Hi there,
I’m considering upgrading my old ender 3 and it looks like the prusa MK4 or bambu labs p1s are the current best options out there.
I like the bambu labs for the fast print speed and x/y print bed. I also love the idea of the AMS - it would be awesome to print in colour! But being closed source puts me off a bit as I currently use octopeint and obico to monitor my ender 3 which, as far as I can tell, Is not possible to use with bambu labs. Also having to upload gcode to the cloud is not ideal.
The prusa however is great because of the open source nature. However the slinger bed and slower prints are putting me off. I have also read that the mmu can be temperamental at best, so printing colour may not be an option?
Any thoughts/recommendations?
Thanks
If you’re feeling adventurous, there’s always Vorons as an option. Note that even if you’re building a BOM in a box you’re still going to be in for a long build. I’m pretty happy with mine.
+1 for Voron. I just finished up mine and am pleased with the results. Totally open source, modifiable, and unlike Prusa machines not based on a 5-year old design. (This is coming from somebody who loves the MK3S+ but was very disappointed with the MK4’s marginal improvement and botch-job of a lunch)
I think it depends how much you care about the FOSS credentials of Prusa - in terms of printer ease of use, quality, features, I think you’d have to go PS2. AMS by itself is real deal winner, even if you don’t do mmu printing.
ile now, it’s clear to me that Prusa sat on its hands for too long. The P1S is fantastic, involves virtually no setup, and gives me out-of-the-box prints better than my MK3S ever gave me even after months of fine tuning. I can’t imagine a world where Bambu doesn’t significantly erode Prusa’s market share.
Came here to second this, I run a print farm of primarily MK3’s and MK4’s and have recently added a P1S due to my MMU’s all dying at the same time (not that they were worth much of a damn before then), the P1S “Just works” and beautifully I might add. I switched over all my multicolor prints to the P1S and have been impressed with better results than with those in the MK3+MMU2S environment. I’m also really starting to like the app and connectivity of the machine. Considering the price of the P1S with the AMS being <= than a MK4 Let alone with the MMU add on, I’d say go for it.
Gonna “both sides” this one…
I’ve never used a prusa printer, but know two people that swear by them. I know 2 with P1P’s (including me)and one with an X1C. I can attest that it’s a great printer.
Now, the open source nature of the Prusia is the clear winner in the privacy arena, but ask yourself if the rest of your network/hardware is as locked down as you want your printer to be? I’d be willing to bet a surprising number of people who tout this as their number one concern about BambuLabs printers are using Windows.
Also, you can print just fine using other slicers and dropping your files on an SD card, never having to connect your printer to the internet at all with the Bambu printers. But they do sort of lead you down the networked path without expressly telling you that it will work offline.
Not going to get into specs, price or any of that shit, just saying both printers are great and more than capable of what the majority of FDM users want from their machines. I’d love to go Voron all the way, bit I do not have the time to commit to the building/calibration or testing.
Tl;dr… this doesn’t need to turn into a bloods vs crips argument about which printer is better