3D Printer yet?

[Mr. Scram]

Drinking bulk lots of Prusa Koolaid or telling others to consume it without question is DUMB not all things released in the last few years by Prusa have been perfect by any stretch. Likewise as I mentioned over the current Creality release I won't be buying into it in spite of being a happy owner of three of theirs.

@Monkeh your position on Creality printers not working out of the box or componentry being inferior just has not been my experience AT ALL!

I don't quite understand this "Prusa Koolaid" narrative here. Prusa printers have been receiving unequivocally favourable reviews, including from folks with a lot of hands-on experience with various printers and manufacturers. Even if some reviewers are blinded by some kind of brand loyalty it's hard to argue so many are. There almost seems to be a kind of printer envy, which baffles me as we see massive disparities between available funds and equipment quality and capabilities elsewhere on the Eevblog forum and we all seem to be fine with that. Can't we just enjoy what we do have without this shitting on each other?

[beanflying]

Drinking bulk lots of Prusa Koolaid or telling others to consume it without question is DUMB not all things released in the last few years by Prusa have been perfect by any stretch. Likewise as I mentioned over the current Creality release I won't be buying into it in spite of being a happy owner of three of theirs.

@Monkeh your position on Creality printers not working out of the box or componentry being inferior just has not been my experience AT ALL!

I don't quite understand this "Prusa Koolaid" narrative here. Prusa printers have been receiving unequivocally favourable reviews, including from folks with a lot of hands-on experience with various printers and manufacturers. Even if some reviewers are blinded by some kind of brand loyalty it's hard to argue so many are. There almost seems to be a kind of printer envy, which baffles me as we see massive disparities between available funds and equipment quality and capabilities elsewhere on the Eevblog forum and we all seem to be fine with that. Can't we just enjoy what we do have without this shitting on each other?

You really need to read some of the 'slightly critical' Youtube comments sections when it comes to Prusa printers. 'Some' users become rabid zealots rather than consider Prusa also has minor niggles with their products from time to time. So yes Prusa Koolaid is a thing.

Personally I can not justify the price disparity to features/perceived quality on this side of the planet over say an Ender at 30-35% of the price landed to my door. As I have done I am happy to let people know about the minor issues I have had with Creality printers and they continue to serve my well with multiple hundreds of prints on the three of them over nearly two years (I think).

Ambit Claims made by Monkeh re Quality of Creality printers simple don't stack up from my experience but as stated they are not perfect either. Heaping Shit without cause is just a smelly pile of waste.

[Mr. Scram]

You really need to read some of the 'slightly critical' Youtube comments sections when it comes to Prusa printers. 'Some' users become rabid zealots rather than consider Prusa also has minor niggles with their products from time to time. So yes Prusa Koolaid is a thing.

Personally I can not justify the price disparity to features/perceived quality on this side of the planet over say an Ender at 30-35% of the price landed to my door. As I have done I am happy to let people know about the minor issues I have had with Creality printers and they continue to serve my well with multiple hundreds of prints on the three of them over nearly two years (I think).

Ambit Claims made by Monkeh re Quality of Creality printers simple don't stack up from my experience but as stated they are not perfect either. Heaping Shit without cause is just a smelly pile of waste.

Both fanboys and Youtube comment sections being steaming piles shouldn't surprise anyone. I gather few are foolish enough to take either as a rule.

[Monkeh]

Drinking bulk lots of Prusa Koolaid or telling others to consume it without question is DUMB not all things released in the last few years by Prusa have been perfect by any stretch. Likewise as I mentioned over the current Creality release I won't be buying into it in spite of being a happy owner of three of theirs.

Where do you see me drinking the koolaid? I could point out many flaws with my Mk3. Overly packed electronics compartment, awkward extruder design (much improved with the Mk3S), highly unreliable optical filament sensor prior to the Mk3S, no instructions to lube the bearings, Y-axis bearing mounting is prone to errror... I was missing a single part from my kit, which I printed with it after assembly, and two holes (one frame, one Y mount) were slightly bunged with powder coat which would have been uncomfortable to shove a screw in - I used a tap to clean them. Oh, and the display on mine flickers during printing. I'm not sure if that's a faulty display or a cable routing issue, but it bugs me a bit.  Not exactly a perfect machine, but I'm happy with it.

