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?
When it comes to my decision making for what printer to get, while the price does matter, what is more important to me is being able to maintain the printer for a long period of time.
And I am not talking about right here, and now. There are a lot of parts for the Bambu A1 mini on the market today. I am talking years from now when the printer is considered old and obsolete, but still does the Job.
Prusa has a proven track record of not just providing parts themselves for their older printers. Going so far as to even offer upgrade kits for previous printers. But also using off the shelf components, making matienence a non-issue for me, even if Prusa was to get wiped off the face of the earth.
Meanwhile Bambu doesn't have that track record. And being, yet another Chinese Company, making an injection moulded machines using closed source firmware, and non-standard parts and tools to cut the costs down to be competitive. They've yet to prove to me that they will support their printer beyond when they are selling it.
Take for instance the most use and replaced part on a printer, the Nozzle. The Prusa Mini's nozzle is just a standard E3D V6 nozzle with hundreds upon thousands of spares of various quality available online. While the Bambu Labs A1 mini is a proprietary affair that includes the heat sink, that's only available from Bambu today.
Will someone make a clone? Who knows, but Bambu certainly hasn't built the trust yet to make me confident that they will. Or will open up the designs when they inevitably chase the next shiny, and drop the A1 mini for... let say the A2 mini, which might have an entirely new hotend assembly.
I wasted my Money years ago on a Flash Forge Adventure 3, a printer which killed itself by breaking it's X-Axis motor wire. I was out of warranty, there was no replacements on their website, and to even access the motherboard, I had to completely disassemble the printer. For $25 dollars more I can get a guarantee that not only my printer will work, but is repairable and will continue to work for years to come. I think I will pay the extra $25. Honestly I spent an extra $300 CAD to get a MK4 over the P1P for this reason alone.