Trouble in Prusa-dise - Core One Honest Review

Summary

Highlights

• Prusa Core 1 - the new factory-encased Core XY printer with a modern twist. 🖨️
• Mixed feelings about open-source: It's sorta open, but also kinda closed. 🤔
• Firmware bugs present a few headaches but promise fixes on the horizon. 🐞
• The Core 1 shines in reliability; think of it as your next workhorse. 🐎
• The market's heating up with Bamboo Labs, but Prusa's not out of the race yet. 🔥

Key Takeaways

• Prusa Core 1 is a modern, factory-enclosed Core XY printer that builds on a decade of design innovations. 🖨️
• Offers a polished user experience but has notable firmware bugs and print quality issues compared to previous models. 🐞
• Prusa strikes a balance between open-source traditions and competitive innovation, though less open than before. 🔧
• The Core 1 is a reliable workhorse, suitable for both beginners and advanced users, although it requires some upgrades for full potential. 🚀
• Despite challenges, Prusa aims to hold its ground in the competitive 3D printing market against players like Bamboo Labs. 🌍

Overview

Chapters

• 00:00 - 00:30: Introduction and Overview The chapter 'Introduction and Overview' discusses the development and significance of the Pruscha Core 1 printer. It highlights how this model represents the culmination of a decade's worth of experience in printer design. The design is described as a modern, fast, reliable, and partially open-source alternative to other market-leading products like Bamboo. The chapter implies a juxtaposition between closed ecosystems and more open, accessible technology available in Pruscha Core 1.
• 00:30 - 01:40: Previous Coverage and Market Context The chapter discusses the context and prior coverage related to a new printer by Pruscha. It references an earlier video entitled 'The Prussa One is dividing the internet,' which highlighted differing opinions about the printer. Some view it as Pruscha's comeback, while others feel it's an inadequate response, especially since Bamboo had been successfully capturing market share from Pruscha for a while. The chapter sets the stage by examining these differing perspectives and the market context.
• 01:40 - 03:00: Prusha's Product Evolution The chapter discusses Prusha's journey in evolving its products. Initially, Prusha struggled to compete in the market, especially with the release of its flagship XL model, which, despite innovative features, was too expensive for the average consumer. Their delay in introducing a reasonably-priced, mid-sized, factory-enclosed Core XY model left them trailing behind. Eventually, Prusha launched the Core 1, marking a departure from their traditional beds. However, this move might have come too late for them to catch up in the competitive market.
• 03:00 - 05:30: Core 1 Features and Design Bamboo released three CoreXY 3D printers while Pruscha released one.
• 05:30 - 10:30: Performance and Printing Tests In this chapter, the reviewer discusses their approach to testing a printer sent to them by Prusa. The reviewer intends to conduct thorough tests to evaluate its performance and capabilities and promises to present an unbiased assessment. They mention receiving the printer along with some promotional items as gifts. This is a change from Prusa's past practice, as they previously relied on organic coverage due to their product's popularity. However, due to significant market changes, Prusa has altered its policy towards sending review units.
• 10:30 - 15:30: Advanced Materials and Features Challenges Chapter Title: Advanced Materials and Features Challenges Summary: This chapter discusses the construction and design features of a 3D printer focusing on its materials and structural components. The core of the printer has an all-steel frame, which contributes to its heavy build. The front and side panels consist of acrylic material, attached using plastic rivets for easy assembly and replacement if necessary. Additionally, the printer is equipped with sunken pockets on the sides, where one houses a spool holder, and the other can be used for storing accessories or spare parts. Extra plastic rivets are provided for maintenance purposes.
• 15:30 - 21:30: Discussion on Open-Source and Company Philosophy The chapter discusses the nuances of assembling a printer, specifically addressing the ease of assembly due to pre-assembled parts. It highlights the need for minimal additional installations such as rubber feet and an LCD bezel. Despite the availability of a touch screen, there is a preference for using a rotary knob, particularly for those with larger fingers. The chapter also compares the motion system components, noting that the Cororaxy Motion system employs a more robust 10 mm smooth rod for the Y-axis compared to the 8 mm rods in earlier models, and discusses changes in the Z-axis rod dimensions.
