Right now looking into bang for the buck workhorses with a small footprint/build volume. A description that fit the Prusa mini+ perfectly in the past, but it feels like Prusa is a dinosaur that hasn’t moved with the times.
So who is still buying the Prusa mini+ and why?
Personally: While Prusa has outstanding support, good data protection, and does good things but there is now the Bambu Lab A1 mini.
Prusa mini is at the moment 500€ plus 20€ for a filament sensor (sic., it’s nearly 2024 and that’s an paid upgrade on half a grand printer) and another 7€ for WiFi.
Bambu Lab on the other hand is 320€.
Looking at the specifications, the A1 looks like a clear winner: For maintenance, there are three tasks: 1. cleaning and lubricating the mechanics (both are the same in this respect); 2. cleaning the build surface (both are the same); 3. maintaining the hotend and here Bambu Lab is clearly the better system as you can replace the nozzle in just a few seconds compared to Prusa’s E3D v6 hotend, which requires hot tightening.
The operation is not that different. Both support network, web interface, and automatic bed leveling probed at the nozzle. Bambu Lab has a camera built in, but this requires the printer to be connected to the BambuLab cloud, which may not be possible as the model data is shared with/uploaded to China. I would say this is still a strong point for Prusa as privacy is not an issue with their printers which means they can be easily deployed.
Performance should be close with input shaping enabled, but the A1 mini has the higher flow rate hotend, which means BambuLab is once again the winner (still no highflow at only 28 mm^3/s but twice the flow of a Prusa V6).
The build volume is identical and the footprint is also almost identical, so again no point where Prusa beats BambuLab.
Value? I have already mentioned it. 1.6 Bambulab for the price of 1 Prusa is a clear answer. If Prusa still had the 400€ original launch price and a filament runout sensor included, maybe the answer would be Prusa due to privacy/easier integration. The 200€/printer price difference is so significant that I don’t see who is still buying multiple Prusa mini+.
Btw. is there another printer on the market that just works paired with a small footprint and excellent value?
I’m just going to go ahead and point out that the Qidi X-Smart 3 is only $299 USD right now. I don’t know how high flow you need to get for a small volume desktop printer, but it alleges 30mm^3/sec. No affiliation from me or anything (despite having just bought an X-Max 3, and having an OG X-Plus sitting right next to it at the mo’), but just saying.
Most prints fit within the small build volume and a small printer means more printers within the same space. more printer means faster.
Why? Large nozzle and increased layer height mean more flow at the same speed. Approx. 2-4x as much flowrate is required compared to a 0.4mm setup.
I know why a high flow rate is theoretically beneficial. I just don’t know what the requirements for your particular application are.
Anyhow, on paper the Qidi should be even slightly faster than either the Prusa Mini or the little Bambu. And in the US, at least, it’s cheaper.
Look promising. Sadly the carbon rods aren’t replaceable.
How long does it take to prepare a print (from hitting print to extrusion starting)? Any issues you had?
I am looking for a small footprint printer that just spills out parts nonstop with a 0.6 or 0.8 mm nozzle. Nothing crazy: mostly PLA.
I don’t have an X-Smart 3, but I do have its gargantuan brother, the X-Max 3. The majority of pre-print time spent is preheating the bed. I would say 3-4 minutes, unless it’s already warm. You can remotely preheat it from their slicer software or via your favorite means of interacting with Klipper, if you like. The hotend heats up alarmingly quickly – room temperature to 220C in just a handful of seconds. Longevity; I don’t know. I got my X-Max 3 the day before yesterday, but I can at least say I’ve been running it basically nonstop ever since. No real issues yet, except the textured-only build plate is dumb. The most time consuming part of starting a print is by far the automated bed probing song-and-dance, but if you are confident in your built plate placement you can just instruct the machine to skip it. I always do.
Edit: I just timed it. From pressing the start button to filament being deposited on the plate, 2 minutes and 3 seconds. The plate was a couple of degrees above ambient at the time, though.
And you know, I hadn’t noticed that the smaller Smart still has the carbon fiber guide rods. I’m not certain why Qidi would consider them non-replaceable unless they’re glued into position. Which I guess is possible. Otherwise, disassembly may still be a pain in the ass. But provided you can get them out you could absolutely just order a carbon fiber tube of X length and Y diameter from any of innumerable online materials suppliers. Just because Qidi themselves don’t sell them doesn’t mean they don’t exist. I guarantee you they are not a bespoke component.
The current Plus and Max models have steel guide rods with bushings instead. Qidi backpedaled on the carbon rods on those models and shipped people units with the steel ones to replace them. One wonders if they’ll eventually do the same for the Smart 3. Even so, with the way this industry goes there will probably be a new shiny you’d want to replace it with by the time it were truly worn out.