Right now looking into bang for the buck workhorses with a small footprint/build volume. A description that fit the Prusa mini+ perfectly in the past, but it feels like Prusa is a dinosaur that hasn’t moved with the times.
So who is still buying the Prusa mini+ and why?
Personally: While Prusa has outstanding support, good data protection, and does good things but there is now the Bambu Lab A1 mini.
Prusa mini is at the moment 500€ plus 20€ for a filament sensor (sic., it’s nearly 2024 and that’s an paid upgrade on half a grand printer) and another 7€ for WiFi.
Bambu Lab on the other hand is 320€.
Looking at the specifications, the A1 looks like a clear winner: For maintenance, there are three tasks: 1. cleaning and lubricating the mechanics (both are the same in this respect); 2. cleaning the build surface (both are the same); 3. maintaining the hotend and here Bambu Lab is clearly the better system as you can replace the nozzle in just a few seconds compared to Prusa’s E3D v6 hotend, which requires hot tightening.
The operation is not that different. Both support network, web interface, and automatic bed leveling probed at the nozzle. Bambu Lab has a camera built in, but this requires the printer to be connected to the BambuLab cloud, which may not be possible as the model data is shared with/uploaded to China. I would say this is still a strong point for Prusa as privacy is not an issue with their printers which means they can be easily deployed.
Performance should be close with input shaping enabled, but the A1 mini has the higher flow rate hotend, which means BambuLab is once again the winner (still no highflow at only 28 mm^3/s but twice the flow of a Prusa V6).
The build volume is identical and the footprint is also almost identical, so again no point where Prusa beats BambuLab.
Value? I have already mentioned it. 1.6 Bambulab for the price of 1 Prusa is a clear answer. If Prusa still had the 400€ original launch price and a filament runout sensor included, maybe the answer would be Prusa due to privacy/easier integration. The 200€/printer price difference is so significant that I don’t see who is still buying multiple Prusa mini+.
Btw. is there another printer on the market that just works paired with a small footprint and excellent value?
Personally, a 3D printer that has to be connected to a cloud would be a hard no. Even more so when that cloud is located in China without EU or US oversight.
For what it’s worth (annecdotal and n=1 and all that), my Prusa mini has been absolutely flawless for 3 years now. I would buy it again even at a higher price point than the current.
Personally, a 3D printer that has to be connected to a cloud would be a hard no. Even more so when that cloud is located in China without EU or US oversight.
I don’t see why a 3D printer in particular would be a concern, unless you’re prototyping stuff for a business and worried about proprietary commercial stuff getting out.
But I’m amazed that people in general are willing to connect their systems – 3D printer or anything else – to an outside provider’s service. It has a considerable number of drawbacks.
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It punches a hole in what is normally the front line for home computer security, the firewall/NAT device. Most setups default to not allowing inbound connections. Now you’ve got some device that is opening connections outwards and could talk to other systems on your network.
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It permits the manufacturer of the device to change the terms on which I can use the device. Maybe down the line the manufacturer of your smart TV – who is not getting any revenue from you after the initial sale of the device – decides to start inserting ads, say. This sort of thing has been done before. I want the manufacturer’s interests to be aligned with mine. Before the product is sold, they have to convince me to buy the thing. Afterwards, those interests could diverge. I don’t want the manufacturer to be able to alter the terms on which the product I bought may be used if our interests have diverged.
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Even if you want to trust the manufacturer’s intent, can they secure their own system against people with more malicious aims? If someone can break into that, they can affect all of the customers, which may make it a tempting target. Russian intelligence attacked Viasat satellite modems, using an exploit that they’d clearly found earlier, when Russia invaded Ukraine to try to disrupt Ukrainian communications. They pushed a firmware update to brick modems. They didn’t even just impact systems in Ukraine, but also some outside, like a German offshore wind farm’s control system.
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If any functionality depends on that manufacturer staying in business and being willing to keep paying for the operating costs, that seems fragile. Many companies do go out of business or decide that the costs of operating a service aren’t worth it.
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Just being able to track someone’s moves across IP adresses has some value; reselling that information helps deanonymize people. Could happen down the line if a company is acquired by a larger company that data-mines its logs.
