[MikeKusold]

This article highlights why Bambu has been eating Prusa's lunch the past few years. Imagine spending over $1000 then needing to print parts to get it to work properly.

I swapped my Ender5 for an X1C two years ago, and since then, I have only had to do whatever maintenance the X1C tells me. Using my X1C feels much closer to using my laser paper printer, whereas my Ender5 ended up being a hobby in itself.

[nmeofthestate]

While skimming through this I was thinking "this is a PR disaster", because people are going to see the contrived, extreme ways this guy has fucked up his Prusa printer to illustrate his how-to and think it's representative of the printer that they would receive if they ordered one.

[Miraste]

If we're comparing, it would be useful to look at the way these things are done on a Bambu printer.

Z-axis and XY-axis calibration: Designed to be unnecessary. Not possible with stock software. Possible with Orcaslicer on old or custom firmware, in which case the procedure would look similar.

Belt tensioning: Similar, but easier and better designed (no half-baked app involved).

Camera: Bambu also requires an account, I believe. Other than that, it's much better: it comes with the printer, is in color, has a light, runs at a useful framerate, and can take offline timelapses.

I don't think the comparison is positive for Prusa.

[lutusp]

> ... I was thinking "this is a PR disaster", because people are going to see the contrived, extreme ways this guy has fucked up his Prusa printer to illustrate his how-to and think it's representative of the printer that they would receive if they ordered one.

Fair comment, but Bambu Labs owners have similar issues on a much less open platform where they can't DIY themselves to a solution.

I'm a bit old-school (and a former NASA engineer). I think being able to fix things yourself is an advantage. Young people might not see the world that way.

But to be frank, I might not be the best Prusa advocate. In the linked article I posted a remedy that involved baling wire, without once asking myself, "Baling wire, really? Won't young people find this hilarious and off-putting?"

There are a number of differences between young people and my generation. One of them is ... we built things.

[Palomides]

this is a nice post on how to maintain and repair a Core One, not things you have to regularly do

kinda irritating that every single thread about a Prusa printer has a dismissive post from someone who went from a janky Ender to a Bambu

[sho_hn]

> kinda irritating that every single thread about a Prusa printer has a dismissive post from someone who went from a janky Ender to a Bambu

A lot of HN users have bought a Bambu and feel a need to justify their choice after the fact in a way that gels with their outsized need to perform as experts in front of others. This leads to a lot of comments basically just repeating Bambu talking points without having evaluated any alternatives. "The printer for the masses" just becomes received wisdom.

If you know better, just let it wash over you and go do cool stuff.

I'm also sort of wondering if it's a bit of an American thing, where Americans tend to have this odd self-disparaging impulse to call Western-made products crap and point to Asian manufacturers as having figured it out. See e.g. Japanese cars. Perhaps Bambu is perceived as the Toyota of 3D printers or something.

[jazzyjackson]

I'm an open source fan boy but my friend is always sending me links to the bambu sales. I don't think she's a self-disparaging american, and we've worked together in FabLabs we've practically used every printer out there so its not for lack of evaluation. She pushes bambu on me because she's sympathetic to what a PITA it is to deal with the majority of printers. Lulzbot is good too but I have to ask myself if my patriotism is worth it to pay 3x as much for a worse product ? Made-In-Colorado is extruded aluminum screwed together with brackets. [0] Made in Shenzhen is welded steel. [1] Also, there is very good reason that Toyota developed its reputation relative to American cars, and it's not Japanophilia.

[0] https://buy.lulzbot.com/products/lulzbot-3d-printer-taz-work...

[1] https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/x1-carbon

[nico]

The QIDI q1 pro is really good. And pretty amazing for the price/features value

[rblatz]

As someone that went from a janky Ender to a Bambu X1C, I think I can explain the differences. Is your hobby 3d printing? If so a machine that allows you more freedom to tinker and requires more hands on knowledge, but at a slightly lower price makes sense. If you use a 3d printer for your other hobbies, then something more appliance like that just works like the Bambu lines is probably a better fit.

I basically never 3d printed before, because every time I wanted to print I spent more time fiddling with the printer than I spent on my actual hobby. Now I spend almost no time thinking about the printer, and I use it almost daily.