They have made lots of little design errors in their parts which they've slowly improved upon, and many have made modified parts which can be dropped on. And you can just print them and fit them.

And honestly, I think the whole switch-free homing and power-loss recovery are pointless features, the combination of which leads to bad results. But sure, I'm drinking the koolaid because I happen to have had decent experiences with them, that's why I'm recommending a Mk3S kit at twice the price of a CR-6 to a new us- wait, no, I never did that..

@Monkeh your position on Creality printers not working out of the box or componentry being inferior just has not been my experience AT ALL!

It has been the experience of many others, and again, I have a CR-10 here.. Let's see.

Cheap bearings in the POM wheels (but not as cheap as some).
No tensioning arrangement on the Z axis.
Controller's a copy of the old Melzi design, complete with gigantic negative transients causing the AVR to latch up on limit switch activation (it still runs - and it's hot as a toaster). They switched to a buck converter to stop the 5V reg overheating to mask this, because they have no bloody idea what is happening.
Very cheap and unreliable encoder on the front panel which I must get around to replacing so it's actually usable. It's almost as bad as my microwave (which is a Samsung. For shame.).
Cheap no-name 12V (?! they did move to 24V finally) power supply.
Cheap and loud sleeve bearing fans everywhere.
The original hotend was, again, PTFE lined, as are current models afaik, which gives you a pretty hard temperature limit of about 230C (despite the firmware often allowing you to dial up to 280C - happy fumes and jammed hotend).
Oh yeah, and the extrusions were absolutely packed full of swarf because cleaning is effort, leave it to the customer.

The Ender 3 had issues with tube couplers, melting bed connectors (fake XT60s), it was a wild lottery as to bed surface for quite a while.. they've fixed much of this but as far as I'm concerned it's still a lottery as to what you get. At the price point, I don't think that's a horrible decision - but when people start drinking the Creality koolaid and touting the CR-6 as, and I quote, '100% THE "noob" printer', I'm afraid I have to strongly disagree and point out their track record. It may be a competent machine, right now it's a Kickstarter hype train and an early adopter disaster waiting to happen.

They have improved, and they've always been a good base and capable of competent prints with some care. I do recommend the likes of the Ender 3 and 5 (what a weird one that is, though) to people who are reasonably mechanically inclined and willing to take on a few problems, purely for budgetary reasons. The Prusa Mini is still a strong contender at its price point, although it's not exactly readily available yet (high initial demand and slow ramp in production are Prusa hallmarks, and very annoying ones at that).

[mnementh]

Wowzers... looks like I started a bit of a war here...

My experience with Prusa is this: Helping half a dozen other people figure out and get working their various Prusa printers; a couple of them friends, the rest when I was volunteering at a local hackspace. That hands-on experience is precisely why I CANNOT in good conscience recommend ANY Prusa product as a first printer; they have the Apple fanboi thing going on, but the objective quality of product JUST IS NOT THERE. They are STILL *NIX level of "finished"; which is to say, the product is NEVER really finished and you have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty every. damned. time. Prusa simply is NOT ready for Prime Time. 

I knew my Diggro was going to be two things: 1) That it would at least work OUT OF THE BOX, with zero fucking around REQUIRED. (The fact I've CHOSEN to fuck around with it is my own gawddamn business.)

And B) I knew it wasn't going to print perfectly out of the box, but at least what it printed would be USABLE.

I consider myself to be a more knowledgeable than average user; I'm not into the software nuts/bolts of 3DP, but OTOH, I have over a decade of experience in designing/fabricating/deploying commercial assembly line jigs and fab stations constructed from 8040 aluminum extrusion. While I have very little intimate knowledge of the software underneath (Thank Ifni I didn't need to or I'd have lost my mind) I DO understand a LOT about making A MACHINE THAT JUST FUCKING WORKS.

