I've been thinking about upgrading my MK3. It was a hard choice between Prusa and bamboo. This makes the choice a bit easier.
this post was submitted on 19 Nov 2024
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The total cost of the upgrades to go from MK3S>MK4>CORE One is the same or greater than just buying a new kit. It's currently $1-200 more than a Bambu P1S with AMS due to the black Friday sale, which they frequently have on sale for this price. I really do like the concept of continually upgrading your printer to the latest and gratest, but it's not actually that economical. And add to all that, you'll basically end up with a new printer and most of the parts of a second so why not just have 2 for the same cost.
It will be a significant speed upgrade...but the quality is only a little better. It's one of the things holding me back. Not sure I really need to upgrade yet.
If you want to print with high temp materials the enclosure is a must, so it's a huge change there, if all you do is PLA, PETG then it's not as critical. But I still think the Bambu P1S bundle is the better deal, similar sized printer, similar motion system and ease of use, and you get the 4 spool AMS which is a game changer even if you don't print multicolor. I want to love the prusa stuff but it's just too expensive
I went out of my way to purchase prusa the first time. With these new developments, I probably won't.
Yeah, the enclosure is a driving factor as I'd like to branch out to different materials. The AMS seems pretty awesome as well since I've been wanting to do multi color for a while now.
I usually keep 1 or 2 PLAs in there, one tough material like ASA and one silly fun one. Let's me just select the right mats for the job and hit print and I rarely have to change out a spool unless I'm doing something colorful. It's awesome
large print volume (250×220×270 mm)
Yeah that's really not considered a large print volume anymore for consumer printers.. It's only slightly above standard of most printers these days...Hit me with minimum 300x300x300 print area and we can start calling it large build volume.
Price is still too high IMO, it should be €1050 for the assembled printer, not the DIY kit.
Better compared to the MK4S price since you get the enclosure with it.
That being said, definitely high compared to bambu, but that is also because bambu takes advantage of much lower labor, operating, and land costs in china. It is quite normal for EU-designed and certainly EU manufactured products to be more expensive.
Yes, but this is likely still assembled from components manufactured in China. So for the DIY kit it's only pre-assembly of submodules that's done in Czech republic (depending on how pre-assembled the kit is). If you have to assemble all components yourself, then they'll have close to no manufacturing cost in EU.
Price is still too high IMO, it should be €1050 for the assembled printer, not the DIY kit.
Considering the Bambu X1C costs 1050€ I'm surprised they were able to get the kit price down to 1050€ while still manufacturing in the EU.
Looking forward to the reviews to see how they compare.
You can self source a voron for that amount, and that's without any of the benefits of large scale purchasing like Prusa has. I'm just really not impressed by the price point.
I have a Voron 2.4 right now, and had a Prusa MK3 before that.
It remains to be seen what additional work the kit amounts to. The Prusa XL can be assembled within a few hours while the Prusa MK3 is a day project and the Voron is a multi day project, not even including the time needed to research the different Voron kits.
Assuming it does not lack in features or quality, I think the price for the kit is fair since it includes the full Prusa support, next day shipping for replacement parts and it is made in the EU. The Voron with its flying gantry is dope, but I do sometimes miss being able to just write Prusa about an issue and get replacement parts under warranty in 2-3 days.
A Voron V2.4 for cost of this kit ($950 / 1050 EUR)? Sure buddy.
1,000 bucks isn't far off what the middle of the road cost of a 2.4 is. I've seen kits for as low as like 550-600 bucks shipped, this is without printed parts. The high end stuff like LDO or Siboor are 1,200-1,500.
From what I've seen, middle of the road 300 mm Voron V2.4 kits are around $1300. I believe the lowest I've seen was around $950, excluding printed parts (which the same company was selling separately for over $200). When I tried compiling a BOM with self-sourced high quality parts, the total reached over $1700 before I gave up on that idea. Where have you seen $600 kits? If these are still available, I may consider one. However, I'm hesitant to go with a kit that may have lower quality components. Personally, I'm really excited for this new Prusa and will probably pick up a kit once they are available. Unless, of course, Vorons are really that affordable.
Usually I see them on Aliexpress, fysetc just had a 2.4 kit for $728 with free shipping during they're 11/11 sale. Gotta really pay attention on there though because sometimes you'll see a kit listed for cheap with like $150-$200 shipping. But if you're patient you can find really good prices. I know someone last year that got a Micron plus kit for like €550 total shipped.
In fairness, they never said a 2.4.
Is there a different current version that would be better to compare against the Prusa?
The trident is probably a more fair comparison given that both it and the CORE One use 3x lead screws to move (and presumably level) the bed.
You can get a 300mm^3 LDO trident kit for $1,200, which appears to be the price of the Prusa. You can of course go cheaper (formbot for $690 with a V6 hot end) and more expensive (a custom BOM in a box from say West3d that starts at $1,300).
Honestly this is better than I expected from Prusa. They are still playing catch-up but not as far behind as I expected them to end up with their first consumer XY offering. It's till expensive for what you get (Prusa). It's too slow compared to competitors. It's a bit small for the price. They need a new hotend setup. But it definitely maintains the Prusa serviceability. Their MMU is still kind of a DIY joke versus the competitors.
