I’ve been waiting to finish up with some major life stuff before diving into the world of 3D printers. Now that is finally behind me, and I am currently trying to find out which printer I want so that I can place an order.
So far I’ve set my eyes on the new Prusa CORE One. It ticks a lot of the boxes that I think I am after, including:
- As open as I can get (before going into that Voron-stuff, which I think I’m not ready for). I don’t want to be bogged down with having to run proprietary slicers through Wine and things like that. I am not sure how big of an issue that is with e.g. Bambu or Creality (if at all), but I’ve seen enough rug-pulls and enshittification processes that I don’t really want to risk that. I want to be sure that I can use FOSS tools such as Blender and FreeCAD for design, and similarly open slicers, and the whole workflow will work just fine.
- As future-proof as I can possibly hope for. I think the upgrade path from the MK4 to CORE One shows that they are serious about sustainability and longevity of their devices, and as far as I can tell, I should have no troubles sourcing replacement parts. I also want to support companies with this philosophy.
- Has a decent print volume (I know there are bigger, maybe I will be constrained by this at some point?)
- Enclosed - a major reason I did not want the MK4S was that it was not enclosed (but maybe you can get an enclosure?). It will be placed in my study where I spend most of my computer time (which often times is a lot, so I imagine I will be in the room while it is printing). I imagine, with the additional filter, that it will be better with an enclosure. Also, it will be easier to keep good temperature control during prints, as it can get cold here during winter.
- Locally produced (I’m EU based).
I understand that other manufacturers provide more “bang for the buck” and that I in that sense will be overpaying feature-wise. I am fine with that given my emphasis on the above criteria.
However, I am a complete newbie to 3D-printing. I am sure there are some limitations I have not thought about, and I was wondering if there are any major things I have not thought about that would actually affect me negatively and should make me reconsider this model?
I think you’ll be happy. Coming from someone that’s had a prusa mini for 3 years.
I also use FreeCAD, and I don’t think you’ll have a problem with that with any modern slicer, you can export in step to let the slicer do the meshing, or you can use the mesh workbench to get more control over the resolution of the mesh.
Don’t worry too much about print volume. Can always break stuff up into multiple prints, and that’s often a good idea even if the whole thing would fit inside the print volume.
I have killed a couple build plates, one from the TPU print sticking too well to PEI, and pulling chunks off, one from crashing the nozzle into it after I switched from a bare metal build plate to a PEI one without changing the Z offset.
Other than that, I’ve only really replaced one fan that was getting noisy.
As for filament, I use mostly PLA and ASA, because I don’t need to do anything special to keep those dry enough to print. Probably around 60% PLA, 25% ASA, 15% TPU. PETG is fine, but I need to dry it to keep from getting steam bubbles in my prints, and can’t really be bothered when I can just use ASA or PLA instead.
As for TPU, it will string like crazy if you don’t dry it, but you can mitigate this with some parts by turning on “avoid crossing perimeters”. Also try to avoid support material with TPU. I now print TPU on the back side(bare metal) of a third party build plate, using a very thin layer of glue stick.
Get a BambuLab P1S without AMS.
I don’t want to be bogged down with having to run proprietary slicers through Wine and things like that. I am not sure how big of an issue that is with e.g. Bambu or Creality (if at all), but I’ve seen enough rug-pulls and enshittification processes that I don’t really want to risk that.
You can use PrusaSlicer, OrcaSlicer, Cura or some other slicer with them. They run perfectly fine in LAN-mode removing the Bamub Lab server stuff/question from the equation.
While not every replacement parts are also made by third party companies things like nozzles, PEI-sheets or fans are available from third parties.
As future-proof as I can possibly hope for.
I would argue money in the bank account is far more future-proof than any 3D printer can be and Bambu Lab costs a fraction of what a Prusa core one costs. So when the future arrives use the saved money to buy a next-gen printer.
Locally produced (I’m EU based).
Bambu Labs are well made so not a safety hazard but I can understand this point.
The Prusa core one looks very promising but at the same time, it isn’t for everybody and the general consumer is likely better of by buying the P1S. For the price of 1 Prusa One you could buy 2 Bambu Lab P1S and 10-20kg of good PETG.
regarding Support: Difficult question. Prusa has excellent support but the last experience I had with their printers before dropping them wasn’t that great and was riddled by issues/bugs. BambuLab on the other have the it just works magic but the support needs to improve. You send them a bunch of log files as requested. They probably only look at the oldest file (that might be months old) and provide a “wrong” reply based on that as a solution without looking at the text you wrote.
In my opinion, the only disadvantage is the cost.
But even the cost difference might get recouped later on, if Prusa continues releasing upgrade kits the way they’ve been doing it for the i3 line. Support is also excellent. I broke a thermistor while upgrading a printer, and they sent me a free replacement because it was unclear if it was my fault or not.
Another disadvantage might be that you’ll become a militant Prusa fanboy, and never look at another brand again ;)