Printed plastic... ANY plastic... in a manufacturing application is SHIT. LITERALLY. Under load (even that of an assembly's own weight) PLASTIC FLOWS DOWNHILL just like shit. This is such a well-proven reality that it is a machinist's/engineering axiom; just like "You Can't push a string". You CANNOT count on plastic to keep the accuracy required for ANY manufacturing process, including FDM. PERIOD.

The only reason Prusa clings to printed parts is they allow him to manufacture in-house, keeping the fab more vertically integrated. Otherwise, he'd be forced to contract out to Chinese MFRs, and THEY would take a larger chunk of "his" profit, as well as stealing his precious "IP", which in my considered opinion as an experienced machinist, machine fabricator, and tool/die maker is at this late stage of the game highly overrated. 

In all honesty, I'd really rather just make a donation to Josef as thanks for his contribution to hobbyist-grade FDM, and then go buy what the fuckever I want. I already do the latter; someday I'll get around to finding his Patreon or WTF-ever and make a thank you donation to salve my aching conscience.

But I REFUSE to drink the Prusa Kool-Aid. There simply is not sufficient value there to ally myself with someone who insists on holding the industry back by producing plastic machinery for manufacturing. That is a deal-breaker for me.

mnem
Happy Mother's Day y'all!

[Monkeh]

Wowzers... looks like I started a bit of a war here...

My experience with Prusa is this: Helping half a dozen other people figure out and get working their various Prusa printers; a couple of them friends, the rest when I was volunteering at a local hackspace. That hands-on experience is precisely why I CANNOT in good conscience recommend ANY Prusa product as a first printer; they have the Apple fanboi thing going on, but the objective quality of product JUST IS NOT THERE. They are STILL *NIX level of "finished"; which is to say, the product is NEVER really finished and you have to roll up your sleeves and get your hands dirty every. damned. time. Prusa simply is NOT ready for Prime Time. 

Our experience differs. Greatly. You choose to express yours by ranting and denigrating the machines as entirely unusable even when this is provably not the case. I do wonder how many of those were actual Prusa printers and how many the numerous chinese 'i3' machines..

His 'precious IP' is open source and free for people to use. So much for that argument.

[mnementh]

I never said they don't work. I said they don't work out of the box, and in my real, hands-on experience, THEY DON'T. Prusa's IP includes his custom printed parts, DUH. Which he sells as part of his KITS, but yes, if somebody wanted to, they could use his STLs and print all the parts at say a hackspace to build their own Prusa. But that would NOT be a "genuine" Prusa, would it?

And in ANY event, it most DEFINITELY would NOT be a "noob" 3DP. 

Now what would be the case if those key components were made of a proper machinery-grade material like CNC aluminum? THEN would the design not STILL be his IP?

As I said; promoting plastic key components for any manufacturing machinery is, in my considered and experienced opinion, harmful to the industry. Period.

mnem
No, thank you.

[mnementh]

Drinking bulk lots of Prusa Koolaid or telling others to consume it without question is DUMB not all things released in the last few years by Prusa have been perfect by any stretch. Likewise as I mentioned over the current Creality release I won't be buying into it in spite of being a happy owner of three of theirs.

@Monkeh your position on Creality printers not working out of the box or componentry being inferior just has not been my experience AT ALL!

I don't quite understand this "Prusa Koolaid" narrative here. Prusa printers have been receiving unequivocally favourable reviews, including from folks with a lot of hands-on experience with various printers and manufacturers. Even if some reviewers are blinded by some kind of brand loyalty it's hard to argue so many are. There almost seems to be a kind of printer envy, which baffles me as we see massive disparities between available funds and equipment quality and capabilities elsewhere on the Eevblog forum and we all seem to be fine with that. Can't we just enjoy what we do have without this shitting on each other?

You really need to read some of the 'slightly critical' Youtube comments sections when it comes to Prusa printers. 'Some' users become rabid zealots rather than consider Prusa also has minor niggles with their products from time to time. So yes Prusa Koolaid is a thing.