• 21:30 - 23:30: Conclusion and Final Thoughts The conclusion discusses the advancements in the mechanical design of the latest printer model, particularly focusing on the Z-axis motion system. It highlights the inclusion of three lead screws, a feature not present in previous Prussa printers, even the larger XL model. This development marks a step forward in terms of constraints and stability. Additionally, the chapter notes the continuation of using the Mark 52 heat bed design from previous models, maintaining a consistent build volume comparable to earlier versions. Overall, the changes signify both innovation and tradition within the product line.

Trouble in Prusa-dise - Core One Honest Review Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 We need to talk about this and why it has these. Despite having those, it's the Pruscha Core 1, the long-awaited answer to Bamboo and their first factory enclosed Core XY. It takes what they've learned over a decade of designing printers, builds on it, and packages it into a more modern form factor. A fast, reliable, and open-source alternative to the walled garden of bamboo or the cheap clones of their competitors. Well, it's sort of open source, but also not
• 00:30 - 01:00 really. We'll come back to that. This isn't the first video I've made about this printer, but it's the first since having hands-on time with it. What came before this, as you may recall, was a video titled The Prussa One is dividing the internet. And well, it was dividing the internet. Some say it's Pruscha's comeback, and others say it's too little, too late. After all, Bamboo had been eating Pruscha's pie for quite some time. They'd gone from a fledgling company with an ambitious Kickstarter
• 01:00 - 01:30 campaign to absolutely dominating the market almost overnight. In the meantime, Pruser released their flagship XL, which had some innovative features, but was far outside the price range of most consumers. They had still yet to release a reasonably priced, moderatelysized, factory-encclosed Core XY. Then came the Core 1. At long last, Pruscha was parting ways with the beds of days past. But given how long it took them to get to that point, it seems like they may have already missed the boat.
• 01:30 - 02:00 Bamboo had released three consumer focused CoreXY 3D printers in the time it took Pruscha to release one. But then in a twist of fate, Bamboo announced a poorly received firmware update, further locking down their printers with the introduction of authorization control. Add to that the price increases on account of US tariffs on China, and it looked to be the perfect storm for Prussa. So, did they capitalize on that opportunity? Well, that's what we're here to find out. And we won't be going easy on them. I'm going to put this
• 02:00 - 02:30 printer through its paces and see what it's capable of. And of course, I'm going to be brutally honest about my findings. So much so that Prussa might regret sending this to me. And they did send this to me for free along with three hats, a mouse pad, and a coffee cup, which as I understand is a notable departure from their previous philosophy on review units. they just didn't need to send them because their machines already got enough coverage organically. But the market has changed dramatically and I guess they've changed their stance
• 02:30 - 03:00 on that. The core one has an all steel frame making it pretty heavy with an acrylic panel for the front door and viewing windows on either side. These are held on by plastic rivets as opposed to screws. These are generally meant to be one-time use, which means they might need to be replaced if they're ever removed during disassembly of the printer for maintenance, but they do send you with plenty of extras. On either side of the printer is a sunken pocket, one that is occupied by a spool holder and the other a blank canvas, a storage area for accessories or spare
• 03:00 - 03:30 parts. The fully assembled version only requires you to install some rubber feet and attach the LCD bezel before you're up and ready to print. This is a touch screen, but you'll probably prefer just to use the rotary knob, especially if you have big fingers. The Cororaxy Motion system uses 10 mm smooth rods for the Y-axis, which are a little bit beefier than the 8 mm rods used for the Y-axis of the Mark IV. In contrast, the smooth rods that guide the motion of the Z-axis have been stepped down to 8 mm
• 03:30 - 04:00 from 10, as on the MarkV, making them equivalent in size to those used on the Mark III. But we've got one additional lead screw for a total of three, making it the most constrained Z-axis motion system implemented on a Prussa printer thus far. Even the XL with its larger bed, only has two lead screws. The Core 1, which inherits the Mark 52 heat bed of generations past, is on the smaller size of the market in terms of build point with the same 250 mm on X as on the Mark III and 4. But we do gain an
• 04:00 - 04:30 extra 10 mm in Y on account of the Core XY kinematics for a total of 220. And in keeping with the old bed, the build plates are interchangeable. The X-axis rides on a linear rail backed by a steel extrusion. The remainder of the gantry is also comprised of steel with 3D printed PCCF parts for the motor and pulley mounts. The print head is the familiar neck extruder. First introduced with the Mark IV and since improved in various ways, the Mark IV neck extruder used PETG printed parts. The Core 1
