My Prusa MK4 kit just arrived and I’m looking forward to seeing how assembly differs from the MK3s. I’m not going to have a chance to work on it until Friday though.
Is this still the default go to first build printer for people wanting to get started?
Was it ever? I mean sure, it’s always been seen as a solid choice if you have $1000 to blow on a printer, but I would think the default is to buy a Chinese $100-300 printer. About 4 years ago the Ender 3 was a good choice for a first printer, but since then Creality went up in price and down in quality unfortunately. From what I’ve heard the Sovol SV06 for $250 ought to be the go to first printer for anyone on a budget right now.
All cheap printers tend to have some kind of flaw(s), but most of the time you can fix it by spending a bit of time on tinkering, printing some mod, or buying some upgrade. I think a lot of people getting into 3d printing think tinkering with and upgrading the printer is part of the fun, and don’t have a large budget.
On the other hand, some people have more money than free time and just want to print things. With Prusa you’re also getting unparalleled customer support included in price, and you’re getting a product made in Europe, if that’s something you value.
Creality never made a printer that was worth the materials they were made out out. They just sold so many that there were still lots of people on the better side of QA bell curve.
So jelly!
Been wanting to get into printing for a good while now.
Would this one be good for a starter?
No neutral packaging? Almost looks like they want to get their printers snatched from porches…
Anyway, congrats on your new workhorse ^^A few years ago they started to wrap them in black plastic to slow thefts. And they found it lead to them getting mistreated by shipping companies a lot more - and fewer working printers were ultimately making it to people.
I’ve seen speculation in the 3d printer community that when people see a foreign origin package that just squeaked under the import duty cost and wrapped in black they assume it’s something for some rich jerk and may treat the package accordingly. But when they see it’s a tool frequently used for regular folks to set up a side hustle, they’re nicer to it.
