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I like how they use their own printers to make more printer parts. Operating a farm like that will really put the printer to the test, if there is a problem they will know before it gets to you.
Yet they still have more issues for users than the obvious new kid on the block. They have great support, but they need to give up on this gimmick of 3d printing 3d printers.
@@BeefIngotyou do realize that the idea behind their printers is that anyone can build one, right? They *wanted* to make it so that you only need any 3D printer, some commonly available hobbyist supplies and an electronics+head package and you can build a 3D printer for real cheap. Nobody cares how it looks, what matters is how it performs.
@@amunak_That is a marketing gimmick though, and you can tell via a number of methods. Firstly, they haven't released the hardware sources for their last 2 printers. Secondly, they specifically mention that they design their hardware to be hard to reproduce to stop attempts to clone theri machines, you know, the exact thing that someone building one would do. So really, they sell people on having to do the manufacturing step of assembly themselves where they dont actually learn anything of value, and sell them for a higher price, and take longer to produce the printers and it all only works because people think they're buying into some open source ecosystem, when the reality is far from that.
Well, because their printers look and work like a teenager put them together in a garage with a hammer, I can totally understand why you would think that. Edit - I posted this comment before I got to the part where teenagers were using a hammer to put inserts into the printer ROFL. Right after the part where one was cleaning up the prints with a hobby knife. Not an issue with an injection molded part - just saying.
@@roystevens4333 Are you nuts? Prusa are known thru the 3d printing community to be the most reliabalbe printers AND customer service. Stop being a hater.
He does have a point with injection molding though. A good mold produces little to no post processing. I'm almost surprised that they didn't jump over to it earlier, considering how many MK#s they have sold. Especially since they already had the filament pellets available in-house due to them making their own filament (Prusament) I do however agree that his comment is downright bad in terms on how he puts it.. They are good printers, with great support. @@Tomas970506
@@DarkBraveStuff You are a genius! There is indeed no big flashing sign anywhere proclaiming PAID! Let's just say there was an agreement for exchange of goods, services, and remuneration. 🙄
What I respect most about Prusa is their idea of upgradeability, so that older printers don't become outdated and get thrown out, but can be upgraded to new version.
@@EinfachFredhaftGaming I own a Bambu* lab P1S and I can say the Prusa MK4 has me second guessing my purchase. There is a small ringing that is impossible to get rid of due to a design flaw. I primarily print glossy parts and it is noticeable to me... If any printer needs upgraded, it's my P1S. Also, Prusa has been around a lot longer than Bambu. The idea of reducing their waste resonates with a large audience. I love the idea of upgrading to the newest tech while keeping my original base.
Yes. This and their open source mentality are my main reasons for having quite a few of these. I really hope they will step back from their idea that Bambulabs is the competition: it isn't. It's just a target demographic that was buying Prusa because there was nothing else that would do what they wanted to do. But if a page full of settings scares you then Prusa just isn't for you it is exactly the guts being exposed that allows for them to be endlessly modified and upgraded as well as completely remixed. There is room for both and Bambu can do stuff Prusa can't and vv, no one printer will fit all markets. The problem is that everybody wants to grow all the time, Bambu are a bunch of IP thieves and aim to get you into their closed eco system, whereas Prusa is as open as it can be. That's a lot of value and I will never ever send a red cent to Bambu because open source is what makes Bambu and they are only taking without giving back.
When i pre-ordered my Mk2 at launch, they were in a small basement. it's amazing how for they've come. Josef still tries to be very generous with his time, but he's now a very busy man. back in the day he'd be doing the entire walkthrough. he used to be available online and chat on Reddit and Twitter back in the day offering help. My mk2 is now an mk2.5 and still prints almost daily alongside my mk3. love these machines.
I am not much in the video so others can shine. And on top of that I was a little bit under the weather after the Formnext, so in the few bits I am in, I look half dead 😵💫
@@thejosefprusa Very cool to see you in the comments, hope you feel better soon! I was in Prague a few months ago, and between now and then I built an MK4 for my company. First time I've ever built a 3D printer, and I pretty much screamed when it started up, passed the self test, and printed out a perfect part on the first go. I wish I had built it _before_ going to Prague as the factory would have been a top destination for me. I won't miss it next time :) Thanks for getting me hooked on 3D printers!
@thejosefprusa I still feel incredibly guilty. I met you at one of the big euro camps, this is back when reprap was a big thing and you gave me your contact details and I promised that I would buy one of your kits. And I was stupidly busy with tear down and lost the bloody notebook with your details in. So really, really pleased that you have done so well, but I know that early sales are like yeast "they help to raise the dough". And then I got CFS and I was just too exhausted & fog brained to contribute. So over the moon that you have done all the things you talked about back then. As I said, if one day I get well again enough to use a 3D printer, I promise I will be buying it from you! Seriously huge thanks for everything that you have done for me Anna (not my real name) P.S. You won't remember me but I was reminiscing at you about my first real introduction to larger was buying bottles of amazing Czechoslovakian larger (better than lots of Bravarian & Dutch largers) from Sainsburys and I still have no clue who made it.
My Prusa MK3S+ had over 14000 ( fourteen thousand ) printing hours on its clock and still printing really good ( maintenance was done every 1000 hours of printing ) I gave it to a friend of mine before I moved to another place. Prusa printers are very reliable printers, it is mostly press print and forget. Nobody in the world has technical support for 3D printers like Prusa. Have a great day.
Yes I have still over 10 mk3s+ in farm and they still printing like new after so many printing years and 24/7 printing absolutely best workhorse like you say.
Two of the ones I have here came from a pro-printing farm that wanted to upgrade to 4', they have an absolutely insane amount of hours on them and 100's of kilograms of filament processed each. And they're the most reliable ones of the bunch here, go figure. Absolutely bullet proof and definitely there is some visible wear but they run like the day they were made (and probably better) and like Swiss sewing machines, cycle after cycle after cycle. All of my printers but one are on Revo hot ends and that makes a huge difference. Prusa really should have standardized on those with the MK3S+ rather than to stick to the old model, it really had a good run but Revo is 10x better.