Personally I can not justify the price disparity to features/perceived quality on this side of the planet over say an Ender at 30-35% of the price landed to my door. As I have done I am happy to let people know about the minor issues I have had with Creality printers and they continue to serve my well with multiple hundreds of prints on the three of them over nearly two years (I think).

Ambit Claims made by Monkeh re Quality of Creality printers simple don't stack up from my experience but as stated they are not perfect either. Heaping Shit without cause is just a smelly pile of waste.

Yeeah, Monkeh clearly has his Prusa-colored glasses on; the ones that hide all the  stories like mine of building Prusa 3DP.    I've helped 3 people (complete noobs) assemble and get running CREALITY 3DP; EVERY ONE OF THEM I was literally able to complete REMOTELY. Mostly done over the phone, a couple required a few minutes of FaceTime so I could see what they had assembled wrong.

THAT is why I recommend them as "THE NOOB 3DP", (I've probably sold a dozen of them personally) and it is why the E3 is literally the most popular FDM 3DP in the world; from a company that's only been around 6 freaking years.  The CR6-SE is their next step in that evolution; a 3DP designed with advanced features which incorporates all the mods everybody does to their E3, yet is made to be a 5-minute, "you can't fuck it up" assemble. It truly is THE "noob" 3DP, unless you want to tie yourself to some pre-built turnkey closed-supply-chain Apple-wannabe product like Ultimaker, etc for 10 times the money.

Where I see the CR6-SE potentially becoming a clusterfuck is NOT in its design or implementation, but rather becoming a victim of its own success, just as the E3 did. After the first wave of the E3, there was such a shortage of genuine E3 printers and components that CReality allowed "franchisees" to start producing using their own supply chain... with sometimes gloriously inglorious results.

The CR6-SE is a much more complex machine; it uses a custom touchscreen UI, all-new custom hotend/Heat Break, and it has an integrated bed-leveling sensor system similar in function to the BL-Touch. If there are similar shortages of these bespoke components, I can see a similar situation with franchisees substituting generic parts just to meet demand. CReality may have to really clamp down the thumbscrews to maintain QC, or simply not allow the CR6-SE to be manufactured by franchisees like they did the E3.

mnem
 

[Monkeh]

I never said they don't work. I said they don't work out of the box, and in my real, hands-on experience, THEY DON'T.

And in mine, they do. Perhaps you should broaden your experience to ones people haven't already screwed up?

Prusa's IP includes his custom printed parts, DUH.

Which, being open source and freely usable, isn't something China would steal because he had parts manufactured by a third party, because everyone already has access to them, DUH.

As I said; promoting plastic key components for any manufacturing machinery is, in my considered and experienced opinion, harmful to the industry. Period.

I don't think this industry is what you think it is. This is not manufacturing. This is a hobby.

Yeeah, Monkeh clearly has his Prusa-colored glasses on; the ones that hide all the  stories like mine of building Prusa 3DP.

Yes, I'm just totally blind to every problem because I happen to have had good success with their products. That's right. I can't find a single flaw, that's why I mentioned some. I'll even admit to having had to redo a few steps in kit assembly because I didn't read the instructions properly - clearly, they're defective..  Meanwhile, you just have vague mentions of 'fettling' (what, you've never had a Creality product with loose belts or wheels? I've seen loads right out of the box, is that not fettling? Is it to be ignored because it's not a Prusa?).

Would you care to acknowledge all the flaws I just pointed out in Creality products now, or are your Creality-coloured glasses glued to your face?

Allow me to reiterate: I am not saying Creality make entirely bad printers, I do in fact recommend them over Prusa in many cases because of the low cost and complexity (building a Mk3 kit is fairly intimidating to many, and the pre-built ones are expensive). I just think at the price point the Prusa Mini has to be very seriously considered alongside the CR-6 which isn't even avaialble yet (I acknowledge the Mini is not exactly sat on shelves in stores..) because it does have advantages which you are apparently blind to because OH NO SOME PLASTIC BITS!!!

Have you considered extracting your dick from your own arse as you suggested Prusa do?

[mnementh]

Jeebus... okay, you won't do the thinking for yourself, so I guess I'll have to prechew it and spoon-fed it to you, one reason at a time.

