Comment by dismalaf | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dismalaf | Hacker News Reader

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As someone with both an Insta360 camera and a Bambu printer, I feel it, would love to buy GoPro and Prusa, but the value just isn't there.

For one, I had a GoPro whose sensor broke after about 20 minutes of recorded. I ended up getting 3 different replacements, all of which also broke. In the end I just forgot about it when my home burnt down in a wildfire. I got an Insta360 with better picture quality that's also been more reliable for a similar cost.

And I would have loved to buy a Prusa printer but I got a Bambu P1S combo for $600, an equivalent Prusa plus the $300 shipping to Canada would have been ~$2500 CAD. For making trinkets for my 3 year old son plus the few random other things I'd make it's not worth it to pay 4x the money.

Maybe it'll forever be this way due to the differences in cost of living but I do feel as though there's a million barriers to entry to building a business in North America, at least a business that's not fully online.

Unless Canadian prices are much much higher than US, the only Prusa that costs that much is a Core One L or a Prusa XL.

Neither one of those are equivalent to a P1S. They’re 2 tiers above it. Equivalent Bambu printers sell for about the same price.

I have printers from both companies. There are tradeoffs for each, but Prusa isn’t 4x more for an equivalent printer.

Core One+ is $1899 CAD, the MMU3 for the Core One+ is $579 CAD and shipping was quoted over $300 since they ship from Europe and not the US to Canada. Just put these into their shopping cart on their site, right now quoting $2887 (including shipping and duties).

I did get a particularly good deal on the P1S combo apparently, the price on their website already higher than what I paid and it's significantly less in Canada than the US with exchange rate. Are they exactly equivalent, dunno, but both are the cheapest Core XY models with enclosure + colour changer that either sell.

Prusa is also cheaper in the US and EU than Canada.

FWIW you can get a kit Core One+ for $999 USD in the US. I actually prefer to get the machine as a kit as assembly helps with understanding the workings of the machine for maintenance.

They’re not remotely equivalent though. That’s like saying that a raspberry pi and 16” monitor are equivalent to a MacBook Pro because that’s the cheapest 16” monitor Apple sells.

Okay so explain the difference to a normal consumer because I'm printing toys for my kid...

Both are enclosed and both do 4 colors in a variety of materials. Both are the cheapest version of that that each company offers.

IMO it's more like comparing a Honda to a Mercedes. I'm sure the Mercedes is better but a Honda gets you places all the same.

It’s more like comparing a Honda to an F-350.

If all you want to do is drive the kids to school, you want the Honda, but that doesn’t make the 2 products equivalent.

But if all you’re doing is printing toys for the kids an A1 mini would have been less than half the price of the P1S. The enclosure is mostly a waste if you’re only printing PLA. You’re going to end up venting anyway. Core XY is a little faster than a bedslinger, but if you’re doing a lot of multi color prints, the material change time will dominate, so you won’t see much practical difference.

> both do a variety of materials.

The p1s does not regulate the chamber temperature, so the variety of materials you can get good results either is much more limited.

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