bambu will basically never break. Spending 3 days tracking down the parts for a Prusa, taking it apart, fixing it, realising some settings have gone to shit, fixing it? I hope you have a lot of time to burn in your personal and business life :)
        zevon 1y ago
        As mentioned in my parent comment, I've made purchase decisions for FDM desktop printers since before Prusa (as a company and product) was around and I've been responsible for 3D printers from a lot of different manufacturers over the years. I'm not attached to any particular company or anything like that. If I needed more "quality" (in the sense of less visible layer lines) than what comes out of a modern Bambu, Prusa (or some other modern FDM printers), I would use another manufacturing process instead of FDM printing. And no idea where you are in the world but I'm in Europe where I can get Prusa parts from different vendors very quickly and reliably and most of them (including Prusa themselves) have processes in place for B2B and public sector transactions which can be important for professional life as well. Again: I'm not saying that Bambu printers are not very good in many ways. As I said in my parent comment: I have one. Doesn't change my other points.
- ungreased0675 1y ago
  If you ever need to fix a Bambu printer, your opinion may change.
  - trenchpilgrim 1y ago
    I can't speak for the enclosed models but the A1's self-diagnosis feature and troubleshooting wiki make most repairs and maintenance pretty easy.
  - pavlus 1y ago
    I thought I could fix AMS mainboard by re-soldering connectors, so reached out to support and they helped me find which connectors I needed to buy. Unfortunately, there was more damage, that could be fixed by re-soldering them, so I simply replaced the mainboard and it was easy.
- umbra07 1y ago
  But why are you using the MK3S+ as a comparison point, instead of an MK4/S or Core One?
  - hyperbovine 1y ago
    Because I, unlike many people here apparently, possess a finite quantity of money.
    - sarchertech 1y ago
      Yeah but you’re comparing the cost to a current gen Prusa and the performance to a last gen Prusa. You need to pick one generation to compare both.
      - mrheosuper 1y ago
        he was comparing what he had. If you sent him the latest prusa printer, i bet he will compare it for you.
        sarchertech 1y ago
        > want so much to like Prusa ... but the Bambu printer at my local makerspace costs half as much and is better in every way than the MK3S+ sitting in my basement. I'm fully aware that this is the result of shrewdness on the part of the Chinese, plus incompetence in the West, and it's so frustrating. Then maybe don’t phrase it like this. And also acknowledge that it’s a nonsense comparison. People that don’t know Prusa model numbers will just assume the OP is talking about comparable products. “I really want to like Macs, but the new Lenovo I got for work is better and costs half as much as the 5 year old Mac I have in my basement. Why is the west so incompetent?”
        hyperbovine 1y ago
        Let me clarify. I paid $325 for a used MK3S+ and that seems to be the going rate. The printers at the Makerspace are A1 and A1 minis. The former cost $399 or less on sale, and the latter definitely under $300 always. So yes, the comparison seems fair.
- porphyra 1y ago
  Chinese government subsidies aside, mass produced 3D printers are always going to enjoy the economies of scale that are difficult to replicate with kits. Prusa printers are awesome pieces of engineering, but sometimes you can just get equally good results for a fraction of the price, in a much more user-friendly "plug and play" fashion, once you have a million of them rolling out of a factory instead of 10,000 kits full of 3D printed parts.
- jwr 1y ago
  I don't even care much about cost, but the Bambu Lab printers are simply better. I have been selling my Prusas (MK3S+ and XL), because they are just too much of a hassle. Prusa has fallen behind in R&D, the Bambu Lab printers work better, are more automated, have more nicely engineered features (having to babysit my XL and wipe the dripping filament off the print heads was such a disappointment). And yes, I have had to fix both brands. The repairability of the Prusa is largely a myth, you still need to order replacement parts from Prusa, just as with other brands. I wish Prusa would catch up with their R&D.
  - cosmic_cheese 1y ago
    It cannot be overstated how critical good defaults and “just works” are for any kind of mass-market product. Knobs and toggles to allow enthusiasts to dial in everything perfectly aren’t a bad thing. You don’t need make your product a featureless orb. That said, users shouldn’t need to tinker around with any of them to get up and running or for basic use. This is where Bambu excels. More involved printers are simply not interesting for many people outside of the 3D printing sphere, even if they’d become enthusiasts after buying a printer. They need a “gateway drug” of a printer that’s dead simple to use and get good results out of to even consider buying one. After that they might go down the rabbithole and seek out more technical options, but jumping straight to tinkerville is just too far of a leap for most.
    - snapetom 1y ago
      I got into 3D printing a year ago and decided on the Bambu. I started with a P1P to see if I'd like it, got an AMS, got an enclosure in the span of about 9 months. Would I have saved money if I got all of that at once? Of course. But I didn't know if I'd like 3D printing. The P1P worked so well and so easily, it was a "gateway" and did suck me in.
  - kiba 1y ago
    Prusa is good enough for me. I owned both Bambu and Prusa latest generation printers. Both products got their shares of downtime so from my perspective either are pretty interchangable.
kamranjon 1y ago
I get the feeling that it is not actually the tech involved in the printers that distinguishes Bambu from Prusa, I think it's more about the supply chain and the distribution network. If I go to Prusa right now to order a core one printer from the US it tells me this: Estimated lead time 1–2 weeks That means it's not even going to ship, from Europe, until then... And guess what? The shipping can range anywhere from 60$ to 300$ depending on the printer... Bambu has warehouses on US soil where they maintain stock of frequently purchased items and their printers/parts can be at my door in a matter of days with shipping ranging from 20$ to 100$ for their largest printer. It seems small but when you run a business that is reliant on 3d printers - these things matter. I think Prusa just honestly needs to focus on their distribution chain. Like I really have considered Prusa printers for my business many times, but they either have had crazy lead times/shipping times or the prices out the door just don't make sense.
- skybrian 1y ago
  You could also buy from PrintedSolid, which is a US company that Prusa bought. Looks like they have a free shipping deal, but the lead time is similar for the Core One. Maybe when they catch up with demand, they’ll keep it in stock in the US? I don’t see a lead time for the Mk4. https://www.printedsolid.com/collections/3d-printers https://www.printedsolid.com/collections/3d-printers
stahtops 1y ago
I tried to buy a Prusa. Even after I paid them they couldn’t tell me when the order would ship or be delivered. Instead they pointed me at some webpage with a lead time table? Pretty sure the table also changed/slipped over the eight days I waited for them to get their act together. If someone from Prusa is reading this: I don’t want to hear about your internal manufacturing lead times. Especially if they’re going to slip. Commit to a ship date you know you can meet and deliver. When I found out that Prusa had absolutely no clue what the ship date would be, I cancelled my order and went with Bambu.

