This box contains the brand new Prusa i3 MK4
the latest iteration of one of the world’s most popular 3D printers. Yet in a world where every 3D printing enthusiast
currently wants to print faster and faster, is a bed-slinging 3D printer that costs $800
as a kit and $1100 assembled still relevant? I bought one on release day, printed now almost
200h with it, and am going to talk with you about its strengths and weaknesses and, of
course, compare it to its biggest rivals Bambulabs X1 and P1P. Is the MK4 the machine many have been waiting
for so long, or is it too little, too late? Let’s find out more. Guten Tag everybody, I’m Stefan and welcome
to CNC Kitchen. This video is sponsored by VOXEL PLA. Get 1kg of their reliable PRO PLA for only
$16.99 with free shipping in the US when ordering three spools or more. Visit them at voxelpla.com! Prusa’s last major i3 release, the MK3,
was over 5.5 years ago, and even though mine used to be my daily driver with thousands
of hours of printing on it, it does start to look really dated! The time of the old MK3 was also the time
of the Ender-3, and its countless copies and derivatives. And even though the price tag of the flood
of cheap Chinese 3D printers made 3D printing even more accessible, barely any of them really
challenged Prusas offerings in the semi-professional niche. Well, until last year, when Bambulabs shook
the market with their X1 and P1P 3D printers, which basically did everything better than
any other commercial 3D printer at a price just around the $1000 mark. Many people said that this is going to be
the end of Prusa because their current cash cow, the MK3 couldn’t compete with Bambulabs
offering because it was basically 5 years old. Yet out of nowhere, two weeks ago, they announced
their new MK4, ready to ship without crowdfunding or preorders. I purchased one, yes, with my own money because
Prusa rarely gives away review samples for new products. So if you want to make my investment worthwhile
and decide to buy a brand-new MK4 or an upgrade kit, consider using my links below. If you think I’m just a horrible Prusa shill,
let me know why in the comments because I tried to take a look at it as objectively
as possible! I got the assembled version which cost $1099,
and after my intern Jan from JanTec, helped me take it out of the box and remove some
foam bits, it was up and running seriously within 5 minutes. From a distance, it doesn’t look a lot different
from an old MK3, and even the specs are almost similar. 300°C all metal hotend, 120°C heated bed
with spring steel sheets, 250x210x210mm build volume. But if you give it a closer look, around 90%
of the parts are new. We get thicker z-rods, an aluminum die-cast
frame, and bed carrier, a sheet metal electronics box with finally a 32bit mainboard and ethernet
and wifi connectivity, and noticeably thicker, still 3D-printed plastic components. Yet the most obvious difference is the big
color screen in the front with a programmable LED bar below it, which is controlled via
the well-known encoder dial. This seems to be a touchscreen, but the current
firmware on the machine doesn’t use that feature yet. Unfortunately, this is a bit of a theme on
the machine, and there are also some other features on the MK4 where the hardware is
there, but the software doesn’t make use of it yet. The next obvious and also probably most important
difference to the MK3 is the new toolhead with their new Nextruder. This is now a fully custom extrusion system
without any off-the-shelf E3D V6 parts or Bondtech gears. And this is for good. Behind the feeder cover is the heart of the
Nextruder, a planetary gearbox with a 10:1 gear ratio that drives the huge extruder gear
onto which two idlers push the filament. This results in a huge contact area, reducing
filament slipping and giving you more consistent extrusions regardless of the speed. Since the filament gets slightly bent around
the extruder gear, it will be interesting to see how it handles super brittle filaments
in the future. Flexibles on the complete opposite side of
the spectrum work pretty well, and I could print the spaghetti-like 30D TPU from Fiberlogy
at serious speed without a problem. When we move down to where the plastic gets
molten, we can also find the MK4s new hotend. It’s neither a REVO nor REVO compatible,
yet Prusa also adapted the combined multi-metallic nozzle heartbreak combination that eliminates
plastic leaking problems. The nozzle-break the MK4 comes with is one
piece, so you’ll have to change the whole part if you want to switch between diameters. Fortunately, Prusa is not as much locking
