Comment on The Enshittification of 3D Printers – Are We Losing What Made Them Great?

• anomnom@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

  I wonder if any of that includes what are essentially firmware tuning for their printers?

  I recently ran a set of prebuilt Prusa M4S for a printing demo, and they were really nicely tuned, between the pressure sensing head and the way it only probes the area of the print bed it’s going to use, all 10 printers worked pretty much out of the box. One roll of filament wasn’t sealed properly and clogged a few times, but I basically did around 800-900 hours of printing over the course of a weekend and had a couple clogs from that one roll.

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  • IceFoxX@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

    I can only advise every first-time buyer not to choose a prebuilt but to assemble it themselves in order to learn everything directly and gain experience. I bought the mk4 prebuild as my first 3d printer with enclodure and it worked wonderfully. Except for problems at the beginning due to wet filament etc. but it’s not due to the printer itself. Then I installed the MMU3 later when it was available. After that I had slight problems, especially first layer problems, which I was able to fix. then the release of the mk4s so I ordered and installed the upgrade. Initially had massive problems which I would not have had if I had assembled the printer myself and had experience. The troubleshooting was unnecessarily time-consuming as I had practically disassembled and reassembled the printer but was still successful. At some point (after several successful start-ups and printers) I started up the printer and wanted to print something. Since it had always run smoothly before and never had any really bad problems, I sat at the PC with headphones on until I looked at the printer and saw that it wanted to become a CNC. Printing plate damaged but still usable, nozzle damaged but could be repaired, heater and thermistor destroyed. The support was very cooperative but of course I got the heater and thermistor replaced as they are not wearing parts. I am still extremely happy and can only warmly recommend prusa

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    • Mechanismatic@lemmy.ml ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

      I’d actually recommend the opposite. Unless you’re a DIY hobbyist who loves taking everything apart and you don’t want to print immediately upon receiving it, it’s worth it to buy the prebuilt Prusa. There are so many many steps in assembling a MK4S that there are that many steps to get something wrong. Better pay a few hundred extra to get one that has been assembled by a more experienced person. And I say that as a makerspace coordinator who works with a lot of 3D printers.

      Assembly teaches you how incredibly complicated the assembly is. I’ve adjusted pre-assembled printers with minor inconvenience. But the first one you put together can take more than the estimated 6-8 hours.

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      • IceFoxX@lemm.ee ⁨2⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago

        Troubleshooting after upgrading from mk4 mmu3 to mk4s mmu3 took well over a week despite help from the Prusa forum and support and in that time I had disassembled and reassembled it several times. In the end it was quite trivial and with the help of additional tools (screw clamp to firmly fix the stepper motor of the y-axis for mounting) quickly fixed. Knowing the localization and the interaction of everything with each other would have helped me a lot and certainly saved time. But I don’t even want to deny that you have to be prepared for several hours and several hours of frustration. Instead, you have to follow the planned and most important steps with the exact number of haribo gummy bears and place them correctly on your tongue and get to the process of enjoying them as quickly as possible. If you also opt for a prebuilt, you could also use the core one

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