by zevon 1y ago

hyperbovine 1y ago

I want so much to like Prusa ... but the Bambu printer at my local makerspace costs half as much and is better in every way than the MK3S+ sitting in my basement. I'm fully aware that this is the result of shrewdness on the part of the Chinese, plus incompetence in the West, and it's so frustrating.

sarchertech 1y ago
It’s not better in every way. For long term reliability and ability to repair and upgrade, Prusa is far superior.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago
  But you get better results from the Bambu. I care about the product of the manufacturing more than I care about the tools.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    That depends on what you’re doing. For many things Prusa printers produce higher quality prints.
    - hyperbovine 1y ago
      > For many things Prusa printers produce higher quality prints. I have yet to have this happen, despite a lot of trying. The Bambu just works and the results are better. The Prusa requires constant recalibration and tuning, and still produces an inferior looking product. I'd love to be proven wrong here. It's probably the case that somebody with a ton of experience can squeeze better results out of a Prusa ... but that kind of proves my point.
      - skybrian 1y ago
        We are a version behind and the Mk4 is supposed to be better. I think that would be a fairer comparison to the Bambu? I’m currently working on an upgrade to 3.5, which should at least give me better speed.
        sarchertech 1y ago
        You’re 2 essentially 2 versions behind. The Core One is basically equivalent to the X1C and it’s the same price. $300 cheaper if you buy the kit instead of the assembled version.
      - sarchertech 1y ago
        My Prusa just always works. I spend virtually zero time doing maintenance or any kind of tuning. If you’re spending that much time fiddling with it, sounds like you either have much a much better eye for print quality than I do or you got a dud.
        trenchpilgrim 1y ago
        It makes a big difference if you're painting the prints - things that look okay out of the printer will turn into a disaster once paint brings out all the details. People are getting great quality out of the Bambus now - basically a slight tier below Resin, without any of the health issues that require PPE. https://youtu.be/R8fuNDTQJCY?t=725 https://youtu.be/R8fuNDTQJCY?t=725 (Old video, state of the art has advanced since. Also, the issue with his other printer turned out to be a simple maintenance item (dirty pulley) the video maker skipped over in Bambu's basic troubleshooting guide.)
- thatnerdyguy 1y ago
  If your hobby is 3d printERS sure (and more power to you), but for many people (me included) the hobby is 3d printING
  - zevon 1y ago
    The point is not that Prusas need constant repair. The point is that they are reliable workhorses and repairable and usually also long-term-upgradeable.
- ohdeargodno 1y ago
  Cool, but that's not why people buy things. I don't buy a bike for the pleasure of getting to repair it when I inevitably eat shit on a gravel road. While you're busy ordering parts for your Prusa and taking it apart, people just buy another A1 or P1P for basically nothing. While you're spending 5 hours trying to stabilise your printing plate and ensuring your nozzle isn't vomiting out super melted <weird filament you got>, the bambulabs go haha printing goes brrr thanks for feeding me shale oil it'll work great. If you're 3d printing enough that your printer breaks, you are 100% making enough money to just eat the costs of another printer.
  - zevon 1y ago
    You don't care how expensive and complicated it is to repair and maintain your mountain bike (especially if you plan to eat gravel a lot)? And your take on machines is that you better throw away a bunch of working 3D printers and replace them instead of upgrading the old ones and adding new ones as needed? Hope you have a lot of money to burn in your personal and business life. ;)
    - ohdeargodno 1y ago
      Another user made the point: maybe you care about 3D printERS. The vast majority of people care about the printed end result, and buying more printers in the case of massive failure (which is already rare) makes more sense. If you're 3D printing for fun at home, a Bambu will basically never break. Spending 3 days tracking down the parts for a Prusa, taking it apart, fixing it, realising some settings have gone to shit, fixing it? I hope you have a lot of time to burn in your personal and business life :)
      - zevon 1y ago
