[Symbiote]

Both friends with Bambu printers bought them because they were cheaper than Prusa, and they wanted "a tool, not a hobby" (which I think is marketing invented to disparage an open source, repairable printer).

Three years later, they have unreliable printers that are difficult to maintain.

I have a five year old Prusa, still working very nicely, and it's still a tool and not itself a hobby.

[ryanobjc]

Prusa are clearly tools: you can fix it, modify it, and still have warranty apply. You can get after-sales parts, and service.

Bambu are appliances. They can work great out of the box, but appliances do not have upgrade paths. You do not upgrade a microwave, you throw it out and get a new one. Or maybe it's more like a fridge, you can limitedly repair some bits, but you cannot wholesale upgrade from V1 to V2.

Anyways bought the core one a few months ago, on kit, and did the whole assembly. The assembly was fun, and the resulting printer has been great. The print fails I had were all easily understandable, entirely due to adhesion issues to a dirty print plate.

I also ordered the indx and am looking forward to capabilities that are not possible with the AMS system. I'm more of an artist though, so I'm looking for interesting and cool ways to make things, not just 3D printing figurines or sculptures etc.

[Washuu]

I have four Prusa printers for my business with thousands of hours of print time. The worst issue that I have had is a finicky filament sensor that I temporarily disabled until I could fix it.

I see it as buying printers design for industrial usage versus printers for hobby. Prusa is selling me a tool that just works every time.

[SOLAR_FIELDS]

I'm not sure if he still does it, but last time I checked he maintains a giant warehouse of these things in Prague that assemble themselves. That's the biggest advertisement for their industrialness that you can make - the printer literally manufactures itself in an industrial setting.

[Auracle]

Without looking it up I’m guessing I’ve had my P1S for 3 or more years and I’ve never had a single issue with it, to the point where I wonder what issues your friends have?