@@AdamDeBeers Yes, and if I could give anybody that is serious about this whole thing one tip then it would be to switch to a Revo hot end, it will save you hours of fiddling and playing around with settings. The integrated hot/cold parts totally eliminate any kind of leakage and wear on the thread, the fact that you can exchange the cold really helps as well and the chances of damaging the wiring are a fraction compared to the standard. The only thing you should really watch when changing out a Revo nozzle is to align the bits properly before attempting to screw in the nozzle, but even that is a breeze compared to exchanging a nozzle on a standard hot end. It's interesting how most people never switch away from the nozzle that their printer shipped with and I've got a bag full here of failed hot ends from people that figured they wanted to change a nozzle without realizing how exposed the wiring is. It's just asking for trouble. With Revo you don't even need tools. Anyway, I don't have any stock in the company but when a new printer rolls in here it gets upgraded (except for that one but that's a long story).
I love these Prusa factory tours. This one is even more detailed than others on UA-cam. The thing that fascinates me is to consider that Josef Prusa started years ago with what was a hobby that no one practiced or knew about, and has been able to turn it into a successful company with hundreds of employees and continually evolving and expanding. Congratulations to Prusa on his success, which is thoroughly deserved.
Just insane. It's seriously insane that one man started this company, and has built it organically (as far as I know) into this behemoth. I hope Prusa will continue innovating to remain competitive with the new players in the industry, because, wow... it's insane what they've built.
Thank you. :) - Just as an idea, and I am sure you have considered it as well, but a tour of a factory producing and assembling (articulated) robots from the likes of KUKA, ABB, Fanuc, etc. would be really cool. Or a tour at one of those companies that make super-large precision CNC mills like DMG Mori.
The parallels between this filament production and the Kodak cellophane film production process that Destin from Smarter Every Day covered is incredible. The dynamic takeup buffers giving them a chance to change material spools are SO similar.
I noticed that too, and for a split second, I was not sure if he or Destin was there, their reaction of being so fascinated, were so similar - and cool! 😄 And btw. even though Kodak is a far cry from what it originally was, Kodak never died completely and never stopped producing film, meaning - one should be careful about believing rumors, and always double check things that "everyone believes". I for one, actually thought that Kodak now only existed as the brand name for really crappy AA batteries. Yes, do not buy Kodak batteries, buy Kodak film! 😄
Thanks Scotty and the entire Prusa team for this in-depth interview! I've been loving my XL for months now, but this practically face-to-face view of (nearly) the entire process and location my own XL went through to come about finalizes the healing process of the XL wait time. I'm childishly anxious to see the next Prusa product to be drooling over, as well as the next Strange Parts video!
I am from Mexico and verily when I was assembling my MK4 I nearly starved to death, and to make it worse it was extremely stressful to worry constantly if I made a mistake when the instructions told me to eat a gummy bear and I never could find one.
This shows Prusa in a very positive light, well done for an informative tour, your knowledge of manufacturing shines through and you asked great questions. Props to the ladies and gentlemen that you talked to for speaking amazing English!
Fascinating tour! Everyone at Prusa seems dedicated to making sure their dept. continues to meet and exceed its goals. Perpetual innovation, cost trimming, waste reduction, recycling, and fast and accurate shipping are clearly top priorities in action. The efficiency of every process is commendable. Thank you
Came here to learn about how 3D printers are made and even learned a lot about manufacturing management, logistical optimizations, quality control and circuit board manufacturing, very educational and entertaining video, thank you so much for the insights into Prusa's factory and company
Fantastic tour. I've never seen such an in-depth tour of the Prusa factory - and I've watched several. My purchase of a Prusa Mini last year invigorated my love of 3D printing (after an ANET A8 killed it) and I'm now looking forward to the delivery of my MK4 + MMU3 order. It makes a difference where you spend your money, and I'm happy to spend it with Prusa. Thanks again!
The philosophy of Prusa is really cool, I want a MK4 or an XL someday but truth be told my MK3S+ still does everything I need with incredible reliability.
I felt the same way. My MK3S+ works perfectly and I loved it so much I sprung for an MK4. I was originally going to sell my MK3S+ to pay for the MK4 but I’m glad I didn’t cause they sent me a lemon MK4 machine and will not provide me any support an an exchange. I can take prints that work perfectly on the MK3S+, re-slice them on the MK4 and for a whole handful of reasons the print will fail, support says I just don’t know how to print. I say MK3S+ worked fine so I’d say I do. They say, printers fine, you’re the problem. So now I have a worthless MK4, and Prusa has told me to kick rocks. I love my MK3S+ but I’ll never do business with Prusa again.
@@mrkthmn I have heard this numerous times and it really has put me off to ever considering owning a prusa printer. There are much better machines out there for less money these days anyways. Lots of people shout about how good their customer service is, but many others have experienced the exact opposite.
I can't wait for my new MK4 arrives tomorrow. I can't wait to put it together. I love how easy they are to put together and it makes servicing them, not a problem. I love my MK3S and it has been flawless for years. My next one will be the XL.
I love that one of the modules in the automated farm system was labeled “Paella”. Very interesting video. Very impressive operation. My mk3s+ kit I built years ago still makes the best quality prints compared to my Bambu labs, sovol and Voron printers. Also, shout out to Joe for all his efforts to keep 3d printing open source and employ all those local people
Raw bits are called nurdles ♡ p.s. I worked at a plastic extrusion plant as an op assist for over 2 years and this just helped me understand the whole line production.
This was an excellent video. Prusa should be congratulated for providing access to their factory for this detailed video. For people interested in process/manufacturing/vertical integration this is a great video. All of the interesting manufacturing processes for a variety of technologies are here. What is remarkable is that Prusa uses their own machines to make many of the parts of the same machines tonsell to the public. Very impressive and a statement of confidence in their own products.
It is very likely their warehouse picking device. Scanner in her right hand and small screen (think as a watch) to confirm the picklist, integrated with the ERP.
I just got a Prusa XL to go with my Mini. It's great to see where it came from. I love how much of the manufacturing they do themselves. I wish American companies were like that.