You said Prusa has unequivocally favorable reviews. Patently untrue. (Sorry; that was Scram) You keep claiming superior quality, which is directly contrary to my hands-on experience, and which is belied by his insistence upon using an inferior material for key load-bearing components. This despite the availability of cheap, high-quality aluminum CNC manufacturing which would exponentially increase the reliability while decrease the necessary fettling and periodic readjustment/realignment necessary due to that choice of materials. 

Now what would be the case if those key components were made of a proper machinery-grade material like CNC aluminum? THEN would the design not STILL be his IP? Then would not the potential theft of that IP be an obvious motive for sticking with material he can manufacture in-house?

You say "it's a hobby"... but the rest of the market has grown up and moved forward; most of the rest of the industry has embraced aluminum extrusion for its inherent ability to easily build straight & square with little to no hassle. Why is it so hard to accept that plastic load-bearing parts simply are not acceptable anymore?

And finally... I too stated that I knew my Diggro was not going to print perfectly out of the box. I'm NOT a noob; I accepted the need to do a little tinkering. This is a choice I made with my Tarantulas (BIG ), my Tornado (biggest pleasant surprise since I got into the hobby), and my Diggro Alpha-3 (second biggest pleasant surprise) which I bought because it was a passable E3 clone, but about $80 less than any E3 available with Amazon Prime. Plus it came with a number of the upgrades we all do to an E3 plus a cool touch-screen.

This is why I've long recommended the much simpler build of an E3, which will literally be printing usable stuff while you're still reading the instructions on the Prusa. And now, for a few more $$, I recommend the CR6-SE which is designed from the ground up to be a "noob-friendly" 3DP. After looking into it extensively, it is the FIRST 3DP I've seen which has enough next-level stuff built-in that I am personally willing to pay for "the name brand".

smeesh... the Prusa simply is NOT a good choice for a noob build. I have no idea why you, a person who clearly has a good handle on the complexities of building a 3DP, cannot admit to this. 

mnem
 

[Monkeh]

You said Prusa has unequivocally favorable reviews. Patently untrue.

Quote me. I've never said that.

As for the rest of your post: We have different views. You're clearly unwilling or incapable of discussing the subject rationally. End of attempt at discourse.

[mnementh]

Sorry; that was Scram. Corrected. The balance of my points remain true, IMO. I feel you are similarly unwilling to discuss rationally; enjoy that POV.

mnem
 

[Mr. Scram]

What model or models Prusa did you help people with, mnem?

[beanflying]

Drinking bulk lots of Prusa Koolaid or telling others to consume it without question is DUMB not all things released in the last few years by Prusa have been perfect by any stretch. Likewise as I mentioned over the current Creality release I won't be buying into it in spite of being a happy owner of three of theirs.

Where do you see me drinking the koolaid? I could point out many flaws with my Mk3. Overly packed electronics compartment, awkward extruder design (much improved with the Mk3S), highly unreliable optical filament sensor prior to the Mk3S, no instructions to lube the bearings, Y-axis bearing mounting is prone to errror... I was missing a single part from my kit, which I printed with it after assembly, and two holes (one frame, one Y mount) were slightly bunged with powder coat which would have been uncomfortable to shove a screw in - I used a tap to clean them. Oh, and the display on mine flickers during printing. I'm not sure if that's a faulty display or a cable routing issue, but it bugs me a bit.  Not exactly a perfect machine, but I'm happy with it.

They have made lots of little design errors in their parts which they've slowly improved upon, and many have made modified parts which can be dropped on. And you can just print them and fit them.

And honestly, I think the whole switch-free homing and power-loss recovery are pointless features, the combination of which leads to bad results. But sure, I'm drinking the koolaid because I happen to have had decent experiences with them, that's why I'm recommending a Mk3S kit at twice the price of a CR-6 to a new us- wait, no, I never did that..

@Monkeh your position on Creality printers not working out of the box or componentry being inferior just has not been my experience AT ALL!

