Hacker News Reader

Comment by sarchertech | Hacker News Reader

It’s not better in every way. For long term reliability and ability to repair and upgrade, Prusa is far superior.

If your hobby is 3d printERS sure (and more power to you), but for many people (me included) the hobby is 3d printING

The point is not that Prusas need constant repair. The point is that they are reliable workhorses and repairable and usually also long-term-upgradeable.

But you get better results from the Bambu. I care about the product of the manufacturing more than I care about the tools.

That depends on what you’re doing. For many things Prusa printers produce higher quality prints.

> For many things Prusa printers produce higher quality prints.

I have yet to have this happen, despite a lot of trying. The Bambu just works and the results are better. The Prusa requires constant recalibration and tuning, and still produces an inferior looking product. I'd love to be proven wrong here.

It's probably the case that somebody with a ton of experience can squeeze better results out of a Prusa ... but that kind of proves my point.

We are a version behind and the Mk4 is supposed to be better. I think that would be a fairer comparison to the Bambu?

I’m currently working on an upgrade to 3.5, which should at least give me better speed.

You’re 2 essentially 2 versions behind. The Core One is basically equivalent to the X1C and it’s the same price. $300 cheaper if you buy the kit instead of the assembled version.

My Prusa just always works. I spend virtually zero time doing maintenance or any kind of tuning.

If you’re spending that much time fiddling with it, sounds like you either have much a much better eye for print quality than I do or you got a dud.

It makes a big difference if you're painting the prints - things that look okay out of the printer will turn into a disaster once paint brings out all the details.

People are getting great quality out of the Bambus now - basically a slight tier below Resin, without any of the health issues that require PPE.

https://youtu.be/R8fuNDTQJCY?t=725

(Old video, state of the art has advanced since. Also, the issue with his other printer turned out to be a simple maintenance item (dirty pulley) the video maker skipped over in Bambu's basic troubleshooting guide.)

If you want to print warhammer miniatures or similar the Prusa core 1 is equivalent to a Bambu X1. And it’s the same price.

Cool, but that's not why people buy things. I don't buy a bike for the pleasure of getting to repair it when I inevitably eat shit on a gravel road.

While you're busy ordering parts for your Prusa and taking it apart, people just buy another A1 or P1P for basically nothing. While you're spending 5 hours trying to stabilise your printing plate and ensuring your nozzle isn't vomiting out super melted <weird filament you got>, the bambulabs go haha printing goes brrr thanks for feeding me shale oil it'll work great. If you're 3d printing enough that your printer breaks, you are 100% making enough money to just eat the costs of another printer.

You don't care how expensive and complicated it is to repair and maintain your mountain bike (especially if you plan to eat gravel a lot)? And your take on machines is that you better throw away a bunch of working 3D printers and replace them instead of upgrading the old ones and adding new ones as needed? Hope you have a lot of money to burn in your personal and business life. ;)

Another user made the point: maybe you care about 3D printERS. The vast majority of people care about the printed end result, and buying more printers in the case of massive failure (which is already rare) makes more sense. If you're 3D printing for fun at home, a Bambu will basically never break.

Spending 3 days tracking down the parts for a Prusa, taking it apart, fixing it, realising some settings have gone to shit, fixing it? I hope you have a lot of time to burn in your personal and business life :)

As mentioned in my parent comment, I've made purchase decisions for FDM desktop printers since before Prusa (as a company and product) was around and I've been responsible for 3D printers from a lot of different manufacturers over the years. I'm not attached to any particular company or anything like that.

If I needed more "quality" (in the sense of less visible layer lines) than what comes out of a modern Bambu, Prusa (or some other modern FDM printers), I would use another manufacturing process instead of FDM printing. And no idea where you are in the world but I'm in Europe where I can get Prusa parts from different vendors very quickly and reliably and most of them (including Prusa themselves) have processes in place for B2B and public sector transactions which can be important for professional life as well.

Again: I'm not saying that Bambu printers are not very good in many ways. As I said in my parent comment: I have one. Doesn't change my other points.

Okay, but that is a complete misrepresentation of Prusa machines. You can buy a Prusa today and it'll spit out prints like any other modern printer. And this has been the case for a long time now. Only a small minority of people actually tinker with their machines. It seem like you're attacking a complete projection.

> You don't care how expensive and complicated it is to repair and maintain your mountain bike (especially if you plan to eat gravel a lot)?

I have 3 bicycles at the moment and use one as my main way of buying groceries.

My ideal bicycle ownership experience is: I change the brake fluid every few years, I spray the chain whenever I remember to, I change tires and brake pads when they wear out, and I never, ever have to do any other maintenance.

I don't care about the bicycle itself, I care about what the bicycle lets me do.

What's your point? As you basically yourself, there is a need for a bit of maintenance on machinery because it's not really possible to design that away completely. That is, unsurprisingly, the case with bikes, Prusas, Bambus and pretty much all other machines.

Prusa isn't like that. It just works. I've been printing years without any issue or repair.

Are you confusing Prusa with older Enders? If you buy assembled, they just work like any other modern printer. In fact they're known for long-term reliability. If there's any detraction, it's on the basis of printing speed, price, and availability, but not on fragility.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com