4mo ago

Prusa MK4s launch (TLDR)

Prusa video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VO2MaQrUcqE

TL;DR For those who don't want to watch 10-minute video:

MK4 to MK4s uprade kit: 109€ + shipping (MK4 customer will receive a voucher (except shipping cost))
Larger cooling fan
Improved cooling duct
high flow nozzle
NFC for app
some parts upgraded from PETG to PC-CF
MK4s still ship without an accelerometer. Prusa claims this isn't needed.
No camera.
No upgrades for the Prusa XL in the near future!!!!

other stuff:

accelerometer board
GPIO board

Personal Opinion:

This should have been the MK4 to begin with and shows once more how blindsided Prusa was. BambuLab put so much pressure on them that they had to publish the MK4 in the state it is.

Regrading the Prusa XL the trouble continues. This launch/printer has been riddled by issues after issue and now the statement that the improved part cooling won't make it to the XL in the near future.... My guess it that they screwed up with the XL and didn't consider large toolheads at the design stage favoring a 5 toolhead design over a 4 head option and now run into the same issue I do with the E3D (it can fit those 6023 fans but not like they mount it on the MK4s). For example, with my E3D tool changer, a tool must fit within a 85mm(w) x 60mm(depth) surface area.

For the technical side?

The larger fan is great as it allows to use fans with decent pressure at the target airflow with a low noise. Those 4020 found on most printers aren't a great choice.

High flow nozzle? Yeah ... nothing groundbreaking or new.

NFC and app? A year ago was prusa connect at best a beta. Maybe a an alpha as I would need to restart the printer twice a day because it froze/crash. The value here depends on if they meanwhile fixed it or it is still a joke.

GPIO board? Depends. Might be held back by the firmware as those things require macros to be useful and Prusa firmware never was build around this idea. Still nice to see them publishing this.

5 comments

NGL, I feel that Prusa has lost their edge.
Yes, they are still the pioneers, and yes, their company still has strong morals and a open-source culture that is lovely for the community.
But- the market has left them behind. XL is a great idea but awfully expensive and maybe not perfectly implemented. MK4's are great-ish, but get their pants beat off in speed and quality by a P1P that's $300 cheaper. I know running manufacturing in countries with functional human rights incurs a significant cost, but unfortunately the fickle "free" market that cares more about getting plastic onto a build plate doesn't take such things into account frequently enough. And that's worrisome for Prusa's future.
- But- the market has left them behind. XL is a great idea but awfully expensive and maybe not perfectly implemented.
  E3D toolchanger launch price in 2019 was 2700 GBP. Adjusted for inflation it is in today's money 3300 GBP (approx. 3900€). A Prusa XL is 3700€. For toolchangers the Prusa price isn't out of the ordinary.
  The issue is the performance/reliability isn't there to back this price point. Having to worry about printed parts bending on a 3.7k€ machine is laughable. Having issues with a heatbed is laughable. Support having trouble resolving these issues/identifying what exactly is broken isn't a great overall picture.
  
  Yeah if I pay 3700€ for a printer, I expect it to work flawlessly out if the box. If I wanted something that just works pretty well, I'd stick with the 250€ printer I have now.

This looks great! I’m super happy with my MK4, and have never had to do anything with it after the initial kit build and re-seating the LCD cable to fix some early screen-blanking issues.
I’ll probably skip this for my own printer since it seems like most (but not all) of the speed up comes from layer height, but $99 is not terrible for anyone who gets value from it. And anyone buying a new printer gets this stuff with no price increase, which is nice and makes the MK4/MK4S even easier to recommend.
I didn’t know how much more dimensionally accurate Prusa’s prints are compared to the competition, but it makes sense now why there are so many calibration models online if that just isn’t the way every printer works. I’ve designed some parts that need an 0.1mm first layer because I’ve never had any failures with that, but I guess if I share the STLs other people might have trouble.
- I would still buy the fan upgrade (as a replacement part) and maybe the high-flow nozzle (keeping compatibility with premade profiles).