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If you lose Internet connectivity for any reason, you lose local functionality. Home automation stuff is a particularly egregious example – you don’t want your light switches or climate control to stop working if you don’t have Internet connectivity to somene’s cloud service. But it’s true for any number of things.
I agree with all you said, but I think a 3D printer is actually a special type of concern next to generic cyber security and privacy, because it can affect the physical world. It’s not unthinkable that the machine can remotely be told to heat up beyond safe levels and as such create a fire risk. Not the type of device that should have an open and active connection to a server somewhere far away in my opinion.
Oh, that’s a fair point, yeah, I suppose that anything where only software avoids some kind of catastrophic physical failure does legitimately have its own risks.
To be honest I’m still quite hazy on how Bambu’s cloud printing works and what data is sent to them, but just the fact that it exists at all removed the Bambu printers from my consideration instantly and completely. I don’t care if it’s paranoid. Notwithstanding all the excellent points you made, no one needs to have the capability to see what I’m printing, for any reason, ever. Period. End of story.
My current printers allow me to operate them without any kind of network at all, if I felt like it. I can slice models locally and shuttle the files to them on a USB drive.
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When it comes to my decision making for what printer to get, while the price does matter, what is more important to me is being able to maintain the printer for a long period of time.
And I am not talking about right here, and now. There are a lot of parts for the Bambu A1 mini on the market today. I am talking years from now when the printer is considered old and obsolete, but still does the Job.
Prusa has a proven track record of not just providing parts themselves for their older printers. Going so far as to even offer upgrade kits for previous printers. But also using off the shelf components, making matienence a non-issue for me, even if Prusa was to get wiped off the face of the earth.
Meanwhile Bambu doesn’t have that track record. And being, yet another Chinese Company, making an injection moulded machines using closed source firmware, and non-standard parts and tools to cut the costs down to be competitive. They’ve yet to prove to me that they will support their printer beyond when they are selling it.
Take for instance the most use and replaced part on a printer, the Nozzle. The Prusa Mini’s nozzle is just a standard E3D V6 nozzle with hundreds upon thousands of spares of various quality available online. While the Bambu Labs A1 mini is a proprietary affair that includes the heat sink, that’s only available from Bambu today.
Will someone make a clone? Who knows, but Bambu certainly hasn’t built the trust yet to make me confident that they will. Or will open up the designs when they inevitably chase the next shiny, and drop the A1 mini for… let say the A2 mini, which might have an entirely new hotend assembly.
I wasted my Money years ago on a Flash Forge Adventure 3, a printer which killed itself by breaking it’s X-Axis motor wire. I was out of warranty, there was no replacements on their website, and to even access the motherboard, I had to completely disassemble the printer. For $25 dollars more I can get a guarantee that not only my printer will work, but is repairable and will continue to work for years to come. I think I will pay the extra $25. Honestly I spent an extra $300 CAD to get a MK4 over the P1P for this reason alone.
My big two gripes with Bambu are their software (just let me use Cura, I got experience with that and I can use it across printers) and their proprietary shit. Swapping pieces costs a lot, and they also seem to break extremely easy which makes me costly replacements extra annoying.
I haven’t heard they break easy. What more can you share?
Yeah I’m curious too, I have an X1 and it has been extremely reliable and the wear parts are pretty reasonable I thought.
You can also use whatever slicer you want, you just have to use Bambu/Orca slicer if you want to use the AMS or print from your computer which seems reasonable, it integrates with lots of other brands including octoprint. Both are very good and I actually use orca slicer with my other printers now because the UI is so much better.
ETA: their hotend design is actually pretty great imo, and other brands are starting to release versions for it, e3d just released a HF hotend the other day.
From what I’ve seen their replacement parts are pretty cheap. People have even been buying their hotends and modding them on to other printers.
I have no experience with either of the two.
I did however buy a Prusa MK1 ten years ago for 650€. It has since received the MK2 conversion from 3mm to 1.75mm, plus autoleveling. The heatbed needed a new connector at some point, and I’ve enquired about old STLs to replace some parts. It’s still running great to this day, and support has been excellent.
If it ever gives up, I’ll go with another Prusa.
I guess it’s people who care where the products they use are made.
I am very happy to support the EU economy by buying Prusa. Outstanding printers and support. Also we don’t have anything remotely close here in the US.