you into their system as E3D does and offers these adapters that allow you to use all of
your old V6 nozzles. The whole assembly with heater block, thermistor,
and heater itself can now be way easier swapped because you simply undo two screws on the
side to slide everything out after you unplugged the electronics from the new daughter board
that sits at the back of the extruder. This board is a great addition because it
allows you to change components without re-running the wires through the wiring loom. Unfortunately, it’s only a breakout board,
so you still have a ton of individual wires back to the mainboard instead of a clean bus
connection, as the Prusa XL, for example, uses. Yet this board still has some surprises, and
one of them is the HX717 load cell amplifier. This chip is used to read the stain gauge
attached to the aluminum piece that’s hotend heat sink and extruder mount simultaneously. This strain gauge forms a load cell, just
like in your kitchen scale and allows the MK4 to do bed probing directly with its nozzles. This should eliminate all first-layer adjustments
regardless of the nozzle or bed surface you use and since the MK4 only probes in the area
you later print, you can even put a piece of cardboard on your bed and then print on
it. So far, this system has been working really
well for me, but the load sensor can do even more. Due to the shape of the aluminum piece, it
can also sense the extrusion force, so with how much power the extruder needs to push
the filament into the nozzle. This can potentially allow sensing a nozzle
clog or any inconsistencies during extrusion. Unfortunately, this is also one of the several
things where the hardware is already there, but the firmware isn’t ready yet. This load cell could also be a game changer
in quality assurance for 3D prints if the Prusa team decides to monitor and evaluate
the extrusion forces over a print and tell the user if everything was within a certain
tolerance window. Regarding quality assurance, the heatsink
has an additional thermistor to spot heat creep quickly. The last things to say about the new tool
head is that it still has a filament runout sensor, a silent hotend cooling fan, and a
new radial part cooling fan. At first glance, this looks like one of the
underpowered 4010 fans that many Enders used, but it’s actually a powerful yet quiet 5010
blower. Talking about quiet operation. One thing I personally always enjoyed about
my Pursas is how quiet they were during printing, especially in silent mode. The MK4 is still silent compared to most other
printers, but I do have the feeling that the print noise of the MK4 is a bit louder than
on its predecessor, and it also lacks a silent mode. Most might not even notice the difference,
but since I’m a bit sensitive in that regard, I have to point this out. Overall, the printhead got lighter and doesn’t
protrude out that much anymore, which is good if we also want to print faster with the new
MK4. Currently, the MK4 is faster and saves with
the standard printing profiles around 10 to 20% on printing time over the old MK3, yet
it doesn’t come anywhere close to the speeds that Bambulabs printers can achieve. As I’ve shown in my last video, printing
fast also comes with its own sort of problems, but even if we lower the speed of the X1 or
P1P to something more reasonable, they are still significantly faster than Prusa MK4. I mean, nobody really expected this bed slinger
to outperform a core XY with carbon rods. Prusa recently posted a video showing a 20-minute
Benchy printed on an MK4, but that used a still unreleased alpha firmware with input
shaping. Yes, the MK4 finally has a new 32-bit controller,
allowing for easier implementation of advanced features. Still, it does not support any input shaping
yet, which allows printing at high speeds and accelerations with only minimum ringing
marks. And this is something I’m honestly a bit
upset about. Prusa knew that this one of the features that
people expected in the MK4, and they even mention it as the first feature on their shop
page, but if you, by the time this video released, bought an MK4, you won’t be able to use
it until they release it in the following months. As a paying customer, this theme of missing
software features honestly bothers me a little because, even though I got a machine that
works well right out of the box, the hardware could do more! The MK4 definitely was delayed due to parts
shortages in the last years, but I would have hoped that they used the time to have some
essential features that distinguish them from the masses ready and working once this machine
ships. I know this sounds easier than it is in reality,