• 04:30 - 05:00 replaces those with PCCF. In the S upgrade of the MarkV, the cooling fan was switched from a slim one that pivots out of the way to this absolutely chungus one. There was a noticeable performance improvement, but it looked a little awkward. The Core 1 uses the same fan, but relocates it to the back of the tool head with a redesigned shroud, a much cleaner aesthetic. Push claims that overhangs up to 70° are printable, which they demonstrate with this Scandic plate
• 05:00 - 05:30 model. It prints well, but the settings are a little cherrypicked. One of the innovations of the Nexruder was the introduction of new nozzles with an integrated heatbreak in a one piece design. They're similar to Revo nozzles, but not nearly as convenient to change. It's a two-handed operation. To make things a little easier, you can print this fixturing piece to hold the heat block in place. The Core 1 ships with a brass nozzle, which is one of my big gripes up front. This is already a premium price printer. We shouldn't have
• 05:30 - 06:00 to shell out more just to make it work with abrasive materials, which are becoming more and more common. And they're not cheap either. $50 or if you want the high flow version, 65. I think I'll cry if this ever clocks. The direct drive extruder features a custom planetary gearbox generating high torque in a compact footprint. This turns an oversized drive gear which provides above average contact area with the filament. The Mark III with its smaller Bonte drive gears was pretty sensitive to idler tension
• 06:00 - 06:30 particularly when printing flexible filaments. This seems to be a non-issue on an extruder. However, one thing I've noticed from my testing on the XL, which has a similar setup, is that the filament gets slightly compressed against the gear. If a filament like PLA that gets brittle over time with exposure to moisture is left loaded in the extruder, it will occasionally break at this point. The next despite having a variety of fancy sensors like a heatbreak thermostatrrister and a load cell doesn't detect filament movement,
• 06:30 - 07:00 only filament present. If the filament is broken at this point, the printer will be none the wiser. It will just keep printing but not extruding, which is definitely frustrating. Only one more thing worth mentioning here, and that's the tool head breakout board. It's pretty much standard across all printers these days, but there was a time when every wire ran all the way back to the main board, requiring significant disassembly in order to replace components. So, it's nice to have convenient access to these plugs. One thing that isn't convenient is the installation of the optional camera. It
• 07:00 - 07:30 requires partial disassembly of the printer. On top of that, it's a $40 upsell. only takes snapshots, doesn't stream video, and here's the kicker. It's only accessible through the cloudbased Puscha Connect. Wait a minute. I thought this printer was usable in offline only mode without any compromises. You can run the printer in a fullyfledged offline mode. We will never force you to connect the printer to the network. Well, apparently not.
• 07:30 - 08:00 You gave us an Ethernet port. Thank you. More than can be said for some other brands. You gave us a removable Wi-Fi module. Okay, cool. That will be some added peace of mind for those that want the extra security. Why then is the camera feed not accessible through the landbased Prussa link? It's quite apparent that many more resources were dedicated to developing the cloud-based Puscha Connect versus the land-based Prussa Link. Puscha Connect is feature complete and has a nice UI. Puscha Link is still
• 08:00 - 08:30 in beta. I get that Puscha is trying to offer the same cloud conveniences as their competitors, but that shouldn't be done at the expense of one of their primary value propositions, offline printing. But I digress. For better or worse, cloud services are becoming increasingly popular. But do you know how they work? When there's a topic I want to learn more about, I often turn to Skillshare, the largest online learning community for makers, designers, and creatives, and the
• 08:30 - 09:00 sponsor for today's video. Lately, I've been trying to improve my skills in 3D modeling by watching courses on Fusion 360. I particularly like the one by fellow YouTuber Austin Hartley. He teaches from the perspective of 3D printing, accounting for the unique constraints and necessary considerations for this type of design. If you're interested in turning your passion for 3D printing into a side hustle or a full-time gig, Skillshare also has great courses on launching an Etsy store. From creating your first listing to getting your first sale. With thousands of
• 09:00 - 09:30 inspiring classes across design, technology, and business, Skillshare can help you learn new skills or improve on your current ones. The first 500 people to use my link in the description will receive a 1 month free trial of Skillshare. Get started today and take your 3D printing and design skills to the next level. Okay, I think it's about time we got to printing.