Yet another incredible presentation and positive insight into a manufacturer and business. I don't own a 3d printer, but if I were to purchase one, I'd know where to best spend my money. A fantastic factory layout with some truly remarkable staff. I definitely think that Haribo are a globally recognised token of customer appreciation and gesture that any country would be familiar with
While its cool, do realize that they really arent price or feature competitive right now unless you really really value open source, and even then, they havent actually released the hardware source for their last 2 printers, so they arent really all that hot on that either. Quite frankly, you'd 100% be better off buying a Bambulab printer right now. Much better value, and they are still in that young company phase of making tons of new innovations. They also produce using modern mass manufacturing techniques which is why they can get you a much better printer for the price. Honestly its to the point where the only reasons not to get one are made up stories or ... not needing a printer? I mean you could also really value open source, which is totally fair, but then I still wouldn't recommend a Prusa, Id recommend a Voron.
I love Prusa. It’s a great company and it helped so much the 3d printing community. It’s sad to see Bambu taking so much share of their market but hopefully Prusa will comeback with a conpetitive printer
That last secret winding….they do have a video, older, that showed that part. I believe it’s one of their videos. But I just wanted to say, as someone who absolutely loves prusament, prusament is by far and will always be in my opinion as the #1 top filament in the world! First, the winding is literally perfect. Now when I say perfect, I mean absolutely perfect. It’s so well wound and tight on the roll, that if I was to let go, it would never kink up or get twisted. It’s amazing! Then quality, the tolerance is always spot on and every single roll is measured with data stored online and viewable by QR code for every roll. The quality of the material is fantastic. The texture and color is always the same. You never have to worry about color being off. It’s always 100% on point. When I first bought my mk3s+ I had bought about every pla color of prusament they had in stock. I wish I had more prusament to be honest, but what I do have has lasted and been incredible to work with. Printing with prusament just looks amazing. Never an issue, no clogs, and easy to work with. It just works. The beauty of the colors they chose to make, the textures with some beautiful effects like the galaxy rolls, just give the final prints a beautifully stunning look. If anyone here has never owned or printed with prusament, I highly suggest you get your hands on some. You won’t be disappointed. It’s the best filament you’ll ever use! I’m not just saying that, I truly mean it. Having seen and used many different filament brands in the past, prusament stands high above all filament brands in every category. Prusa is a company that not only stands by their products, but pour their heart and souls into everything the do and make. They are passionate about 3D printing. And it shows. Thanks for being #1!
Probably a large production line with machines feeding machines, they opted for investing their investors money into tool and dies to produce the components quickly and cheaply.
Unlikely to happen, from a public interview with the CEO, he mentioned is a subcontracted chinese factory separated from the main company. They build patented machines, so unlike prusa, so I believe they do NOT want their production to be visible.
I love that you can show us that prusa really cares about the entire process. It's so amazing to see how far they have come. It was just a few years ago when this was just a niche thing, and people hated on 3d home printing.
Never owned a prusa but always seen them as good quality stuff. I remember seeing a very similar video of their setup and it’s amazing to see how they have grown. A bunch of dooers and problem solvers, love it. Great video thanks for sharing.
3d printing is amazing but it does take knowledge and skill. I have done prints that take 2 days but my friend who has been doing it years does it in half the time and better quaility...its like everything you need to learn and gain knowledge from others. Thanks Prusa for really kickstarting 3d printing at home
I have a prusa MK4. Saw a reddit post about this. Really interesting to see how my printer was made and the attention to detail the prusa team puts in to each individual part and printer.
Watching this makes me think of how far we have come from the makerbot. The fact that they are developing products and solutions that they also use themselves is an incredibly smart business model and way to develop new products.
I wish Prusa would sell the kits without the printed parts. If I’ve got a printer at home that’s dialed in, I’d like to print my machine in my own colors.
Yeah, when I bought my MINI+ I printed all the parts (+ upgrades) myself on a MK3 that we had at work. So I agree it would be good to have an option if you want the original parts or not - its a waste of money, material and also their much precious time at this point...
I worked at an industrial brush company when I was a young man. The machine I worked on made plastic brush bristles for street sweepers, and the process was very similar to how the filament is made here. A box of polymer pellets on the end with a vacuum. Then an extruder, into a bath to cool down, and then rather than being put on a spool, they were cut to length.
This. Is. A. Great. Video. I stayed away from 3D printers and paid attention to my friends using them over the years. Now I was planning to jump in based on their lessons learned, then Scotty drops this video. Thank you and very well produced video by the way.
6:15 I also did a tour this summer and I think they did not show the spool winding because they are doing it semi manually. While I was there in the summer it was fully manual but they told us that they were working on a system where it would only be partially manual.
This didn't make the cut because of time, but it's really cool! It's a measurement device to see how many movements she's making, to make sure it's not too many that will cause repetitive stress injuries. I just happened to be there when the people from the health and safety department in the government were there doing measurements (they just do it once per job position).
@@StrangePartsThat’s almost a awesome and interesting as the X-ray machine but for sure more interesting that the packaging section. Please release an “extras” video to that will have all the cut content. It’s a shame not to share such interesting and worker oriented workplace innovation. (We all know you want to. Why else did you put those “teaser shots” in there?) 😋😉
Fantastic view into Prusa! My 4 year old son can't get over the amount of printers in this video. Appreciate the walk-through! We love the utility of our MK3S+! Always printing a "bracket" lmao.
I love the spirit of Prusa as a company. I got an MK3S since some years working really well, but now I am tempted for a faster machine. I would definetly prefer Prusa over the other Chinese manufacturers. Keep up the positive spirit Prusa, keep up giving back, this is the whole spirit of the company! Thank you!
Amazing behind the scenes at Prusa! Truly great video - wow! Prusa has grown so much, I had no idea. Still rockin' my MK3S I got before the pandemic. Cheers from Toronto
The goal or philosophy of the original 3D printer the RepRap was to print printers with the printers themselves. Nice to see it actually happening here for real as much as possible. Someday maybe even components, wires, motor parts, can all be 3D printed as RepRap intended.
Great tour and just the right person for this kind of stuff. I always refer back to your iphone days. Great work from everyone taking part in this video.
Its good to see so many young people working at Prusa. Impressive. Production processes and work stations look really cool and different and optimized for what they do.
It's absolutely unbelievable that people are still spending thousands of dollars on these outdated machines while Bambu is a decade ahead in print speed and quality for the same price.
@@eXe09 That statement tells me with certainty that you haven't used both. My employer bought a Prusa for the group. I own a Bambu P1S so know first hand. The only way the Bambu would be better is if it used Cura.