        As mentioned in my parent comment, I've made purchase decisions for FDM desktop printers since before Prusa (as a company and product) was around and I've been responsible for 3D printers from a lot of different manufacturers over the years. I'm not attached to any particular company or anything like that. If I needed more "quality" (in the sense of less visible layer lines) than what comes out of a modern Bambu, Prusa (or some other modern FDM printers), I would use another manufacturing process instead of FDM printing. And no idea where you are in the world but I'm in Europe where I can get Prusa parts from different vendors very quickly and reliably and most of them (including Prusa themselves) have processes in place for B2B and public sector transactions which can be important for professional life as well. Again: I'm not saying that Bambu printers are not very good in many ways. As I said in my parent comment: I have one. Doesn't change my other points.
ungreased0675 1y ago
If you ever need to fix a Bambu printer, your opinion may change.
- trenchpilgrim 1y ago
  I can't speak for the enclosed models but the A1's self-diagnosis feature and troubleshooting wiki make most repairs and maintenance pretty easy.
- pavlus 1y ago
  I thought I could fix AMS mainboard by re-soldering connectors, so reached out to support and they helped me find which connectors I needed to buy. Unfortunately, there was more damage, that could be fixed by re-soldering them, so I simply replaced the mainboard and it was easy.
umbra07 1y ago
But why are you using the MK3S+ as a comparison point, instead of an MK4/S or Core One?
- hyperbovine 1y ago
  Because I, unlike many people here apparently, possess a finite quantity of money.
  - sarchertech 1y ago
    Yeah but you’re comparing the cost to a current gen Prusa and the performance to a last gen Prusa. You need to pick one generation to compare both.
    - mrheosuper 1y ago
      he was comparing what he had. If you sent him the latest prusa printer, i bet he will compare it for you.
      - sarchertech 1y ago
        > want so much to like Prusa ... but the Bambu printer at my local makerspace costs half as much and is better in every way than the MK3S+ sitting in my basement. I'm fully aware that this is the result of shrewdness on the part of the Chinese, plus incompetence in the West, and it's so frustrating. Then maybe don’t phrase it like this. And also acknowledge that it’s a nonsense comparison. People that don’t know Prusa model numbers will just assume the OP is talking about comparable products. “I really want to like Macs, but the new Lenovo I got for work is better and costs half as much as the 5 year old Mac I have in my basement. Why is the west so incompetent?”
        hyperbovine 1y ago
        Let me clarify. I paid $325 for a used MK3S+ and that seems to be the going rate. The printers at the Makerspace are A1 and A1 minis. The former cost $399 or less on sale, and the latter definitely under $300 always. So yes, the comparison seems fair.
porphyra 1y ago
Chinese government subsidies aside, mass produced 3D printers are always going to enjoy the economies of scale that are difficult to replicate with kits. Prusa printers are awesome pieces of engineering, but sometimes you can just get equally good results for a fraction of the price, in a much more user-friendly "plug and play" fashion, once you have a million of them rolling out of a factory instead of 10,000 kits full of 3D printed parts.
jwr 1y ago
I don't even care much about cost, but the Bambu Lab printers are simply better. I have been selling my Prusas (MK3S+ and XL), because they are just too much of a hassle. Prusa has fallen behind in R&D, the Bambu Lab printers work better, are more automated, have more nicely engineered features (having to babysit my XL and wipe the dripping filament off the print heads was such a disappointment). And yes, I have had to fix both brands. The repairability of the Prusa is largely a myth, you still need to order replacement parts from Prusa, just as with other brands. I wish Prusa would catch up with their R&D.
- cosmic_cheese 1y ago
  It cannot be overstated how critical good defaults and “just works” are for any kind of mass-market product. Knobs and toggles to allow enthusiasts to dial in everything perfectly aren’t a bad thing. You don’t need make your product a featureless orb. That said, users shouldn’t need to tinker around with any of them to get up and running or for basic use. This is where Bambu excels. More involved printers are simply not interesting for many people outside of the 3D printing sphere, even if they’d become enthusiasts after buying a printer. They need a “gateway drug” of a printer that’s dead simple to use and get good results out of to even consider buying one. After that they might go down the rabbithole and seek out more technical options, but jumping straight to tinkerville is just too far of a leap for most.
  - snapetom 1y ago
    I got into 3D printing a year ago and decided on the Bambu. I started with a P1P to see if I'd like it, got an AMS, got an enclosure in the span of about 9 months. Would I have saved money if I got all of that at once? Of course. But I didn't know if I'd like 3D printing. The P1P worked so well and so easily, it was a "gateway" and did suck me in.
- kiba 1y ago
  Prusa is good enough for me. I owned both Bambu and Prusa latest generation printers. Both products got their shares of downtime so from my perspective either are pretty interchangable.