• 09:30 - 10:00 The Core 1, like the MarkV and XL before it, uses the nozzle for probing. On one hand, this is convenient because it allows you to print on any surface without manually adjusting the Z offset. On the other hand, it's errorprone because any nozzle ooze will affect the
• 10:00 - 10:30 calibration. I'm of the opinion that a nozzle wiping solution should be a prerequisite for nozzle probing, but alas, the core one doesn't have one, and I did experience a few nozzle cleaning failed errors during my testing, requiring intervention. That said, the first layer was about as close to perfect as we could hope for. And this, friends, is why you shouldn't touch the build plate with your greasy fingers. The first couple of prints were great. A robo alpaca in pushment galaxy silver and a print and place phone stand in
• 10:30 - 11:00 pushment galaxy black. Well-tuned profiles are one of the biggest assets of Prussa printers. If you're coming from bamboo, you've already been spoiled. But there was a time when you'd have to do the tuning manually. Temperature, retraction, flow rate, pressure advance, etc. It could be a real burden. Puscha does it all for you. They've even gone as far as having conditional logic for pressure advance based on nozzle size. I then ran a test to identify vertical fine artifacts. This is where things got interesting.
• 11:00 - 11:30 The Core 1 has 0.9° stepper motors as opposed to the usual 1.8. The finer step resolution yields smoother motion resulting in less motor resonance, the leading cause of VFAS. The severity of VFAS depends on the movement speed and direction. This test can be used to identify the VFA maximizing speeds, so those can be avoided. As long as the profiles are tuned accordingly, we'll be happy. This print using this 0.2 speed profile was VFA free, but it was also
• 11:30 - 12:00 quite matte at those speeds. Glossy prints will show the issues much more clearly. And there they are. Given that these artifacts match the pitch of the belt, 2 mm, these are what I'd call type 2 VFAs. They're not caused by motor resonance, but rather the interaction between the belt and the pulleys. The teeth on the timing belt are thicker and thus harder. The gaps are thinner and thus softer. When driven by the pulley, the hard section bends less and the soft
• 12:00 - 12:30 section bends more. This is the so-called polygon effect which makes the movement non-uniform resulting in this distinct pattern on the surface of your prints. Most printers exhibit this to some extent but they seem worse on the Core 1. From left to right we have the Puscha Core 1, Bamboo X1C, Puscha Mark IV, and Chey Plus4. The Plus4 is the best among them, which matches my findings in my review of that printer.
• 12:30 - 13:00 Although at the time I did a terrible job of explaining why that was the case. The smaller 1.5 millm pitch of those belts reduces the prominence of the polygon effect. Imagine it like a pentagon versus an octagon. More sides, higher resolution, smoother motion. But the rest of these printers have 2 mm pitch belts. So I'm honestly not sure why the Core 1 result is so much worse. On recommendation from Prusa support, I tried retensioning the belts to see if that would help. Using the belt tuning
• 13:00 - 13:30 utility in the Puscha app, I plucked the belts at midspan and adjusted tension until both belts were at 85 Hz. Unfortunately, there was no improvement in print quality. And I'm not alone in this finding. There's a pretty lengthy thread on the forums from users that made similar observations. This reminds me a lot of the layer stacking issue I observed on my early adopter Excel. I came up with the janky solution to fix it, but in the end, it turned out that simply greasing the couplers on the front of each tool would achieve the same effect. Hey, so I have an update on
• 13:30 - 14:00 the VFA situation for the Core 1. In speaking with Prussia support, they initially recommended I double check the belt tension was a nominal 85 Hz, which it was within reason. With the VFA still present, they then recommended I increase the tension all the way up to 105 Hz, 20 Hz above the normal recommended range and outside the range that their belt tuner app can even register. Well, lo and behold, that had a significant impact in reducing VFAS. I don't know that it's necessarily a long-term solution because there may be adverse effects on the motors and other
• 14:00 - 14:30 motion system components from having the belts tensioned so tight, but in the short term, at least we have a solution to get some better looking prints. And Puscha has assured me that they are still investigating the root cause. Moving on from the benchmarks, I printed something practical, a bed full of parts for a project I'm working on. The Puscha Core 1 handled them with ease. This is why Puscha printers have earned a reputation as reliable workhorses. I'm quite confident that this printer could crank out beds full of parts like these on a daily basis over a course of