Its crazy to think that those people are testing the printers running firmware with changes that I made. (Support for different nozzle sizes in 1st layer calibration MK3/S)
It was very well ventilated. Prusa was very focused on health and safety of their workers. I even got scolded by Blanca for not holding the hand rail when walking up the stairs in their expedition warehouse area - holding the handrail is required!
Vast majority of parts are PETG which is far more mild... the few temp sensitive ASA parts are all done in enclosures but ventilation in the farm is quite substantial anyway.
Scotty makes GREAT "Factory Tours" because he knows and understands as much, or more, about what he is showing than the "Factory Hosts" and "Guides"! Scotty's "tours" seem to have become his main career now, which is a good thing. He arranges, Produces, Directs and Edits these as a combination of an informative Documentary and an Informercial. Thank you Scotty!
Great content. Thanks. 1:20 Strange that nobody talks about the detrimental effect of those "virgin" pellets on the environment. See how strange he acted when asekd what virgin means. He replied that "it sounds kinda weird" when stated that the virgin pellets are opposite to recyclable. Recyclable 3D printing is most of the time not actually 100% recycled. Virgin plastic pellets are still needed. Those exact pellets have caused great havoc in the past. Such a great environmental disaster happened in South Africa where a container filled with these pellets fell of a ship. It contaminated the surrounding ocean to such an extent that millions of rands had to spent to help mitigate the negative impact. Furthermore, the manufacturing of these pellets cause other environmental concerns. That being said, I myself have a 3D printer and use the cheapset filament I can, which is most of the time not recycled. That makes me a hypocrite, no way around that. My point is, "recycled" doesnt always mean recycled.
5:30 is the same system uses in Kodak film factory, and I guess many other factories operating on rollers. There's a super interesting documentarg by the good old Destin from SmarterEveryDay
The Kardex Remstar machines truly are a wonder when it comes to warehousing. Had them at my old workplace, made searching for things a thing of the past, provided the right product is loaded into the right tray and constantly controlled to ensure correct quantity. Searching for something when it's not where it's supposed to be is no fun.
What i nice tour. The idea to upgrade is what i love. Next level to inject moulding is best choice. Making unicue parts printing is the way to go. I would see next step for printer to feed plastic grains directly to the printer or some external device?
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Love your content man
Just FYI the link to strangeparts on nebula doesnt work, two periods at end of hyperlink.
You were in Prague?? :O
Wooow :o
SO close, wish I could have met you :)
Nice. Saying Hi from Prague
I have worked those pallets of plastic pellets like that they always told you not to but it felt crazy to stick your whole arm in it. lol.
weren't you gonna die from brain cancer? what happened with that?
I like how they use their own printers to make more printer parts. Operating a farm like that will really put the printer to the test, if there is a problem they will know before it gets to you.
Yet they still have more issues for users than the obvious new kid on the block. They have great support, but they need to give up on this gimmick of 3d printing 3d printers.
@@BeefIngot What gimmick?
Their printers are advertised as farm workhorses. They are putting their money where their mouth is.
@@fofopads4450he was probably talking about the xl
@@BeefIngotyou do realize that the idea behind their printers is that anyone can build one, right? They *wanted* to make it so that you only need any 3D printer, some commonly available hobbyist supplies and an electronics+head package and you can build a 3D printer for real cheap.
Nobody cares how it looks, what matters is how it performs.
@@amunak_That is a marketing gimmick though, and you can tell via a number of methods.
Firstly, they haven't released the hardware sources for their last 2 printers.
Secondly, they specifically mention that they design their hardware to be hard to reproduce to stop attempts to clone theri machines, you know, the exact thing that someone building one would do.
So really, they sell people on having to do the manufacturing step of assembly themselves where they dont actually learn anything of value, and sell them for a higher price, and take longer to produce the printers and it all only works because people think they're buying into some open source ecosystem, when the reality is far from that.
I had no idea prusa was so damn big. It's insane to see what I thought was a little 3D printer company with so many advanced machines and employees.
All working very hard!!
Well, because their printers look and work like a teenager put them together in a garage with a hammer, I can totally understand why you would think that. Edit - I posted this comment before I got to the part where teenagers were using a hammer to put inserts into the printer ROFL. Right after the part where one was cleaning up the prints with a hobby knife. Not an issue with an injection molded part - just saying.
@@roystevens4333 Are you nuts? Prusa are known thru the 3d printing community to be the most reliabalbe printers AND customer service. Stop being a hater.
He does have a point with injection molding though.
A good mold produces little to no post processing.
I'm almost surprised that they didn't jump over to it earlier, considering how many MK#s they have sold.
Especially since they already had the filament pellets available in-house due to them making their own filament (Prusament)
I do however agree that his comment is downright bad in terms on how he puts it..
They are good printers, with great support.
@@Tomas970506
@@roystevens4333 They are good enough for thousands of people.
So glad you're making factory videos again! Love these insights into the process. And love what Prusa does for the 3d printing and maker community
SO COOL! I'm glad Prusa invited you to show everyone what it's like!
Correction: "Invited" --> "Paid"
@@shazam6274 Correction: There is no indication of payment, which would be required if this was sponsored, therefore this is "invited" not "paid"
@@DarkBraveStuff From my understanding they paid for their flight tickets only.
@@DarkBraveStuff You are a genius! There is indeed no big flashing sign anywhere proclaiming PAID! Let's just say there was an agreement for exchange of goods, services, and remuneration. 🙄
@@shazam6274 They are legally required to show indication of sponsorship, which I feel as if Strange Parts is smart enough to know.
What I respect most about Prusa is their idea of upgradeability, so that older printers don't become outdated and get thrown out, but can be upgraded to new version.
Or you just buy the bamboo printer which you don't have to upgrade for it to work properly
@@EinfachFredhaftGaming I own a Bambu* lab P1S and I can say the Prusa MK4 has me second guessing my purchase. There is a small ringing that is impossible to get rid of due to a design flaw. I primarily print glossy parts and it is noticeable to me... If any printer needs upgraded, it's my P1S. Also, Prusa has been around a lot longer than Bambu. The idea of reducing their waste resonates with a large audience. I love the idea of upgrading to the newest tech while keeping my original base.