I do care and that’s why at 400€ I would go with them but with 320€ vs. 520€ you have to put a lot of emphasis on this point.
As compromise to split it between Prusa and BambuLab isn’t feasible either. You want a standardized setup to keep it simple. Meaning all Prusa or all BambuLab.
Yea Here in the states the prusa mini + is $480 with the filament sensor.
The a1 mini is $300. Or $460 with the ams lite.
The a1 mini is $15 to ship while prusa os $45-66 depending on what I want
Also bambu is avaliable at microcenter by me while I dont k ow of any store that sells prusa here.
The new a1 is even a better value. $400 or $560 woth the ams lite vs the prusa mk3s at $650 for the kit or $900 built
I can get the a1 + A1 mini for just $50 more than the mk3s kit.
I’d love to support prusa but maybe they should think of opening a branch in the states or team up with a retail partner
Sounds like you’ve already decided on the Bambu.
End up woth the k1 for $380.
I don’t know if things have played out the way Prusa wanted to, but it seems like that might have been their intent when Prusa did acquired a U.S. company, named Printed Solid. That being said, I haven’t seen much in terms of integration (but I’m also not privy to internal operations).
It be great to see some production moved state side to reduce shipping and lead times. But they still have to do something in regards cost and speed.
I have no doubt how open and reparable prusa printers are and that has played a role in print farms and industrial settings wanting them.
However looking at the mk4 pre-built I am looking at $1200. That is 3 a1 printers. Will a single mk4 have the same up time as 3 a1 printers ? Each a 1 is faster I believe than the prusa mk4 . I can get 4 a1 mini machines.
The mk3 is not much better for me it’s almost $900 pre-built. That is 3 a1 mini machines and I can get 2 a1s and I’d be just $60 shy of making one of those the ams lite bundle.
So yea prusa needs to get the price down. They also need to integrate some of the newer tech like lidar. Heck the prusa mini is $429 us and a filament sensor for ot os $20 so it’s $450. The a1 mini is $300 or $469 for the bundle with ams lite.
I hope to see prusa adjust prices and add new features in during 2024.
I got a Prusa Mini+ just a few months ago - first 3d printer in the family. Choice was heavily based on “it just works” and not ever wanting to tinker. It’s a printer for printing stuff - not meant to be a hobby all by itself.
Yes it’s the more expensive option, but it’s rock-solid. No hassle, no tinkering, no nothing.
It. Just. Works.
And that’s what makes it worth it to me.
I will just put in my 2¢. I maintain 3d printers for a local library and while the 4 mk3s+ machines have been solid the Mini+ has been nothing but trouble.
First we had issues with the extruder, then the Bowden tube kept causing jams. Replaced that but still have a ton of stringing with the default Prusaslicer profiles with every kind of filament we have tried.
And honestly having messed with both, the additional space needed for a “full size” printer is marginal once you factor in the spool holder.
Prusaslicer is amazing. The MK3 is/was great. I don’t know how much I love Bambu lab but the Prusa Mini was not great.
Stringing is unavoidable with bowden extruders. Don’t waste time trying to fix it.
Thanks for this, I’m in an almost identical situation to OP, and while I gave up on the stringing, it still bugged me.
Build a Voron Zero instead.
Beat me to it. CoreXY will have a way smaller footprint than a bed slinger for a given bed size. My old 200mm^3 i3 clone is actually deeper than my 350mm^3 Voron 2.4. The printer can also be tweaked to be more or less whatever you want and I’ve found my 2.4 to be fairly reliable so far. I suspect once it gets some more hours under it’s belt for any more initial build issues to show up, it will require very little fiddling.
That said, a Voron seems like a bit more of a commitment than a Prusa. Yeah, you can buy a BOM in a box and parts printed by someone else, but you might find yourself pausing the build to get a missing part. Assembly is also a lot more intense. I wouldn’t say it’s a difficult build if you’re used to assembling things, but if you just want a casual reliable printer I don’t know that I would recommend a Voron unless the person looking liked higher end things and didn’t mind the time investment.
