This is my Prusa. There are many like it, but this one is mine. Actually, this one is exactly like all the
other ones out there, except that I put an E3D Revo in it because I needed to review
that hotend platform and it’s using a newer official model of the fan shroud because I
melted off the one it came with at some point. But it’s still the printer I actually use
whenever I just need to print stuff. This one, on the other hand, has seen some
stuff, so we’re going to give it the TLC it has earned, but I also want to explain
why I still prefer using this now five-year-old design over any of my newer printers that
are honestly capable of printing parts every bit as good, if not better, than the Prusa,
and what manufacturers would need to do to win me over. All of that after a message from today’s
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sponsoring this video. So, yes, this is, by today’s standards,
an ancient printer. In the same time that Prusa only released
the tweaked MK3S and MK3S+ machines that are still mostly identical to the original MK3,
someone like Creality has put out over a dozen brand new machines, each one better than the
last. That’s sarcasm if you haven’t noticed
already. But yeah, the MK3 series is objectively lacking
some of the features that other machines have, like networking and remote monitoring, that
Raspberry Pi Zero header for OctoPrint in the MK3 never took off, an enclosed build
space, faster speeds that are achieved with input shaping, those things I actually do
miss and other off-the-shelf printers are more recently now starting to ship with those
features as default. On the other hand, the very visible stuff
like the monochromatic, text-based LCD, or the headlining 8-bit MCU essentially from
the 90s, those honestly don’t bother me that much. Because on most machines that tout a 32-bit
MCU, it’s really just a cost saving measure, the more modern MCUs are just cheaper. They’re not doing anything with the extra
horsepower though,, and when they’re running new buggy firmware on a 32-bit chip vs the
endlessly tweaked version of Marlin that runs on these, well, then these are going to make
for a better experience overall. Unless you’re doing real-time input shaping,
these are plenty fast enough to run a 3D printer. The screen and the machine’s build probably
feel the most dated - but they work. There’s no reason for injection-molded and
folded sheet metal parts everywhere, and the screen is really not something you ever have
to interact with much. Load and unload filament, start prints, that’s
really it. It’s not nice, it doesn’t look slick,
but it fits in with the overall sort of DIY aesthetic and for me, this just isn’t a
drawback in actually daily using the machine. And frankly, out of the machines that I own,
this is the one that is the nicest to use in practice - and that is a huge factor for
me. I have a ton of machines that I test, and
I don’t have the time to tweak and upgrade and fine-tune each and every single one, otherwise,
this channel would be entirely about Ender-3 upgrades, which, looking at how much interest
there is in those kind of videos, wouldn’t actually be a bad direction for the channel. But I don’t want to do that, I want to explore
more than just that one cheap printer, so when I try and test a new machine, I use them
just as their god intended, in that case, with the manufacturer’s profiles and recommendations,
but otherwise, I just want something that reliably works. It’s the same thing that phone reviewers
come to in their conclusions when they had some fun with the newest Oneplus 12 Pro Ultra
and they think it’s pretty okay, but ultimately their SIM card goes straight back into their
Pixel 5 for daily use. My Ultimaker 3 has been sitting on the shelf
after its 5th jam within a single spool of filament, which was the point that I got sick
of cleaning out the nozzles. My CR-30 would be super cool for automated
printing, but getting parts to stick to the belt has been an absolute pain. And other printers which I actually genuinely
liked, like the Ender-3 v2 or the Neptune 2, they’re not an upgrade over ye old Prusa
when it comes to how easy and convenient it is to use them overall. That boils down to the slicer that comes with
heaps of profiles that are perfectly tuned to the printer, everything working together
as a unit, but also auto-bed leveling and auto-squaring coming as standard on the Prusas,
and the PEI flex plates being more thermally stable and so much easier to use vs having
to chisel off parts from the glass beds on the more budget-oriented printers. It adds up to more than the sum of its components. But then why don’t I use a Bambulabs machine
or an Ankermake M5, which are printers that come with those features and then some? Well, I don’t have either of those. Anker often are very strict when it comes
to what the reviewers they work with are allowed to say, and Bambulabs are just not an established
enough company yet that I felt confident to jump onto their very first printer and the
hype that followed it. I mean, Kickstarter is a contentious topic
to start with. They’re just getting started and have just
barely shipped the Kickstarter rewards, so I have no clue what sort of a company they’ll
end up being. That being said, there is a P1P on its way