• 14:30 - 15:00 multiple years with little need for maintenance or intervention. I know this because my 5-year-old Mark II's are still going strong. Check back with me in 5 years and I'll let you know if the Core 1 is too. Print quality was good overall, but I did notice some horizontal banding. And if you look closely, you can see some of the vertical fine artifacts I observed previously. I wanted to directly compare the layer stacking consistency with that of the MarkV. So, I printed a tall cylinder in vase mode. This gives you a good visualization of the max print
• 15:00 - 15:30 height difference between these two printers. Ignore the small layer shifts. Those are just a result of printing a thin tall structure in vase mode. Apart from that, the layer stacking was consistent. There's no banding per se, but there is a characteristic pattern to the layers that is more prominent than on the MarkV. The MarkV being a bedslinger gets unstable towards the top. The Core 1 is consistent throughout. This is one of the inherent benefits of a Core XY motion system. I'm
• 15:30 - 16:00 not sure how to explain the different characteristic of the layers. It could be coming from the Z-axis motion system or the extruder. I'm not sure which. The Core 1 uses the same extruder as on the Mark IV. So, the Z-axis seems more likely. Running the same test on the XL, the layers looked more similar to the Mark IV than the Core 1. I also ran a VFA test and found that the XL print looked better, but not perfect with some evidence of beltinduced VFAS. Next was a TPU test. I first tried the softest
• 16:00 - 16:30 filament I had on hand, 60A on the shore hardness scale. Well, that was a non-starter. I couldn't even get it to feed through the first filament sensor. The Core 1 has two filament sensors, one on the tool head and one where the filament first enters the printer. I then tried a much firmer 98A TPU, which fed in without issue and printed fine. ABS was my next adversary. According to the spec sheet for the Core 1, ABS printing requires the air filtration upgrade. The printer comes stock with two exhaust fans, but there's no filter
• 16:30 - 17:00 medium to capture fumes or particulates. This is another example of what feels like an unnecessary upsell. For the price of this printer, we shouldn't have to pay another $75 just to protect our health. After sending the print and before it started, the printer waited for the chamber to reach a temperature of 40. This took about 10 minutes. It then waited another five or so minutes for the bed to heat soak before probing. These are important steps that a lesser printer would breeze through causing issues. So, this is well done by the
• 17:00 - 17:30 firmware team. The pockets on the side of the printer don't just make for convenient storage. They also help reduce the interior volume, allowing the air to heat quicker. When printing ABS, the maximum chamber temperature is disabled, so the exhaust fans never kick on. In order to retain the most heat, you'll also want to close the ventilation grill on top, which is a manual process. Contrast this with the H2D that has an automatic opening ventilation flap, and this feels a little undergone, but at least we have the ability to vent heat without leaving a door open, which is more than can be
• 17:30 - 18:00 said for most printers. For some reason, instead of displaying the current chamber temperature, the LCD just displays off. The only way to know the current temperature is to navigate deep into the menu system to get the sensor info. You can also view the chamber temperature in the web interface, but only through the cloud-based Pruscha Connect, not through the landbased Puscha Link. You can run the printer in a fullyfledged offline mode. Things were looking good, but I noticed some buildup on the nozzle. I paused the
• 18:00 - 18:30 print in order to clean it. When I resumed, it seemed to lose the Z height, knocking over the supports and digging into the previous layer. Seems like a firmware bug. So, I canceled the print and tried again. This time, the result was great. Sharp details and no warping or layer separation. I did, however, notice that beltinduced VFAS were still present even on this fairly matte filament. Moving on to something a little more engineering grade, I loaded some carbon fiber nylon. Maybe it was just out of spite because this is Bamboo
• 18:30 - 19:00 Lab filament, but I was having some issues with the filament sensor not detecting the filament properly. When I clicked yes to continue the print, then clicked continue to load the filament, the printer tried to load cold without the extruder preheating. Another firmware bug. I swear I told it I was loading nylon, but when I went to send the print job, I got a warning about a filament mismatch. It thought I had PTG loaded. Unfortunately, there was no way to update the filament mapping without unloading and reloading the filament, which is quite inconvenient. So, I just
