Comment by herbst
12 hours ago
I am not sure if that is actually the case. Everyone I know with anything else than a bambu still has regular maintenance, constant adjustment and failures. Bambu just works. Sure prusa are cool too, but much more expensive and still more maintenance.
I honestly don't want another maintenance hobby. I just want something that works and doesn't cost an arm and a leg.
In defense of Prusa, I’ve had mine for six years and have done basically zero maintenance. I’ve adjusted temps a few times when switching filament brands, and that’s about it.
You are right to say Prusa is more of a hobbyist machine while Bambu is closer to a consumer appliance. But within the hobbyist spectrum Prusa is more on the light hobby side these days. My first printer was a Printrbot where I was hand-entering G-code to move the nozzle around and level the bed. Prusa is a dream compared to that.
I like Prusa as a company (and the guy), and I like the community around it. The machine is simple, keeps working, parts are available, and you can understand and repair it if you need to.
Prusa make machine tools, IMO.
(I don't understand people who build print farms from Bambu Lab machines at all; I do get using Prusas.)
If I would have read more into it before buying a Bambu I would probably own a prusa too, also I get where you are coming from, my $300 ender was a years long pain with >$800 in upgrades and replacements and barely show worthy prints.
However I've seen so many non technical people having fun with 3d printers at a pure hobby level at this point it's hard to not recommend Bambu in some way.