I’m just going to go ahead and point out that the Qidi X-Smart 3 is only $299 USD right now. I don’t know how high flow you need to get for a small volume desktop printer, but it alleges 30mm^3/sec. No affiliation from me or anything (despite having just bought an X-Max 3, and having an OG X-Plus sitting right next to it at the mo’), but just saying.
Most prints fit within the small build volume and a small printer means more printers within the same space. more printer means faster.
Why? Large nozzle and increased layer height mean more flow at the same speed. Approx. 2-4x as much flowrate is required compared to a 0.4mm setup.
I know why a high flow rate is theoretically beneficial. I just don’t know what the requirements for your particular application are.
Anyhow, on paper the Qidi should be even slightly faster than either the Prusa Mini or the little Bambu. And in the US, at least, it’s cheaper.
Look promising. Sadly the carbon rods aren’t replaceable.
How long does it take to prepare a print (from hitting print to extrusion starting)? Any issues you had?
I am looking for a small footprint printer that just spills out parts nonstop with a 0.6 or 0.8 mm nozzle. Nothing crazy: mostly PLA.
I don’t have an X-Smart 3, but I do have its gargantuan brother, the X-Max 3. The majority of pre-print time spent is preheating the bed. I would say 3-4 minutes, unless it’s already warm. You can remotely preheat it from their slicer software or via your favorite means of interacting with Klipper, if you like. The hotend heats up alarmingly quickly – room temperature to 220C in just a handful of seconds. Longevity; I don’t know. I got my X-Max 3 the day before yesterday, but I can at least say I’ve been running it basically nonstop ever since. No real issues yet, except the textured-only build plate is dumb. The most time consuming part of starting a print is by far the automated bed probing song-and-dance, but if you are confident in your built plate placement you can just instruct the machine to skip it. I always do.
Edit: I just timed it. From pressing the start button to filament being deposited on the plate, 2 minutes and 3 seconds. The plate was a couple of degrees above ambient at the time, though.
And you know, I hadn’t noticed that the smaller Smart still has the carbon fiber guide rods. I’m not certain why Qidi would consider them non-replaceable unless they’re glued into position. Which I guess is possible. Otherwise, disassembly may still be a pain in the ass. But provided you can get them out you could absolutely just order a carbon fiber tube of X length and Y diameter from any of innumerable online materials suppliers. Just because Qidi themselves don’t sell them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I guarantee you they are not a bespoke component.
The current Plus and Max models have steel guide rods with bushings instead. Qidi backpedaled on the carbon rods on those models and shipped people units with the steel ones to replace them. One wonders if they’ll eventually do the same for the Smart 3. Even so, with the way this industry goes there will probably be a new shiny you’d want to replace it with by the time it were truly worn out.
I was thinking of buying the A1 Mini but then I noticed it has a maximum of 80°C for the heatbed. That’s very limiting. Like, I print PETG with 90°C and PETG is definitely one of the “beginner materials”. If it had 100°C like the Prusa Mini, it would be (almost) a no-brainer.
I would never have bought it to begin with. Other than the Prusa name and support you get absolutely nothing for your money. And I am happy to save a bunch of money to skip those two. I’m not the target audience for either the Mini or the A1.
I actually do like the Flashforge Finder 3, which comes with a direkt extruder and filament sensor at a price of 300€, works out of the box and is incredibly easy to use. But i wouldn’t consider this as a small build volume or a small printer.
Don’t buy Flashforge unless you want to hate your life. They were the first printer I ever bought and unless things have changed they use a proprietary slicer that’s years behind anything else, and they will claim it works with other slicers…until you discover you need to figure out all the settings yourself, including start and end codes
To be honest i am very happy with the printer. It works perfectly fine with cura, at least i have never run into a problem with it.
Things may have changed then. I owned a Dreamer and everything to do with it was a headache or a nightmare. Neither Cura or Simplfiy supported it and I ended up giving the entire printer to someone else and they had the exact same issues, but i’m glad to hear you had good experiences with yours
Interesting as it isn’t a bed slinger. In this case not ideal: with 406mm it’s 5cm wider meaning 1 printer less per shelf. Also isn’t made to pump out parts quickly with a 0.6 or 0.8mm nozzle.
The finder is pretty old. Take a look at the recently launch 5M, it’s more analogous to the Bambu since it’s a core x y printer.