It has been the experience of many others, and again, I have a CR-10 here.. Let's see.

Cheap bearings in the POM wheels (but not as cheap as some).
No tensioning arrangement on the Z axis.
Controller's a copy of the old Melzi design, complete with gigantic negative transients causing the AVR to latch up on limit switch activation (it still runs - and it's hot as a toaster). They switched to a buck converter to stop the 5V reg overheating to mask this, because they have no bloody idea what is happening.
Very cheap and unreliable encoder on the front panel which I must get around to replacing so it's actually usable. It's almost as bad as my microwave (which is a Samsung. For shame.).
Cheap no-name 12V (?! they did move to 24V finally) power supply.
Cheap and loud sleeve bearing fans everywhere.
The original hotend was, again, PTFE lined, as are current models afaik, which gives you a pretty hard temperature limit of about 230C (despite the firmware often allowing you to dial up to 280C - happy fumes and jammed hotend).
Oh yeah, and the extrusions were absolutely packed full of swarf because cleaning is effort, leave it to the customer.

The Ender 3 had issues with tube couplers, melting bed connectors (fake XT60s), it was a wild lottery as to bed surface for quite a while.. they've fixed much of this but as far as I'm concerned it's still a lottery as to what you get. At the price point, I don't think that's a horrible decision - but when people start drinking the Creality koolaid and touting the CR-6 as, and I quote, '100% THE "noob" printer', I'm afraid I have to strongly disagree and point out their track record. It may be a competent machine, right now it's a Kickstarter hype train and an early adopter disaster waiting to happen.

They have improved, and they've always been a good base and capable of competent prints with some care. I do recommend the likes of the Ender 3 and 5 (what a weird one that is, though) to people who are reasonably mechanically inclined and willing to take on a few problems, purely for budgetary reasons. The Prusa Mini is still a strong contender at its price point, although it's not exactly readily available yet (high initial demand and slow ramp in production are Prusa hallmarks, and very annoying ones at that).

Thank you for FINALLY providing some balance. I did not say you had drunk the Koolaid at all I advised against it for all.

You made a COMPANY WIDE Critique on Creality in it's entirety and that is what was at issue.

And what Creality puts out is recycled amateur designs made as cheaply as possible, beta tested on paying customers with no warning of changes. But sure, it's okay if the bowden tubes just pop out in the first week of use, there's no tensioners for the cheap POM wheels and their crunchy bearings, the bed connectors melt, and they let you run the PTFE lined hotend at 280C, because they have some metal brackets!

At best your statement I was reffering to was overreaching or at worst grossly misleading in particular for others looking for a first printer.

Big deal the firmware allows 280C as stock that is not a failure if you used that sort of thinking then you can also drive the head into the bed if it is not wound down enough. Like any bit of CNC kit I own the operator needs to know the limits! Anyone who thinks any 3D printer is idiot proof doesn't have a clue as to the powers of idiots to screw something up!

The Bowden issue is well known and long discussed and the fixes are also known and you will see as I mentioned Creality is moving to shipping printers with Capricorn.

I am yet to find a Crunchy bearing or need to replace a wheel on any of mine. I am sure if over tightened (badly set) the bearings and wheels may suffer but this is not and has never been an issue for mine. This is the same as I had a Ford whose Clutch Failed therefore all Fords have sh1T clutches.

As to your more reasonable reply above. Follow the link https://www.aliexpress.com/item/4000510201086.html?spm=2114.12010612.8148356.2.3ac52e27B1V7Ks

Capricorn tubing/better fittings and locks, Touch Screen and also Belt tensioner which is also fitted to the new Ender V2.

[Monkeh]

You made a COMPANY WIDE Critique on Creality in it's entirety and that is what was at issue.

And what Creality puts out is recycled amateur designs made as cheaply as possible, beta tested on paying customers with no warning of changes. But sure, it's okay if the bowden tubes just pop out in the first week of use, there's no tensioners for the cheap POM wheels and their crunchy bearings, the bed connectors melt, and they let you run the PTFE lined hotend at 280C, because they have some metal brackets!