@@Hedge-Tech-95 I'd love more detail on your ringing issue and the design flaw that causes it.
Yes. This and their open source mentality are my main reasons for having quite a few of these. I really hope they will step back from their idea that Bambulabs is the competition: it isn't. It's just a target demographic that was buying Prusa because there was nothing else that would do what they wanted to do. But if a page full of settings scares you then Prusa just isn't for you it is exactly the guts being exposed that allows for them to be endlessly modified and upgraded as well as completely remixed. There is room for both and Bambu can do stuff Prusa can't and vv, no one printer will fit all markets. The problem is that everybody wants to grow all the time, Bambu are a bunch of IP thieves and aim to get you into their closed eco system, whereas Prusa is as open as it can be. That's a lot of value and I will never ever send a red cent to Bambu because open source is what makes Bambu and they are only taking without giving back.
When i pre-ordered my Mk2 at launch, they were in a small basement. it's amazing how for they've come. Josef still tries to be very generous with his time, but he's now a very busy man. back in the day he'd be doing the entire walkthrough. he used to be available online and chat on Reddit and Twitter back in the day offering help. My mk2 is now an mk2.5 and still prints almost daily alongside my mk3. love these machines.
I am not much in the video so others can shine. And on top of that I was a little bit under the weather after the Formnext, so in the few bits I am in, I look half dead 😵💫
@@thejosefprusa Very cool to see you in the comments, hope you feel better soon! I was in Prague a few months ago, and between now and then I built an MK4 for my company. First time I've ever built a 3D printer, and I pretty much screamed when it started up, passed the self test, and printed out a perfect part on the first go. I wish I had built it _before_ going to Prague as the factory would have been a top destination for me. I won't miss it next time :)
Thanks for getting me hooked on 3D printers!
@thejosefprusa I still feel incredibly guilty. I met you at one of the big euro camps, this is back when reprap was a big thing and you gave me your contact details and I promised that I would buy one of your kits. And I was stupidly busy with tear down and lost the bloody notebook with your details in. So really, really pleased that you have done so well, but I know that early sales are like yeast "they help to raise the dough". And then I got CFS and I was just too exhausted & fog brained to contribute.
So over the moon that you have done all the things you talked about back then.
As I said, if one day I get well again enough to use a 3D printer, I promise I will be buying it from you!
Seriously huge thanks for everything that you have done for me
Anna (not my real name)
P.S. You won't remember me but I was reminiscing at you about my first real introduction to larger was buying bottles of amazing Czechoslovakian larger (better than lots of Bravarian & Dutch largers) from Sainsburys and I still have no clue who made it.
Can’t wait to see what Prusa can do once they discover injection molding!
Very interesting video btw!
They are intentionally not using injection molding on many components to be able to update them easily at any point in time.
@@Pixelplanet5 Woooosh
They genuinely could do so much more and be more affordable.
I do believe 3D printing everything is a choice that’s holding them back
@@TrolloTV 3D printing allows them to develop products faster I think.
hi Mattias cool to see you here!!!
My Prusa MK3S+ had over 14000 ( fourteen thousand ) printing hours on its clock and still printing really good ( maintenance was done every 1000 hours of printing ) I gave it to a friend of mine before I moved to another place. Prusa printers are very reliable printers, it is mostly press print and forget. Nobody in the world has technical support for 3D printers like Prusa. Have a great day.
Yes I have still over 10 mk3s+ in farm and they still printing like new after so many printing years and 24/7 printing absolutely best workhorse like you say.
Mine actually started its life at the exact farm you can see in the video. With some simple maintenance its printing perfectly in my living room now.
Two of the ones I have here came from a pro-printing farm that wanted to upgrade to 4', they have an absolutely insane amount of hours on them and 100's of kilograms of filament processed each. And they're the most reliable ones of the bunch here, go figure. Absolutely bullet proof and definitely there is some visible wear but they run like the day they were made (and probably better) and like Swiss sewing machines, cycle after cycle after cycle. All of my printers but one are on Revo hot ends and that makes a huge difference. Prusa really should have standardized on those with the MK3S+ rather than to stick to the old model, it really had a good run but Revo is 10x better.
@@pianojacq Revo is great!
@@AdamDeBeers Yes, and if I could give anybody that is serious about this whole thing one tip then it would be to switch to a Revo hot end, it will save you hours of fiddling and playing around with settings. The integrated hot/cold parts totally eliminate any kind of leakage and wear on the thread, the fact that you can exchange the cold really helps as well and the chances of damaging the wiring are a fraction compared to the standard. The only thing you should really watch when changing out a Revo nozzle is to align the bits properly before attempting to screw in the nozzle, but even that is a breeze compared to exchanging a nozzle on a standard hot end. It's interesting how most people never switch away from the nozzle that their printer shipped with and I've got a bag full here of failed hot ends from people that figured they wanted to change a nozzle without realizing how exposed the wiring is. It's just asking for trouble. With Revo you don't even need tools. Anyway, I don't have any stock in the company but when a new printer rolls in here it gets upgraded (except for that one but that's a long story).
Great to see you're still making videos, love your content! Your videos were part of my inspiration to become an electronics engineer.
I love these Prusa factory tours. This one is even more detailed than others on UA-cam. The thing that fascinates me is to consider that Josef Prusa started years ago with what was a hobby that no one practiced or knew about, and has been able to turn it into a successful company with hundreds of employees and continually evolving and expanding. Congratulations to Prusa on his success, which is thoroughly deserved.
I love Prusa. My first printer was a Prusa. Their whole story is a fun one. They deserve all the praise for everything they did for the industry.
Impressive content from StrangeParts, and an equally impressive factory in the Czech Republic.
Man, this tour was AWESOME!
I learned so much.
Awesome tour!
What a great tour of the entire process Prusa goes through to build their printers and make their filament. Thanks, @StrangeParts!
Just insane. It's seriously insane that one man started this company, and has built it organically (as far as I know) into this behemoth. I hope Prusa will continue innovating to remain competitive with the new players in the industry, because, wow... it's insane what they've built.
Thank you. :) - Just as an idea, and I am sure you have considered it as well, but a tour of a factory producing and assembling (articulated) robots from the likes of KUKA, ABB, Fanuc, etc. would be really cool. Or a tour at one of those companies that make super-large precision CNC mills like DMG Mori.
