Prusa has been always highly regarded as the best personal desktop 3d printer but with the recent successes of companies such as Creality from China it seems the king of 3d printing is losing some of his fan base for more affordable 3d printer options.
Will Prusa remain at the top of the personal desktop 3d printing game in 2021 or will someone dethrone them?
I would love to hear your thoughts.
I have 2 old prusa MK2 and last summer got an Ender 3 pro⌠I used the Ender for 3 weeks and sold it. Donât get me wrong, itâs a great entry level machine but was still not up to par with my MK2âs. I can only imagine a MK3S+.
Also my understanding is that a Prusa XL is in the works. I donât know about the Ender 3 V2
I think the picture I posted is misleading because it wasnât meant to compare a Prusa to an Ender 3.
I think if you were to a fair comparison it would have to be an equal Creality model of around $1000 value which is the same price as the MK3s.
Overall, Prusa is definitely losing market share when large Chinese manufacturers are pumping out hundreds of thousands of printers per year.
Will Prusa remain on top?
Donât forget the âPrusaâ exact(almost) copies on Banggood and AliExpress.
The problem with the âexact(almost)â copies of the Prusa is that they use cheap parts.
Original Prusaâs only use the best parts available, which is why they cost more (and why they perform MUCH better).
Also, the Chinese knock-offs get government subsidized, so they can sell them for less than the cost of the parts.
Regardless of quality, it will still hurt their sales.
There are a few videos of people who own Prusaâs testing these copies and really like the printing results.
as for the longevity??? that remains to be seen.
My MK2âs are going strong but one was upgraded to a bear and the other I ordered new Misumi rods and bearings as well as a new hotend block, heater and thermistor.
I canât really say myself. I havenât used many of the popular alternatives to the Prusa. I started with a monoprice mini, I learned a lot from it mostly that it needed some changes out of the box. I bought a Prusa assembled it learned more but it has been running for a year and the couple of upgrades well were not upgrades went on and came off. It is basically as it came. I bought an Artillery x1 around Christmas, it is after a great deal of tinkering ok itâs best prints are as good as the Prusa medium ones.
The Prusa just works. It is printing almost everyday and if I donât do some new dumb mistake in the slicer it makes great prints.
I think for a long time 3D printers are the thing of tinkerers. I am one, I love taking things apart. I also believe that as they enter main stream use reliable and consistent will become more and more important. A friend just bought a fully assembled Prusa, he had a decent print almost instantly. Neither my monoprice or X1 did that out of the box.
It is a true selling point. The other manufacturers are leaning on the tinkerer mentality, I am not sure that will keep flying in the near future.
Mine started out as a MK2S and has been upgraded several times.
It is now a MK2.5S with the Bear frame and extruder upgrades.
I also did the Misumi bearings and new hotend block, heater and thermistor.
I love how Prusa always provides upgrades whenever they come up with new ideas or a new model.
Plus there are plenty of 3rd party upgrades as well.
I guess you could say that Prusa printers are always a âwork in progressâ.
with the prusa I really donât like the way you have to take things apart to work on the hot and itâs a big headache yes they print really good but is the hot and fun to deal with or the wiring not at all just replacing a thermistor is a nightmare
I got used to how it goes together but itâs not very often that it needs attention like this.
I think the real answer to the original question is yes, I think Prusa will remain top dog.
It doesnât matter how many are sold. When they are rated, they are not based on sales, etc., they are based on print quality, ease of use, etc.
Others may win as far as low price for decent performance. But for performance overall, I think Prusa will still win.
if you know it you are doing itâs fine but for a beginner itâs a nightmare thatâs why I would never recommend it as a first printer
Yes, if you are referring to the kit.
But the pre-assembled would be better as a first printer if you are not a tinkerer.
As mentioned earlier, if you are not technical nor a tinkerer then printers are not for you. At least until they become a common commodity with a 95% realiabilty.
Iâd say the pre assembled Prusa is there. Iâm on the first heat cartridge, thermistor. I replaced the hot end with a dragon and swapped it back after 3 weeks. The best set up was the original. Itâs hard to beat that.
my only thing with prusa is the price and the fact that itâs all 3D printed parts for the price itâs got some older Tech in it and the wiring itâs just atrocious I mean sure they print good but you can do the exact same thing for a lot cheaper thatâs why I personally do not own one and the price for the size is crazy and again 3D printed parts
First of all, the price is because they are using the highest quality parts available.
3D printed parts is one of the main reasons why they continue to get better.
Sure, 3D printed parts are not as strong as injection molded parts, but the 3D printed parts for the Prusa printers never fail in my experience.
They have a huge printing farm that prints the parts for new printers, so they see every issue that might come up with their printers and learn from it.
They could save a lot of time and money by using injection molded parts, but it makes it harder and more expensive for them to test new improvements.
Plus when they come up with new improvements and it only requires new 3D printed parts, they release it for free, so the user can print the parts themselves.
Prusa has the most friendly user environment I have ever seen. Every time they come up with an improvement, if it is printed parts only, they release it for free⌠If it also requires hardware, they sell it for a reasonable price.
How many other companies offer upgrades at a reasonable price (or free)? Most companies want to sell you a new model.
Also donât forget, everything they do, whether it be hardware design, software, or 3D models, they always release it as open source. I have the highest respect for this company, as they are clearly community oriented.
I love their slicer software thatâs amazing the printers are nice but still the price point Iâm sorry way too high
Did you know that the reason why the Chinese printers are so cheap is because they are government subsidized?
This means that the Chinese government basically pays for the parts, so all they have to cover is the labor? If itâs a kit, then the only labor that is required is the shipping.
This means that it would cost you more to buy the parts than to buy the printer.
Prusa doesnât have that luxury.
Plus there are a lot of Chinese knockoffs that are proned to catching fire. You can prevent this by buying extra parts and modifying the build. Problem is that most people donât know about this and might end up catching their house on fire. (especially first time buyers)
I would disagree on price. I have a colleague buy an assembled Prusa, it was running in an hour. It has been running ever since. Let say what $1200.
I will use my experience with an X1 it was ½ that. Awesome, but the bed was the thickness of a quarter out of flat. The hot end is a nightmare replace the throat. FYI the Prusa is easier to do, close to the same bolts but no stupid clips that you canât reach. Tech support? Nope not really. Did they replace the obvious flaw with the bed? Nope not yet. I just bought a new one. Add 100 with shipping. The terrible ringing, cobble things together to reinforce it. The filament sensor jams mid print causing a failure. Take it apart again. And again and again and you get the point.
The X1 took weeks to make a reliable good print. My time⌠letâs say 60 hours. So 700$ (I said my time I donât work for min wage so $2000) Plus a 150 in extra parts and having to print extras to make it work? Way more that an assembled Prusa oh and it doesnât print as well.
I see all the things people have issues with the creality and most of the others. My friends experience, make a great print after the first hour. Talk to a nice person who gave him lots of help using the slicer. Never touch a thing in months print every day. It doesnât matter if it is hard to take apart of you never need to. I donât think it is, my monoprice is harder the X1 I think is too.
I would argue it is cheaper if you count time and frustration.
