Józsiék küldtek egy 31 kérdéses felmérést a Printables közösségnek. Még mindig szívügyem ez a nyomtatósdi, rendszeresen gyártunk eszközöket a céges munkánkhoz is és úgy érzem támogatni kell őket, hogy EU gyártóként ne söpörje el őket a kínai kínálat, úgyhogy rászántam az időt és kitöltöttem.
Pár éve, a Core One előtt sokkal pozitívabb válaszokat adtam volna. Utolsó kérdésként egy texbox várt, oda leírtam nekik ami aktuálisan fáj – gondoltam iderakom a többi 3D print kontent közé:
I don’t know what happened, guys.
I’ve been a loyal customer since the very first Prusa nozzle. I’ve owned an MK2, MK3, MK3S, MK4, MK4S, Mini, and now a Core One. But with the Core One, I’m starting to lose my faith.
All I want is a reliable workhorse. I don’t want to tweak the hardware, and I don’t want to become a magician just to keep my printer running reliably.
When the PINDA probe came out, I was thrilled. Finally, bed leveling became easier than ever.
When the load cell was introduced, I was as excited as a little kid on Christmas morning (and I’m a 57-year-old guy with two granddaughters 🙂). I ordered the Core One immediately.
I’ve assembled all of my printers myself and spent thousands of hours improving and maintaining them. Because of that, I’d rather read the assembly instructions three times than make one painful mistake. I approached the Core One exactly the same way.
Unfortunately, my Core One fails—and it fails a lot. Especially when I print multiple objects on the same bed. I could show you photos of spaghetti monsters and terrible print failures. Honestly, I have no idea why it happens. Sometimes the prints are absolutely perfect, and sometimes they look like someone’s very first attempt at 3D printing.
I’ve tuned the belts countless times, tried every bit of magic I could think of, but in most cases the only thing that consistently helps is printing a single object instead of several at once.
Still, I haven’t given up.
When I saw the first announcement about the INDX, I ordered it immediately. This time, though, I chose the four-head version. Do you know why?
Because I’m starting to lose my faith.
Fingers crossed that with INDX version it will come back.
I’ve been building 3D printers for the past 12 years. Back in the early days, I built printer mechanics from old optical drives while teaching myself Arduino programming. Then came a wooden Graber i3, followed by a Hephestos (waterjet-cut aluminum), and later a Printrbot with an Ubis hotend that I tuned and calibrated myself. I know exactly what M301 P22.2 I1.08 D114 does. I even worked on my own printer development project with a friend :), inspired by the Küehling brothers. I also experimented with many different print bed designs until you finally solved that problem-thank you. 🙂 After that I moved on to a factory MK3 (+ Bear frame), then an MK4, and today I use a Core One.
….and yes, I struggled with the V-belts as well, but after a lot of work the machine is finally stable. That said, in my opinion the 90-degree bent sheet metal parts at the ends of the X-axis are a compromise. They simply don’t provide enough rigidity, making it difficult to consistently maintain perfect squareness.
What concerns me much more, however, is the supply chain. A new product is announced, then it takes months before customers can even place an order, and after ordering, it often takes months more before it ships. From a customer’s perspective, that’s a frustrating experience. As someone who has supported Prusa for many years, it sometimes feels as though loyal customers are expected to wait indefinitely.
I’m also concerned that the overall attention to detail isn’t quite what it used to be. I see more issues being reported, and some design decisions leave me wondering why they were made. The Core One, for example, appears to be prepared for future upgrades, with unused mounting holes and a surprisingly large variety of screw types. From an engineering perspective, I struggle to see the benefit. Why does a single machine really need so many different fasteners?
I don’t mean this as an attack-I genuinely want Prusa to succeed. That’s exactly why I’m taking the time to write this. But I do feel that the current direction is moving away from the qualities that made me choose Prusa in the first place. For the first time in many years, I’m no longer certain that my next printer will be a Prusa.
Right now I’m waiting for the INDX to finally become available for ordering, but I’m honestly a little concerned about that as well. It’s already July, and I still don’t know whether I’ll have four toolheads on my machine this year.
We’ll test the INDX upgrade on my printer and see if it’s worth switching.