Miroslav: "It's an stainless steel šablon" :D
he has got a really strong Czech accent:D
@@KoohaEbuyer I like it
I understood him perfectly, because in German it's called Schablone and is pronounced identically.
The parallels between this filament production and the Kodak cellophane film production process that Destin from Smarter Every Day covered is incredible.
The dynamic takeup buffers giving them a chance to change material spools are SO similar.
I noticed that too, and for a split second, I was not sure if he or Destin was there, their reaction of being so fascinated, were so similar - and cool! 😄
And btw. even though Kodak is a far cry from what it originally was, Kodak never died completely and never stopped producing film, meaning - one should be careful about believing rumors, and always double check things that "everyone believes". I for one, actually thought that Kodak now only existed as the brand name for really crappy AA batteries. Yes, do not buy Kodak batteries, buy Kodak film! 😄
Thanks Scotty and the entire Prusa team for this in-depth interview! I've been loving my XL for months now, but this practically face-to-face view of (nearly) the entire process and location my own XL went through to come about finalizes the healing process of the XL wait time. I'm childishly anxious to see the next Prusa product to be drooling over, as well as the next Strange Parts video!
I am from Mexico and verily when I was assembling my MK4 I nearly starved to death, and to make it worse it was extremely stressful to worry constantly if I made a mistake when the instructions told me to eat a gummy bear and I never could find one.
[Note: gummy bears sold separately]
they are not sending haribos to mexico because of some customs or something. mentioned at 28:15
This shows Prusa in a very positive light, well done for an informative tour, your knowledge of manufacturing shines through and you asked great questions. Props to the ladies and gentlemen that you talked to for speaking amazing English!
Josef Prusa has built quite the company. I'm very impressed and like what I see.
Thanks for this, Scotty! All the tours I've seen were from some time ago. They have grown so much!
Also, I was not expecting Thor to show up at 38:00
They use a similar spool buffer when they make photo film. Cool to see it used elsewhere!
I was just going to say, after watching Smarter every day at kodak that whole process was very familiar. cool stuff!
Fascinating tour! Everyone at Prusa seems dedicated to making sure their dept. continues to meet and exceed its goals. Perpetual innovation, cost trimming, waste reduction, recycling, and fast and accurate shipping are clearly top priorities in action. The efficiency of every process is commendable. Thank you
I love your manufacturing videos!! Keep doing it!!
Came here to learn about how 3D printers are made and even learned a lot about manufacturing management, logistical optimizations, quality control and circuit board manufacturing, very educational and entertaining video, thank you so much for the insights into Prusa's factory and company
What a tour. It was done amazingly! I enjoyed it so much and learnt a lot!
Glad you enjoyed it!
Bought a MK4 a few months ago. Really appreciate seeing this tour! Thanks SP!
Great work Scottie. I have very little knowledge of 3D printers, but this very detailed video was a big help to understand how it all comes together.
Fantastic tour. I've never seen such an in-depth tour of the Prusa factory - and I've watched several. My purchase of a Prusa Mini last year invigorated my love of 3D printing (after an ANET A8 killed it) and I'm now looking forward to the delivery of my MK4 + MMU3 order. It makes a difference where you spend your money, and I'm happy to spend it with Prusa. Thanks again!
Look at that awesome, professional, ESD safe SMT assembly facility it's gorgeous and makes something like Adafruit look like amateur hour.
The philosophy of Prusa is really cool, I want a MK4 or an XL someday but truth be told my MK3S+ still does everything I need with incredible reliability.
I felt the same way. My MK3S+ works perfectly and I loved it so much I sprung for an MK4. I was originally going to sell my MK3S+ to pay for the MK4 but I’m glad I didn’t cause they sent me a lemon MK4 machine and will not provide me any support an an exchange. I can take prints that work perfectly on the MK3S+, re-slice them on the MK4 and for a whole handful of reasons the print will fail, support says I just don’t know how to print. I say MK3S+ worked fine so I’d say I do. They say, printers fine, you’re the problem. So now I have a worthless MK4, and Prusa has told me to kick rocks. I love my MK3S+ but I’ll never do business with Prusa again.
@@mrkthmn Did you buy a kit or an assembled?
@@mrkthmn I have heard this numerous times and it really has put me off to ever considering owning a prusa printer. There are much better machines out there for less money these days anyways. Lots of people shout about how good their customer service is, but many others have experienced the exact opposite.
I can't wait for my new MK4 arrives tomorrow. I can't wait to put it together. I love how easy they are to put together and it makes servicing them, not a problem. I love my MK3S and it has been flawless for years. My next one will be the XL.
I love that one of the modules in the automated farm system was labeled “Paella”. Very interesting video. Very impressive operation. My mk3s+ kit I built years ago still makes the best quality prints compared to my Bambu labs, sovol and Voron printers. Also, shout out to Joe for all his efforts to keep 3d printing open source and employ all those local people
This is your best video in many months. Prusa is an amazing company and it was really cool to see their factory.
Raw bits are called nurdles ♡
p.s. I worked at a plastic extrusion plant as an op assist for over 2 years and this just helped me understand the whole line production.
This was an excellent video. Prusa should be congratulated for providing access to their factory for this detailed video. For people interested in process/manufacturing/vertical integration this is a great video. All of the interesting manufacturing processes for a variety of technologies are here. What is remarkable is that Prusa uses their own machines to make many of the parts of the same machines tonsell to the public. Very impressive and a statement of confidence in their own products.
At 26:33 what is that contraption she's wearing? Does Prusa employ cyborgs?!
Yeah that thing looked neat.
Like some sort of data recorder, but it was hooked up to her arms on some pads.
I came to the comments section to find this answer as well, or ask it.
I also spent some time trying to figure this out with no luck.
It is very likely their warehouse picking device. Scanner in her right hand and small screen (think as a watch) to confirm the picklist, integrated with the ERP.
@@AlexEhn Was going to comment the same thing
I just got a Prusa XL to go with my Mini. It's great to see where it came from. I love how much of the manufacturing they do themselves. I wish American companies were like that.
Yet another incredible presentation and positive insight into a manufacturer and business.
