Prusa i3 MK3/S

Information and My Thoughts

I have got to say I am extremely impressed with this Prusa i3 MK3/S 3D Printer. Yes it was a major bitch to assemble taking more than
13 hours then another day to really fully calibrate the machine. Yes there were some obstacles to calibration. I ended up doing quite a
bit of net searching, fortunately there is a LOT of information on the net for the Prusa compared to the Dremel. In the end I ended up
taking apart the extruder, reseating it on the X Axis, rerunning the wiring bundling, redoing the zip ties containing the wires,
doing a wee bit of dremeling/filing here and there to trim so excess plastic and even whacked the X Axis with a mallet to
move the end block just a few millimeters, then readjusting the set screws on the belt pulleys and it
FINALLY went through the FULL calibration procedure.

Lemme tell ya, what a difference! A few times the filament spool bound up on a couple of prints to the point where
the filament even pulled completely out of the extruder. The Prusa beeped loudly, gave be a few prompts, after untangling
the filament, reloading it in the extruder, the Prusa picked up RIGHT where it left off!! As if NOTHING happened.
The Dremel would have had a shit fit and the whole print job would have been garbage! Yes that has happened to be a few times!

The amount of information on the web outshines the Dremel by ten folds at least! The availability of accessories and upgrades
both official and put out by the community is staggering. The official accessories and upgrades are competitively
priced and just about every part of the printer is available for purchase.

The Prusa brand filament selection is quite plentiful and competitively priced, not to mention that you can pretty much
use just about any brand filament out there. Combine that with the available nozzle upgrades and you options open up even more.
Then there is the "Ruby Nozzle Upgrade", yes it is pricey, but it allows you to print some pretty exotic materials!

The quality of the prints even on the .20mm "Speed" profile is quite good. I haven't printed
a high or ultra-detail print yet though I'm pretty sure I'll be pleased.

The Prusa isn't natively networked, it is SD or USB enabled, but with a Raspberry Pi and OctoPrint you can set up
a mini 3D Print Server to handle your print jobs. The extensibility and features of OctoPrint make handling
and monitoring print jobs a pure joy! I plan on setting up a dedicated PiCam for timelapse videos and some
LED lighting, yes, all controlled and made available by OctoPrint.

For a sub $1000 3D printer I am very pleased. The $2K Dremel left me wanting. Yes Dremel Customer Support
was good, but the product is majorly outshined by the Prusa. The Dremel WAS ready out of the box in just under
30 minutes, has an easy interface and with the RFID filament spools SOME of the guesswork with the settings is taken care of.
BUT, 3D printing is NOT a plug and play task. There are SOOO many nuances, tips, tricks and little gotchas.

All in all I would HIGHLY recommend the Prusa. IF you are not one to build a printer from scratch a fully
assembled and tested version is available for a couple hundred dollars more. But be aware, the lead time
for shipping is a few weeks longer and there MAY be a Customs Duty/Surcharge depending on your countrie's
custom regulations. For instance the US charges another $35 before delivery is allowed. This fee is based
on overall purchase cost, so even if you got the cheaper kit, if you bought a bunch
of accessories or multiple printers, then you would be subject to the fee.

The Prusa I3 MK/S site - https://www.prusa3d.com/original-prusa-i3-mk3/

Accessories - https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/50-accessories

Knowledge Base - https://help.prusa3d.com/en/tag/mk3s/

Of course you can always check out what is currently in our Prusa:

Front Cam View

Back to Home