I have been thinking of getting a mmu as well, would you say the benefit is worth the hassle? My Prusa works quite well as it is.
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I agree, I had a Cetus and it worked well with a minimum of tinkering. I think it was great for someone new to printing. I upgraded to a prusa for a larger print volume and to use different filaments.
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I tend to print more functional parts than artistic, and my original plan was to use a lot of water soluble support filament. The problem with that is the filament needs to be kept super dry, so I wouldn’t be able to probably keep it loaded all of the time. There are fancy enclosures people build for their MMU’s, and I might end up doing that one of these days to solve that humidity problem. If I wanted to get artistic parts, I would probably spend the time priming and painting them, which would ultimately look better.
On artistic stuff, it feels really wasteful to purge the chamber for the most part with the color wipe. I still haven’t tried it, but at least you can do your wiping to a part now in the slicer (presumably as functional part that you don’t care about aesthetics on).
The color wiping sometimes takes a lot more purging than the default settings too. For instance if you look at this:
you can tell the yellow parts still have some green filament in them (the red was just the lousy color of the filament, needs to be darker for sure in this context).
One thing I need to do is also some sort of auto rollback filament spool setup. The filament buffer that comes with the MMU2 kit is kinda a PITA. To actually load filament, your thumb and pointer finger grab the filament and push it towards the MMU2. With the way the buffer works, you can move it about a half an inch at a time, and it’s annoying. This comes back to me needing to build some auto rewind spools (there are lots of designs out there), but you can maybe see what I mean in this picture:
The buffer and spools also take up a lot of real estate on your table and you lose a lot of mobility in general with your printer. Transporting it safely mostly requires loosening screws and removing tubes etc. When it was just a MK3, I could seatbelt it in and take it elsewhere 
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The Red PLA+ from Microcenter was a lighter color than I wanted. True Red was darker and I like it much better.
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Thanks for the info, that’s a nice print, btw.
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I agree with this. I was one of the first people to order the original MMU for my MK2 and it’s pretty much made it to where I don’t want to use mine anymore. Would love to get rid of it and buy a MK3s or the new SLA.
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Can I tag along with the question, “what 3D printer would you get if you needed a large format 3d printer? Say something that is at least 11x11”."
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I hear the Artillery Sidewinder X1 is a good 300x300 (11.8in) 3D printer from what I hear, as well as the CR-10 V2 pretty similar
X1 review:
CR10 v2
They both have their issues, so it’s up to you. Luzbot Workhorse is still an option (although they laid off most of their employees recently)
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I have a Prusa MK3S at the recommendation of @HankCowdog and I love it. It’s a workhorse and requires minimal tinkering. Prusa is apparently working on an XL version and that will be my next printer so I can print larger things like helmets in one go when it’s released.
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For more advanced people, I’d highly recommend the Railcore 2, it has the best 3D printing hardware you can get, the kit is pretty involved but the print quality is insane. https://www.filastruder.com/products/railcore-ii-300zl-kit?variant=17989603917895
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Luke, I’m thinking of buying a new 3D printer to replace my now useless XYZ Davinci. (I got it for a song but it has outlived its usefulness.) Would you mind giving me a recommendation to buy a Prusa i3 MK3 kit?
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I don’t know when Prusa will release the XL it might be a year or so, given their long lead times for new printers. There are several large printers available, I’ve made use of my 300mm diameter area on my delta. The larger creality printers can be decent with mods. Large beds either require a machined plate or auto-leveling, they also use more power to heat, and need a more rigid frame.
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Additionally I’d advise against a large bed-slinger like the Prusa. Accelerations are generally limited by the inertia of the axis and rigidity of the printer, but a print bed gains mass as the print continues. In large printers this can limit the speed of the Y axis. I’m sure Prusa will take steps to mitigate this, like larger drivers and motors, but other companies like gCreate sell upsized prusa-style machines and I’ve had issues with skipped steps or driver overheating when trying to speed up prints.
HBot or CoreXY designs won’t have that inertia issue with large prints. I built a Voron but if you’re looking for a kit Id throw in another recommendation for the railcore.
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So far, Im happy with my Creality 10s Pro. It has 300x300x400 build volume. It is also quiet, the fans are the loudest thing on it. Even those can be changed for quieter ones.
Now that may change, I’m looking at it like you would your first car. You would’t buy a brand new Ferrari or McLaren for your first car.
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The Prusa i3 MK3 series still the best option in that price range in my opinion. There are better printers and there are cheaper printers but there’s not a better cheaper printer. The kit is a great way to see exactly how everything works so you know how to fix it if issues come up. I say go for it.
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My first printer is a lightly used Prusa MK2S which I bought in January and have run 8KG of PLA+ through it with no significant issues. Its been awesome and I just ordered a Prusa Mini to be shipped in September.
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Do you guys recommend the pre built version or the diy build yourself kit? Is it hard to do? Special tools needed?
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Technically I THINK it comes with every tool you technically need.
That said, I think it’s worth an investment on some T handle type long allen wrenches.
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If you’ve got limited experience with fixing printers, building or at least assembling your first one will teach you a lot of valuable lessons in where to look for issues later on when your print fails for the 51st dang time.
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