to me. Bambulabs are doing a lot of things that I’d
agree with - they’re using PrusaSlicer as their software, even if they have to be firmly
poked to adhere to the open-source licenses, at the very least they seem to be great when
it comes to encouraging honest reviews of their printers. Where I think so far they actually already
beat out many other manufacturers, is that you can get spare parts for their machines
if you ever need them without having to rely on questionable sources from Aliexpress, where
quality is a gamble at best. Instead you can just get all the parts you
might break outside of warranty straight from them at, honestly, super reasonable prices. Which implies that they’re not designing
the machines to be thrown out every two years for you just to buy the “v2” or Pro model
as the old one disintegrates. So speaking of replacement parts, I think
it’s time to get this sad MK3 fixed up and then have a bit of a look at where we’ve
come from and where we’re about to go when it comes to the state of the ready-built 3D
printer market. Okay, we’re back in business! We’ve now gotten rid of the Volcano hotend
and the weird third-party heatbreak, it’s got a new PTFE tube, all the bearings are
fully lubed up, I’ve got the angled part cooling fan mount on there and a new SuperPINDA
probe. And while I was at it, I also gave it a new
0.6mm steel nozzle and a proper textured PEI sheet. It prints beautifully! This printer has been properly mistreated
and neglected - most of it not by me - and it’s now back in perfect working order. It’s now back in its stock configuration. Ze Auto has been un-pimped. And arguably, for me at least, this is the
best possible configuration of the Prusa MK3. No weirdness, nothing to worry about, just
slice your files with the stock PrusaSlicer profiles, chuck the SD card into the printer,
and reliably get parts out. This really is the recipe that makes me use
the MK3 more than any other machine that I have. Is it the best and most advanced printer? No. Is it the one I enjoy using the most? Yes. And I think I need to point out an important
detail here. I’m not saying that this is the best printer
out there, or that it’s the best printer for every use case, or even that I’m recommending
that *you* should get a Prusa over other choices. Though some people certainly make it sound
like that’s what I do, but I don’t. If you want a machine to tinker with, get
one of the many Ender-3 variants. They’re pretty solid printers and there’s
a huge community when it comes to mods and upgrades. Sure, all the doors are open for that on the
Prusas as well, but I’m not sure if you’re actually going to be improving the printers
or the overall experience by changing and modding things. Likewise, if you’re using 3D printers commercially
and need more than what this guy can offer, certainly, get something better suited to
those needs. What I think needs some acknowledgement, too,
is how long Prusa has been around and how much their contributions have added up in
the 3D printing space. Arguably, without the first Prusa Mendel - which,
back in the day, was a version of the Sells Mendel that people could actually reasonably
build - without that printer, who knows if 3D printing would even have taken off like
it did? And if you take a closer look, the design
of 99% of the printers out there is based on the Prusa i3 design, or the Mendel90 one,
which likewise is also based on Prusa’s designs. Many of the improvements that are starting
to become mainstream now like coated PEI sheets, autoleveling, filament runout sensors, silent
Trinamic drivers, power loss detection, etc, those were made popular in the first place
- you guessed it - by the mor recent commercial Prusa machines. How much you want to value that historical
aspect of it is up to you. But what’s definitely more tangible is how
much effort they’re putting into the machines, even once they’ve already made the sale. These MK3s are now quite different printers
than when I first got them. They’ve seen countless firmware updates
that improved reliability, added features or simply made for a better user experience. The same for the slicer, there is just one
single version of PrusaSlicer that supports everything back to the old MK2, and even on
that machine, you still get all the improvements that each updates brings along. Now, I get that those are all things that
are quite hard for a brand-new manufacturer to match - I mean, they can’t possibly have
a track record of still supporting printers half a decade old or having already set trends
that shaped the 3D printing industry for the better. Promises are easily made and, but time has
shown, they’re even easier to break, so when someone new comes along and makes bold
claims, I naturally get suspicious. It’s great to finally see something new,
like the Bambulabs or Anker machines in a sea of practically identical Ender-3 clones. But with great promises also come great expectations,
and at the very least, I expect the user experience and ease of use of what is supposed to be
the new gold standard to be on par with what I’m used to from these old boys. So far, on the printers that I’ve used,
I think it’s still unmatched, but I'm very excited for the day that someone manages to
one-up the game. Thanks for watching, keep on making, and I’ll
see you all in the next one.