This is not their first core XY and they redesigned the hotend with the PrusaXL and MK4. As far as I've seen, they are the only printer company using a strain gauge in the hotend for bed leveling, that they also use for detecting clogs while printing. Also, the new printer's price is comparible to the similar model from Bambu with a metal frame and enclosed print bed (X1C). And, as you pointed out, they always maintained the same serviceability (I'll add upgradability). Therefore, I definitely don't agree that they are playing catch up.
Aaaaaaaahrg! Guess who recently bought an MK4S and thought "Wish it was a CoreXY, though"?
Edit:
transform your MK4S fully into the CORE One without a single compromise. We are aiming for a release date in March 2025 with the projected price of 449 USD (VAT excl.) / 489 EUR (VAT incl.).
Well, at least there is that...
I saw the video this morning before work. I’m in the same boat as you. Bought a MK4s about 2 months ago. Very happy with it, but I want that CORE One.
The product page says it won’t ship until Jan ‘25, so I’m just gonna be patient and wait for stock to arrive at PrintedSolid in the US. Hopefully they’ll have some by summer. If I still want it that badly I’ll get it. Maybe the urge will pass and I’ll be content with my MK4s.
You can upgrade for like $500.
Just read that as well, but that's $500 on top plus $300 I "wasted" on the enclosure for the MK4S.
Seems like it’d be better for you to sell your enclosed MK4S and just buy this one as a kit
Yeah, probably.
I haven't tried, but it sounds like it's hard to sell used printers. Maybe it'd be easier to sell the enclosure (less risk for the buyer) and buy the upgrade kit? Either way, it's not like you wasted your money on the MK4S.
I've sold used printers in the past without much trouble. But yeah, it's not like the MK4S is bad or anything like that. This is more a case of first world problems.
My enclosure has the MMU3 and all 5 spools crammed in there, very space efficient
I’m also gonna cram the filter in there when I get around to it.
This new one can’t seem to support more than a single spool on the side tho
Do you have any advice on putting the spools inside the enclosure? I haven't put our MMU3s together yet, but all the official photos show the spools on the outside.
4 in the front, top and bottom on each side, one in the back, top left. (Top right back would be where the filter would go, if you have it, and the bottom back right will have the buffer. Bottom Left has cabling so clearance isn’t very good there)
Be careful with the spool holders/mounts as they’re not really interchangeable due to the sagging clearance of the spools and the floor
There’s already a few collected guides out there for all the parts you’d need to print to make it work, assuming you don’t want some fancy custom parts as extras or have a custom box you’d wanna leverage
Humidity sensor probably gonna need to move, and need a new mount point printed
Be careful with the tube routing, too long or too tight turns will make the mmu and extruder struggle, had to redo mine twice so if you’re planning to freestyle or experiment I do recommend getting extra tubage
That’s about all I got off the top of my head, if there’s extra stuff I might add it in later
Thanks for the writeup! The mmu3 assembly instructions do mention I need longer PTFE tubes if I want to combine it with the enclosure, so I dont think there's avoiding that. We'll have two enclosures with MMUs next to each other, so having the spools hanging on the outside feels a little too unsightly.
I'm eyeing the (un)original drybox too, but it's adding quite a bit of cost.
This looks pretty cool, might pick a kit up if the reviews are also good.
Temperature controlled chamber.
This is a great feature, for this alone I would love to get one.
Having a temperature controlled chamber AND Prusa profiles to easily set it up is amazing.
Right now I'm avoiding printing stuff in ABS, ASA or Nylon because of that, even though I have an enclosure on the MK4s I often have issues with these material. It's working but it is not click and forget like PLA or PETG.
Is this actively heated or just temperature controlled? From what I saw it just has vents to allow heat to escape (think leaving the door open when printing PLA).
If it was actively heated I would buy it in a heart beat, Voron doesn't even like people talking about it due to the high danger if done wrong.
EDIT: Yeah just looks like the bed heater still unfortunately. I have a modded enclosed Ender 5 I just have a heat soak script tied to a thermistor midway up the frame so I'll hold off until there's an actual separate heating element. Hopefully soon!
Great feature indeed. Here before the stratasys lawsuit lands in Josef's inbox.
Stratasys patents for a heated chamber expired on 2021.
That doesn't mean anything to a patent troll company like Stratasys. They have tons of generalized patents issued in the last few years on things the 3d printer community has been using as prior art for decades prior and they are using that as a basis to take down Bambu. Like heated beds, lmfao. They'll make some shit up and sue anyway because they're becoming irrelevant and are unable to compete legitimately anymore. And the Texas court well known for protecting corporate interests will hand them whatever they want.
Oh man, now I'm conflicted. I had planned to buy a Qidi X-Plus3 for myself for Christmas. But this new prusa looks great. The Qidi is still bigger build volume with 280x280, and the qidi is half the price. But the prusa will have better community support, and software updates.
And hardware upgrades.