At best your statement I was reffering to was overreaching or at worst grossly misleading in particular for others looking for a first printer.

Admittedly true. It was in the same veign as the reaction to my Prusa suggestion - I shouldn't drop down to that level. I still have little faith in Creality behaving better in this regard, though.

Big deal the firmware allows 280C as stock that is not a failure

It is when it both allows you to needlessly damage the printer and gives the impression it's capable of that temperature. There's no good reason to configure it that way. To be accurate I just pulled the latest Ender 3 source and it's 260 - I can't readily verify if that's what the latest binary has because they do not ship them together and the source is an older version than the binary (GPL strike, good times). Still too hot and nothing in the marketing material at least clarifies what the real limit is.

[beanflying]

You made a COMPANY WIDE Critique on Creality in it's entirety and Big deal the firmware allows 280C as stock that is not a failure

It is when it both allows you to needlessly damage the printer and gives the impression it's capable of that temperature. There's no good reason to configure it that way.

Given the relative ease of purchase of all metal hotends to retrofit I would think it a benefit as it avoids the PITA for some of needing to reconfigure the firmware.

[Monkeh]

You made a COMPANY WIDE Critique on Creality in it's entirety and Big deal the firmware allows 280C as stock that is not a failure

It is when it both allows you to needlessly damage the printer and gives the impression it's capable of that temperature. There's no good reason to configure it that way.

Given the relative ease of purchase of all metal hotends to retrofit I would think it a benefit as it avoids the PITA for some of needing to reconfigure the firmware.

If you're going to modify the printer you may as well know how to modify the firmware..

That said, they probably still don't have bootloaders, do they? Oh well, we'll see what this new 32-bit board they're banging on about looks like.. Meanwhile I have an SKR in the CR-10 (competent enough, shame about Marlin), a fixedish Creality board running the delta (Klipper - because no I'm not doing a delta with Marlin), and a Duet 2 waiting for me to give it something to do.

[mnementh]

None of this makes a Prusa a good recommendation for a first printer. For a second or third printer, once you know enough to start fiddling around with it, sure. But a first machine needs to be dead-simple to get up and running and producing usable prints, and the Prusa  simply isn’t that.

It’s actually contrary to the whole philosophy of the thing, which is essentially a platform primarily to prove that FDM can be made to produce useful stuff (same concept as machinists were taught that “a lathe is the one tool which can replicate itself”), like another FDM printer. My experience of a few years ago gave me firsthand experience of this, and watching Josef build a Mini was all the evidence I need that it is more of the same.

You’re welcome to believe otherwise; but I still see it differently, as I’ve stated pretty clearly.

I see Prusa as the *NIX equivalent, while CReality the Windoze equivalent. And Ultimaker, et al as trying to be the Apple equivalent... or maybe iOS. And all the little cheapies like my Diggro... I guess they’re cheap Chinese Android handsets or Chrome notebooks, I dunno.   

mnem
 

[Nuno_pt]

Since in EU we don't have any stock of 3Pro, only to be deliver for the end of May, on the trusted stores, I'll hold my horses and wait for the new 3v2 that they are start to deliver in late July in the official store of EU < https://www.creality3dshop.eu/collections/ender-series-3d-printer/products/creality3d-upgraded-ender-3-v2-3d-printer > and then compare the two, to see if it will worth the difference in price.

[xrunner]

If you're going to modify the printer you may as well know how to modify the firmware..

Agree. I've had an SKR mini E3 v 1.2 in mine for some time now. All you need do is put your build (firmware.bin) on the SD card and it installs it automatically. I put all the new releases of Marlin on it as they come out, latest is 2.0.5.3.

https://marlinfw.org/meta/download/

Among other things I've enabled Linear Advance and manual mesh bed leveling in my builds. Once you get the initial configs set up I haven't run into any issues at all with installing the latest versions. It does erase the data for the mesh bed leveling each time but that's just a matter of doing a couple-minute re-leveling not a problem, all the other settings are good to go.

There are tutorials out there for the configs and VS Code but I'm not recommending where to look at one because I got my ass chewed last time I did. 