I don't own a 3d printer, but if I were to purchase one, I'd know where to best spend my money.
A fantastic factory layout with some truly remarkable staff.
I definitely think that Haribo are a globally recognised token of customer appreciation and gesture that any country would be familiar with
While its cool, do realize that they really arent price or feature competitive right now unless you really really value open source, and even then, they havent actually released the hardware source for their last 2 printers, so they arent really all that hot on that either. Quite frankly, you'd 100% be better off buying a Bambulab printer right now.
Much better value, and they are still in that young company phase of making tons of new innovations. They also produce using modern mass manufacturing techniques which is why they can get you a much better printer for the price.
Honestly its to the point where the only reasons not to get one are made up stories or ... not needing a printer? I mean you could also really value open source, which is totally fair, but then I still wouldn't recommend a Prusa, Id recommend a Voron.
The haribos thing and having the test print be a key chain that’s left on the build plate are cute little details
I love Prusa. It’s a great company and it helped so much the 3d printing community. It’s sad to see Bambu taking so much share of their market but hopefully Prusa will comeback with a conpetitive printer
We need a Prusa CoreXY mini.
I was supposed to buy Prusa, but both Bambu for obvious reasons
Bambu lab is releasing i3 machines, it would be hard for Prusa
That last secret winding….they do have a video, older, that showed that part. I believe it’s one of their videos. But I just wanted to say, as someone who absolutely loves prusament, prusament is by far and will always be in my opinion as the #1 top filament in the world! First, the winding is literally perfect. Now when I say perfect, I mean absolutely perfect. It’s so well wound and tight on the roll, that if I was to let go, it would never kink up or get twisted. It’s amazing! Then quality, the tolerance is always spot on and every single roll is measured with data stored online and viewable by QR code for every roll. The quality of the material is fantastic. The texture and color is always the same. You never have to worry about color being off. It’s always 100% on point. When I first bought my mk3s+ I had bought about every pla color of prusament they had in stock. I wish I had more prusament to be honest, but what I do have has lasted and been incredible to work with. Printing with prusament just looks amazing. Never an issue, no clogs, and easy to work with. It just works. The beauty of the colors they chose to make, the textures with some beautiful effects like the galaxy rolls, just give the final prints a beautifully stunning look. If anyone here has never owned or printed with prusament, I highly suggest you get your hands on some. You won’t be disappointed. It’s the best filament you’ll ever use! I’m not just saying that, I truly mean it. Having seen and used many different filament brands in the past, prusament stands high above all filament brands in every category. Prusa is a company that not only stands by their products, but pour their heart and souls into everything the do and make. They are passionate about 3D printing. And it shows. Thanks for being #1!
Very interesting! Now I would really like to see the bambu lab production in comparison
Same here!
Probably a large production line with machines feeding machines, they opted for investing their investors money into tool and dies to produce the components quickly and cheaply.
Unlikely to happen, from a public interview with the CEO, he mentioned is a subcontracted chinese factory separated from the main company. They build patented machines, so unlike prusa, so I believe they do NOT want their production to be visible.
So happy to see this channel pop in my feed again. Hope all is going well for you and your friends/family, Scotty!
Finally an answer to the old question:
How many 3D printers would a 3D printer print, if a 3D printer could print 3D printers?
Lots!
I love that you can show us that prusa really cares about the entire process. It's so amazing to see how far they have come. It was just a few years ago when this was just a niche thing, and people hated on 3d home printing.
It's a great day when a Strange Parts video drops!
Never owned a prusa but always seen them as good quality stuff. I remember seeing a very similar video of their setup and it’s amazing to see how they have grown. A bunch of dooers and problem solvers, love it. Great video thanks for sharing.
Fabulous info density in this video. Love that its high end manufacturing still in EU. Very cool.
3d printing is amazing but it does take knowledge and skill. I have done prints that take 2 days but my friend who has been doing it years does it in half the time and better quaility...its like everything you need to learn and gain knowledge from others.
Thanks Prusa for really kickstarting 3d printing at home
I have a prusa MK4. Saw a reddit post about this. Really interesting to see how my printer was made and the attention to detail the prusa team puts in to each individual part and printer.
Just watched the video again. Loved it. Such an inspiring company.
I'll be in Prague by the end of the year and can't wait to see their factory again!
Watching this makes me think of how far we have come from the makerbot. The fact that they are developing products and solutions that they also use themselves is an incredibly smart business model and way to develop new products.
Eat your own dog food!
I'm very glad I purchased a MK4, looks like a great workplace and I really like the company philosophy
I wish Prusa would sell the kits without the printed parts. If I’ve got a printer at home that’s dialed in, I’d like to print my machine in my own colors.
Had a mk2 and the parts were really bad looking, had to wait 2 months for delivery... Should have tried injection molding
Yeah, when I bought my MINI+ I printed all the parts (+ upgrades) myself on a MK3 that we had at work. So I agree it would be good to have an option if you want the original parts or not - its a waste of money, material and also their much precious time at this point...
I worked at an industrial brush company when I was a young man. The machine I worked on made plastic brush bristles for street sweepers, and the process was very similar to how the filament is made here. A box of polymer pellets on the end with a vacuum. Then an extruder, into a bath to cool down, and then rather than being put on a spool, they were cut to length.
This. Is. A. Great. Video.
I stayed away from 3D printers and paid attention to my friends using them over the years. Now I was planning to jump in based on their lessons learned, then Scotty drops this video. Thank you and very well produced video by the way.
Argh, I was in Prague last summer and forgot to go to the factory! Thanks for taking us through the tour!
6:15 I also did a tour this summer and I think they did not show the spool winding because they are doing it semi manually. While I was there in the summer it was fully manual but they told us that they were working on a system where it would only be partially manual.
These people have spared no expense. Truly amazing.
When she said "Big Haribos" I wasn't paying attention and had to double-take because it sounded like "Big Hairy Balls" 18:11
I was folding laundry and was like "Wait, WHAT?"
this is the kind of content I subscribed for
26:32 what is she wearing ???
This didn't make the cut because of time, but it's really cool! It's a measurement device to see how many movements she's making, to make sure it's not too many that will cause repetitive stress injuries. I just happened to be there when the people from the health and safety department in the government were there doing measurements (they just do it once per job position).