but I’m sure many feel like myself. Fortunately, Prusa has quite a good track
record supporting and improving their machines over the years with software and small hardware
updates. This is why I’m also, in a way, really looking
forward to the day once features like input shaping, the touch screen, or more use of
the load cell will be added via an update! Talking about updates. Prusa, once again, offers hardware upgrades
for the old MK3, to get some or even all features of the MK4 in your MK3. The MK3.5 upgrade will give you the 32-bit
electronics with network connectivity and the color screen. The MK3.9 upgrade will also add the Nextruder
with load cell, and if you spend almost as much as a complete MK4 kit, you can upgrade
your Mk3 to a MK4 and get everything, including the new 0.9° stepper motors that are supposed
to eliminate the Vertical Fine Artefacts the MK3 was haunted with. So let’s get to the print quality and compare
it to the MK3 and also the Bambulab X1. Most of the parts I tested were printed in
VOXELPLA PRO, which brings me to this video’s sponsor. VOXELPLAs filaments sell for only $16.99 per
1 kilo spool. They ship free within the US if you order
3 or more spools, and if you need if larger quantities, they offer even bulk discounts. VOXELPLA just introduced 3 new colors: lavender
purple, ice clear, and forest green. They are, together with all original colors
in stock and ready to ship out the same day. VOXELPLA developed their PRO material for
their own print farm where they run 150 production machines, so you can be sure that you’ll
get a reliable material for your own projects or your business. So if you live in the US and want to restock
your filament, visit them at voxelpla.com. Thanks to VOXELPLA for sponsoring this video! So first thing first. Comparing the print result from a MK3 and
a MK4 made me realize how bad the horizontal artifacts on the old machine really were. All the prints that I did on the new MK4 looked
really good, and the only surface defects I was still able to sport were some ringing
artifacts at sharp corners and a tinie tiny bit of salmon skin, yet you really need to
look for them if you want to find them. I would really like to know if the salmon
skin is caused by the old TMC2130 drives that the MK4 still uses. Maybe one of you has a deeper insight. Yet, the big question everyone has is how
the print results of the MK4 compare to the Bambulabs machines. The first big difference is that many prints
with the stock profiles come out matte on the X1, due to the high print speed and extrusion
rate about which I talked in my last video. Otherwise, Bambus prints look really well
with even a bit smoother surfaces compared to the MK4 up to the point where the input
shaper used to get rid of the ringing marks also rounds out some corners, losing a bit
of the fine details. Overall print quality of the MK4 is a significant
step forward to the MK3 and basically on par with Bambulabs machines. The new cooling solution also seems to do
a good job. Once Prusa implements the input shaper, we
might even be able to get rid of the slight ringing artifacts that we see at sharp corners. Since the MK4 still lacks some major features,
this can’t be a full review of the machine, but using it over the last two weeks showed
that it is, in most parts, the long-awaited next iteration many have been waiting for. It’s overall just this slight bit better
in almost every regard to a MK3 and is just a cleaner and more professional build with
its new electronics and extruder. And in combination with PrusaSlicer and the
great working print and filament profiles makes it just a hassle-free tool to use even
though some things still need to be looked at. So if you loved your MK3, you would be more
than happy about the iteration. It’s not la CoreXY as many would have hoped,
but as long as it’s an i3 design, it will remain a bed slinger, and we can only hope
for a Prusa XL mini at some point. Yet, realistically, everyone will compare
Prusa’s new MK4 to Bambulabs offerings, where the P1P is even slightly cheaper than
a MK4 kit, and the fully enclosed X1 Carbon is just $100 more expensive than an assembled
MK4. And objectively compared, Bambulabs machines
are in almost any category better than a MK4. They are faster, they have a bigger build
volume, the X1 is enclosed, they have a well-working multi-materials system, they have cameras,
the X1 has a build plate scanner, and with the BambuStudio slicer, they offer a well
tuned hardware and software ecosystem. So why should anyone in their right mind buy
a Prusa these days? Well, starting with the software. The reason why BambuStudio is so good is that
