I think the pros/cons come down to what you need a printer for. If you print mostly flat things, a bedslinger is fine. If you print large parts with sketchy bed attachments like I often do, a coreXY makes a lot more sense. You have no idea the amount of filament I wasted on giant brims and rafts to keep parts from flying off the sheet - not to mention the time it takes to print them.
And then of course, the Prusa XL in particular can be outfitted with up to 5 separate extruders. It has nothing to do with coreXY but it was a big part of why we bought it.
On the one hand, it pushes toolchangers to the mainstream. On the other hand, it is utterly unreliable for it’s price.
Paying $5k for a printer and then finding out that the printed parts they used deform causing repairs, the heatbed title issues and some more and this is already after a massive delay (launched a few years later than they initially “announced”).
The previous goat of toolchangers was the E3D toolchanger. While not perfect it at least had the build quality to match its price point (btw. lower cost than the Prusa XL) and if you fix one minor design oversight they are reliable.
So far our (new) machine is performing well. We’ll see how it fares in the long run. That’s one of the advantages of having my company purchase it: it’s getting a beating for work purposes, so I can test it properly before buying one for myself 🙂
I think the pros/cons come down to what you need a printer for. If you print mostly flat things, a bedslinger is fine. If you print large parts with sketchy bed attachments like I often do, a coreXY makes a lot more sense. You have no idea the amount of filament I wasted on giant brims and rafts to keep parts from flying off the sheet - not to mention the time it takes to print them.
And then of course, the Prusa XL in particular can be outfitted with up to 5 separate extruders. It has nothing to do with coreXY but it was a big part of why we bought it.
Prusa XL is a difficult machine.
On the one hand, it pushes toolchangers to the mainstream. On the other hand, it is utterly unreliable for it’s price.
Paying $5k for a printer and then finding out that the printed parts they used deform causing repairs, the heatbed title issues and some more and this is already after a massive delay (launched a few years later than they initially “announced”).
The previous goat of toolchangers was the E3D toolchanger. While not perfect it at least had the build quality to match its price point (btw. lower cost than the Prusa XL) and if you fix one minor design oversight they are reliable.
So far our (new) machine is performing well. We’ll see how it fares in the long run. That’s one of the advantages of having my company purchase it: it’s getting a beating for work purposes, so I can test it properly before buying one for myself 🙂
for me it is the other way around:
private: Play & mess around. Gathering knowledge/expertise. Modifying/experimenting on a production machine is just not possible.
company/business: Use the knowledge to source (or modify it into) a reliable solution. After all, you are paid to produce good outcomes/results.