• 19:00 - 19:30 ignored the error and sent the print anyways. The core one can be upgraded to print multiolor, which is becoming somewhat of a standard feature these days, but there are some caveats. You can retrofit it with the MMU3, but it's not nearly as simple as plugging in an AMS to a bamboo printer. It also significantly increases the footprint of the machine on account of the required filament buffers. On the bright side, it's more efficient than any other AMS type system on account of the fact that it retracts the material all the way out of the melt zone rather than cutting it
• 19:30 - 20:00 off at the top of the heatbreak and purging the rest. If Pruscha can refine their design to make it more compact, as in this concept they teased, it could be a viable alternative to bamboo for efficient multiolor printing. But until then, the Core 1 will be best known as a single color printer. So, all in all, the Core 1 does a nice job of printing most materials. It offers a polished user experience that is easy enough for beginners and versatile enough for advanced users. But the presence of firmware bugs negates from the
• 20:00 - 20:30 experience. And in some ways, I found the print quality to be worse than the Mark IV. But perhaps the biggest asset isn't what this printer is, it's what it's not, a walled garden. But it isn't a wide openen field either. And I believe that fact might be lost on a lot of people. Prussa printers used to be entirely open source hardware, software, and firmware. Nowadays, it's mainly just software and firmware that's available to the public with hardware access being limited. They used to release step files for the printed parts. Now they just
• 20:30 - 21:00 release STLs. They used to use open- source electronics. Now that they make their own, they've kept them proprietary. Custom firmware used to be easy to install. Now you need to physically modify the control board in order to allow it. At one point, this would even void your warranty, but they've since changed their stance on that. But hey, I get it. I really do. I can only imagine how demoralizing it must be to see your R&D efforts taken advantage of by your competitors with zero compensation. This business model might have been viable in the early days
• 21:00 - 21:30 of the RepRap movement, but it's not now, and Pruscha has acknowledged that. But in spite of that, they're doing what they can to remain open without handing their designs to their competitors on a silver platter. Case in point, the swing arm. A much more convenient solution to cable management than the traditional cable chain. But as necessary as it may seem to protect their innovations in this increasingly competitive landscape, doing so changes the dynamics of the company and its position in the market. For many, the open- source nature of
• 21:30 - 22:00 Pruce's products is what makes them worth spending the extra money on. You feel like you're helping fund the efforts that are pushing the industry forward rather than simply lining the pockets of a greedy corporation. This goodwill affords them some leeway. When a shipping date slips or a firmware update introduces a new bug, but now that their printers aren't fully open source, they shouldn't be afforded the same concessions. And there are concessions. The shipping of the camera and nozzle I ordered took a few weeks, and I encountered a variety of firmware
• 22:00 - 22:30 bugs in my short time of testing. I, like many others, want to see Pruscha succeed, so I hope they take this feedback in stride and use it to make their products better. But I'd love to know what you think about this printer, about Pruscha as a company, and about the trajectory of the 3D printing industry as a whole. Let me know in the comments down below. And if you enjoyed the video, please give it a like and consider subscribing. Thanks for watching. My name's Taylor. This is YK3D. And until next time, happy 3D
• 22:30 - 23:00 printing. Hey, me again. Thanks for making it to the end of the video. I just wanted to say that even though this may have come across as quite a pessimistic review, I'm actually really fond of the Core 1. I find myself holding Prussia to a higher standard because they charge a premium for their products and they've been in the market for a long time. So, when they make some mistakes or their products are a little rough around the edges, I tend to go a little bit harder on them than I would a new brand that's just learning. But all in all, the Core One is honestly a really great printer. And I know it'll
• 23:00 - 23:30 evolve over time and they'll iron out some of those bugs and it'll be a workhorse for a lot of people. So, I just wanted to clarify that I'm not completely ragging on Pruscha in the Core 1. I do think it's a good printer. I just think they made some mistakes along the way.