I think both Prusa and Bambu have great printers and target different demographics, Bambu was a better fit for me and my needs, and I think a lot of people fall into the same general class as me. If you want a 3d printing appliance go with a Bambu, if you want to spend time customizing and upgrading and tinkering with a 3d printer go with another brand like Prusa.

[Symbiote]

> if you want to spend time customizing and upgrading and tinkering with a 3d printer go with another brand like Prusa.

Prusa is the company making reliable, open and therefore repairable/upgradable printers. But reliable is first, and the majority of Prusa printers will not be modified from purchase.

[dekhn]

I did not find my Prusa (MK3 upgrade to mk3s and also a new mk3s) to be reliable. It had all sorts of failure modes and eventually I stopped using both of them. I did repair both of them a few times but the extruder design is just really inconvenient. I replaced it with a printer that cost far less - cheap enough that after a few years, if it started to behave poorly, I'd replace it with another cheap printer (after reading reviews to make sure its constraints were consistent with my workflow).

Prusa did some great stuff but the market copied the good stuff and evolved past them.

[sho_hn]

I bought an MK4 two years ago, it's been printing for 1500+ hours, and I haven't done any tinkering. It's just a workhorse.

Again, you said it yourself: You went from an Ender to a Bambu, and you seem to just assume that a Prusa requires "tinkering".

[lutusp]

> ... you seem to just assume that a Prusa requires "tinkering".

I would have said "allows tinkering." Many Prusa buyers expect to be able to improve things by tinkering. It's more a philosophy than a necessity.

There was a time when one's ability to modify a product was a "good thing". When the Apple II came out in 1977, I bought one, and within weeks of tinkering, its designers wouldn't have recognized it. Same idea.

By tinkering I made my Apple II drive a printer, useful for me, but a change the Apple people tried to keep from the non-tinkering public.

It might be genetic, but I've learned to hate closed platforms.

[sho_hn]

Thanks for making this point, which is very and strangely underrepresented on Hacker News.

I've been made fun of for decades for being a Linux user with slogans like "I want to use my PC, not work on my PC". Guess what, thanks to what I learned and the network it got me I have a nicer occupation than any of them and got to participate in a few projects that changed the world a little. You should seek out experiences that build you, not disparage them.

What makes Prusa so great is that you don't have to "make the 3D printer your hobby", but you definitely can. I can think of few products that balance this so well.

I've just started writing these in the hopes of reaching that 15 yo with potential, not an army of MacBook-wielding TypeScript slingers.

[rblatz]

This was in response to a post about how to setup and calibrate and deal with Prusa Core One issues. The Bambu literally just runs a self calibration on first run, making the need for this sort of process unnecessary.

Maybe it’s not a big deal to do this on first setup, but clearly someone thought it was worth writing a blog post to explain to people.

[Symbiote]

The article is by a tinkerer. It's not representative of normal use.

The Prusa obviously has a self-calibration, I believe they introduced the idea a few years ago.

[sho_hn]

Nothing in this blog post is something that has to be done. The normal Core One user experience is to unbox and print a few minutes later.

[Miraste]

I don't think it has anything to do with a halo around Asian companies. Bambu and Creality are both Chinese. I've used plenty of Prusa, Ender, and Bambu printers, and this is what I've found:

Bambu: break the least. That's it, that's the whole secret to why everyone recommends them. Sure, the print quality is good, and there are some nice QOL things, but they took off because you can hit print and expect to get a print.

Prusa: These are mostly reliable. Not as reliable as Bambu. The Prusa printer I have right now has had two fatal malfunctions over the years I've used it, both of which were due to design flaws Bambu printers don't have. They are making a lot of progress, and I hope they catch back up.

Creality (Ender manufacturer): No one should buy Creality products. They are worthless. Everything from the lowest bargain-bin Ender 3 to the latest K2 Plus will break and might burn the building down.

[iancmceachern]

Same boat.

The other thing to note is that they're in stock, folks have had to wait quite a long time to get their core-ones.

I'd love to support prusa or the others instead, but have hardware to ship and can't justify paying more for less reliable and more costly to run printers.

Prusa is great, but it's hard to justify an increased cost to my customers for "greatness".

[hnuser123456]

Core One prebuilt lead time claims to only be 1 week currently, I'll let you know if that's true within a week.

[hnuser123456]

And it has now shipped.