@@StrangePartsThat’s almost a awesome and interesting as the X-ray machine but for sure more interesting that the packaging section. Please release an “extras” video to that will have all the cut content. It’s a shame not to share such interesting and worker oriented workplace innovation. (We all know you want to. Why else did you put those “teaser shots” in there?) 😋😉
Fantastic view into Prusa! My 4 year old son can't get over the amount of printers in this video. Appreciate the walk-through! We love the utility of our MK3S+! Always printing a "bracket" lmao.
I love the spirit of Prusa as a company. I got an MK3S since some years working really well, but now I am tempted for a faster machine. I would definetly prefer Prusa over the other Chinese manufacturers. Keep up the positive spirit Prusa, keep up giving back, this is the whole spirit of the company! Thank you!
What do the workers carry on their backs and arms?
Amazing behind the scenes at Prusa! Truly great video - wow! Prusa has grown so much, I had no idea. Still rockin' my MK3S I got before the pandemic. Cheers from Toronto
The goal or philosophy of the original 3D printer the RepRap was to print printers with the printers themselves. Nice to see it actually happening here for real as much as possible. Someday maybe even components, wires, motor parts, can all be 3D printed as RepRap intended.
Wow! Thanks for this part, thanks Prusa company for quality and responsibilities what do they do!
Do they 3D print the 3D printers? Because I'd buy one of those 3D printers, and print another 3D printer.
They absolutely do, and you totally can!
RepRap basically is this idea
@@timschulz9563 (You may already know, but) the first Prusa printers were made as part of the RepRap project.
Did you not watch the video? 🤣🤣🤣
Literally saw that they 3D print the 3D printers within the first 5 minutes hahaha.
You could just skip buying a 3d printer and let a 3d printing service print parts for your homemade 3d printer.
Wow, I had no idea how big the operation was. Thanks very much for an amazing tout.
Not a single mention of RepRap, which was responsible for jumpstarting the 3D printing era.
Great tour and just the right person for this kind of stuff. I always refer back to your iphone days. Great work from everyone taking part in this video.
Its good to see so many young people working at Prusa. Impressive.
Production processes and work stations look really cool and different and optimized for what they do.
It's absolutely unbelievable that people are still spending thousands of dollars on these outdated machines while Bambu is a decade ahead in print speed and quality for the same price.
Interesting, the last time I checked Bambula printers were printing at the same speeds and the same quality. Who told you that?
@@eXe09 That statement tells me with certainty that you haven't used both. My employer bought a Prusa for the group. I own a Bambu P1S so know first hand. The only way the Bambu would be better is if it used Cura.
@@eXe09 Royst is correct.
so many smart people in company , its feel like "home" , please take care of your workers
Its crazy to think that those people are testing the printers running firmware with changes that I made. (Support for different nozzle sizes in 1st layer calibration MK3/S)
After watching this video I can appreciate the price of a Prusa printer.
Thanks for the tour!
Those guys at the farm are basically breathing ABS fumes all day
It was very well ventilated. Prusa was very focused on health and safety of their workers. I even got scolded by Blanca for not holding the hand rail when walking up the stairs in their expedition warehouse area - holding the handrail is required!
Pretty sure the parts are PETG rather than ABS. At least, they used to be.
@@stuart_fisher I think you're right. There's some ASA parts as well.
Those are closed off though, in ABS you really just just print the fan shrouds. Nowaydays the also print them with PCCF instead of ASA.@@StrangeParts
Vast majority of parts are PETG which is far more mild... the few temp sensitive ASA parts are all done in enclosures but ventilation in the farm is quite substantial anyway.
I think that the lady did the best out of most of the tour guides on these videos.
Feeling amazed by Prusa's 3D printer factory! Can't believe how they operate. 🤯✨
Your factory videos are always so interesting! Always good to see you upload on UA-cam ❤️
SO GLAD You are BACK Making Video's... LOVE THIS!!! I Hope your Health Issues are doing BETTER!!!
It's good to see you posting a video again, congratulations, excellent content
Scotty makes GREAT "Factory Tours" because he knows and understands as much, or more, about what he is showing than the "Factory Hosts" and "Guides"! Scotty's "tours" seem to have become his main career now, which is a good thing. He arranges, Produces, Directs and Edits these as a combination of an informative Documentary and an Informercial. Thank you Scotty!
Great content. Thanks.
1:20 Strange that nobody talks about the detrimental effect of those "virgin" pellets on the environment. See how strange he acted when asekd what virgin means. He replied that "it sounds kinda weird" when stated that the virgin pellets are opposite to recyclable. Recyclable 3D printing is most of the time not actually 100% recycled. Virgin plastic pellets are still needed. Those exact pellets have caused great havoc in the past. Such a great environmental disaster happened in South Africa where a container filled with these pellets fell of a ship. It contaminated the surrounding ocean to such an extent that millions of rands had to spent to help mitigate the negative impact. Furthermore, the manufacturing of these pellets cause other environmental concerns.
That being said, I myself have a 3D printer and use the cheapset filament I can, which is most of the time not recycled. That makes me a hypocrite, no way around that.
My point is, "recycled" doesnt always mean recycled.
This was very smart for them to do, I'm in the market for a 3d printer and I will definitely be looking at Prusa printers.
I'm so glad you're back doing tours like this! Love when you and gamers nexus give us these amazing behind the scenes looks
Mr. Prusa is such legend in 3D print community!
5:30 is the same system uses in Kodak film factory, and I guess many other factories operating on rollers.
There's a super interesting documentarg by the good old Destin from SmarterEveryDay
Very impressive ! Amazing tour, thank you for your work !
This channel is so cool!Thanks for all the great content!!
The Kardex Remstar machines truly are a wonder when it comes to warehousing. Had them at my old workplace, made searching for things a thing of the past, provided the right product is loaded into the right tray and constantly controlled to ensure correct quantity. Searching for something when it's not where it's supposed to be is no fun.
What i nice tour. The idea to upgrade is what i love. Next level to inject moulding is best choice. Making unicue parts printing is the way to go.
I would see next step for printer to feed plastic grains directly to the printer or some external device?
You are amazing and we are so happy to have you back to good health and so enthusiastically making new content !
Glad to see this channel putting out more of the content it's known for.