[Mr. Scram]

What model or models Prusa did you build or help building, mnem?

[Mr. Scram]

If you're going to modify the printer you may as well know how to modify the firmware..

That said, they probably still don't have bootloaders, do they? Oh well, we'll see what this new 32-bit board they're banging on about looks like.. Meanwhile I have an SKR in the CR-10 (competent enough, shame about Marlin), a fixedish Creality board running the delta (Klipper - because no I'm not doing a delta with Marlin), and a Duet 2 waiting for me to give it something to do.

Can you say anything about the practical differences between the SKR and the Duet? I have a hard time justifying the additional cost of the Duet but I may be missing some crucial differences.

[beanflying]

If you're going to modify the printer you may as well know how to modify the firmware..

Agree. I've had an SKR mini E3 v 1.2 in mine for some time now. All you need do is put your build (firmware.bin) on the SD card and it installs it automatically. I put all the new releases of Marlin on it as they come out, latest is 2.0.5.3.

https://marlinfw.org/meta/download/

Among other things I've enabled Linear Advance and manual mesh bed leveling in my builds. Once you get the initial configs set up I haven't run into any issues at all with installing the latest versions. It does erase the data for the mesh bed leveling each time but that's just a matter of doing a couple-minute re-leveling not a problem, all the other settings are good to go.

There are tutorials out there for the configs and VS Code but I'm not recommending where to look at one because I got my ass chewed last time I did. 

With the average member of this forum playing with firmware isn't that much of an issue but for the average buyer of an Ender it is less trivial. For anyone coming along later here is a guide on how to. ** make sure you READ the Text on the video page!.

Teaching Tech
153K subscribers

The Ender 3 upgrades continue! In this guide, I show you step by step how to flash a bootloader to the Melzi board so you can upgrade your firmware. Why would you do that? The safety net of thermal runaway protection and the capacity for future mods.

There were some other guides out there but I felt they were either out of date of not concise. I hope this tutorial is easy to follow. Fortunately the bootloader flashing only needs to be done once.

*One thing I forgot to include is the need to go to 'Initialize EEPROM' in LCD menu after flashing the firmware.*

Creality have released their own firmware source, but I would recommend the TH3D Unified firmware instead, as it is based on a newer version of Marlin. You will lose power off recovery but it is only a matter of time before this is ported over now that Creality have released the source code.

A future video will cover the installation of a BLtouch, hit subscribe so you don’t miss it.

[Jeroen3]

None of this makes a Prusa a good recommendation for a first printer. For a second or third printer, once you know enough to start fiddling around with it, sure. But a first machine needs to be dead-simple to get up and running and producing usable prints, and the Prusa  simply isn’t that.

The printer definitely still has flaws, even the mk3s. I know about them. I own one. But if you look at the overall deal, you're pretty much getting everything sorted out for you. The printer, no hassle with leveling or limit switches, a slicer developed for this printer, a model sharing website and a decent community.
Now, you can be all angry at prusa for not making if out of a milled aluminum slab and using cheap plastic. Tough luck, it's a reprap, and then you should also be angry at makerbot for having done exactly the same things.
For more plug&play printers you'd be going to Sindoh or something alike. But that also doubles the price.

I think part of why prusa is selling so well isn't the quality printer but the story and complementary product around it.

I would absolutely not recommend Creality or Prusa to non-tech 3d printer beginners as they may not recognize the hazards an open frame cheap printer may pose.
For example, they might start printing abs, hips or nylon. which is toxic. Or print tpu, which will undoubtedly cause a nozzle clog and make the thing catch fire.

It will still be a while before Karen from accounting will be able to buy and use a 3D printer with the same thoughtlessness as the paper printer.

[Mr. Scram]

The whole material argument is a bit perplexing. The results count and those seem to speak for themselves. Most consider the Prusa print quality an industry benchmark. We could argue about printed plastics until the cows come home but it's moot at that point. All other things being equal I like a good chunk of metal but that condition is vital.

I don't think anyone will claim any FDM printer is hassle free. Even the stupidly expensive industrial models still are far from.