they reskinned PrusaSlicer and added a ton of features from SuperSlicer. The slicer part of BambuStudio is open source,
but so far, Bambulab hasn’t given a lot back to the open-source community. Bambulab did a great job implementing every
top-of-the-line feature in their machine, where the community has developed many things
and ideas. Still, neither their printer’s firmware
nor part of their mechanical design is available to the public to build upon. Consumer 3D printing has come to the point
where it is today, largely due to the Open Source community’s work and companies like
Prusa also making their software and designs available. This sounds a bit like you should all buy
a MK4 out of pity so Prusa gets some kickback for the free work that they have done, and
I’m sure, that many will be calling me a Prusa shill now. And I do admit that I’m a bit of a Prusa
fanboy because I bought my first MK2 in 2016, and it was the machine I grew this YouTube
channel with. And after torturing it for thousands of hours,
I got a MK3 in 2019, which I still use to this day because it has always been my fire-and-forget
machine due to its reliability. The MK4 might look on paper like an inferior
product to its biggest competitor, and in some cases it is. Yet, I’m sure that it will be another reliable
and just as easy to use machine as its predecessors. If you omit printing speed, it’s in terms
of print quality and ease of use on par or better than a Bambu machine not even to speak
of long term service. If that’s worth paying for the premium it
costs is something you’ll have to decide on your own. Still, you’ll always have to remember that
this machine is built here in the EU at EU labor costs and conditions and Prusa also
offers good customer assistance and supports their machines for years, which needs to be
paid for. Part of what I paid for my machine is, in
a way, a Prusa tax. Still, in return, they contribute to the community,
keep developing one of the best slicers that anyone can use, and with printables.com, finally
provide a great uncluttered Thingiverse alternative. Don’t get me wrong, I really enjoy my Bambulab
machines and will continue using them a ton, especially for fast prototyping and high temp
materials. It’s a good thing that they entered the
market because competition fuels innovation, lowers consumer prices, and also gave Prusa
a kick in the butt. Since they have been successfully selling
an almost 5-year-old design in such a quickly changing market, they definitely had a monopoly
themselves. Yet I don’t want to see Bambulab taking
over the whole market because long-term, a monopoly is not good for anyone. And this is the reason why I don’t regret
spending my money on the MK4. Compare buying a printer to a car. Even though there might be a car with better
specs around you might still spend the same or even more on another one, because you already
had two that severed you well or it’s quiter or you like the brand more. The MK4 is really nice to work with and you
notice that it’s made by people who use 3D printers themselves and if you ever loaded
filament on a Prusa you’ll know why! There are still some features missing but
with further firmware updates, it will even become better. I’m sure beginners and professionals will
be happy with the new Prusa. It is a steep pricetag and there are way more
affordable options on the market that might deliver almost as much as a MK4, but they
are often abandoned by the manufacturers after months, and then the community needs to jump
in for hard and firmware updates, which might be okay for someone who enjoys tinkering and
doesn’t primarily need a tool! Yet praising the MK4 aside, if you’re looking
for maximum speed and want to print a lot of ABS, ASA or Nylon or do multi-color printing,
the Bambulab X1 is definitely the better option with its enclosure, carbon filter and the
AMS. Yet you have to live with all of the downsides
of cloud services and proprietary hard and software. But let me know in the comments: Do you think
I’m just a huge Prusa shill, or do you also share my thoughts on why the MK4 is a good
machine, even though it’s a little late and that we can all benefit from what this
community and consumer 3D printers, in general, were built on: freely sharing ideas, methods,
designs, and algorithms so that we can continue to innovate and not stagnate by proprietary
technology. Thanks for watching, everyone! I hope you found this video interesting! If you want to support my work, consider becoming
a Patron or YouTube member. Also check out the other videos in my library! I hope to see you in the next one! Auf wiedersehen and goodbye!