kamranjon 1y ago

I get the feeling that it is not actually the tech involved in the printers that distinguishes Bambu from Prusa, I think it's more about the supply chain and the distribution network. If I go to Prusa right now to order a core one printer from the US it tells me this: Estimated lead time 1–2 weeks That means it's not even going to ship, from Europe, until then... And guess what? The shipping can range anywhere from 60$ to 300$ depending on the printer... Bambu has warehouses on US soil where they maintain stock of frequently purchased items and their printers/parts can be at my door in a matter of days with shipping ranging from 20$ to 100$ for their largest printer. It seems small but when you run a business that is reliant on 3d printers - these things matter. I think Prusa just honestly needs to focus on their distribution chain. Like I really have considered Prusa printers for my business many times, but they either have had crazy lead times/shipping times or the prices out the door just don't make sense.

skybrian 1y ago
You could also buy from PrintedSolid, which is a US company that Prusa bought. Looks like they have a free shipping deal, but the lead time is similar for the Core One. Maybe when they catch up with demand, they’ll keep it in stock in the US? I don’t see a lead time for the Mk4. https://www.printedsolid.com/collections/3d-printers https://www.printedsolid.com/collections/3d-printers

stahtops 1y ago

I tried to buy a Prusa. Even after I paid them they couldn’t tell me when the order would ship or be delivered. Instead they pointed me at some webpage with a lead time table? Pretty sure the table also changed/slipped over the eight days I waited for them to get their act together. If someone from Prusa is reading this: I don’t want to hear about your internal manufacturing lead times. Especially if they’re going to slip. Commit to a ship date you know you can meet and deliver. When I found out that Prusa had absolutely no clue what the ship date would be, I cancelled my order and went with Bambu.