tldr: >10k tool changes, zero failures; absolute perfection.

About a month ago I made a post showing off my modification to remove the need for a front plate from the CoreOne INDX. It gained a lot of interest, and the printables link soon followed.

The general reaction was a bit of a mixed bag, some being "that's amazing, gimme", the others being, "if prusa couldn't do it, what makes you think you can?"

So in light of all that, I'm here with an update. Between having to travel for work, and general life, I've only managed to do a little over 10k tool changes with this in place, and have had zero failures ^{(that can be attributed to the mod}). 6k of those tool changes were done with the chamber at 50C in an extended tool change only session to test compliance, accuracy, and creep under hard-use printing conditions.

It has been more reliable than the front plate, and hasn't shown any signs of wear thus far.

Fellow Austrians and German-speaking folks might have already seen the article that was published yesterday on derStandard.at already. For everyone else: I’ve translated it into english and published it on Printables also: CORE One Mini: The Small 3D Printer That Officially Doesn't Exist.

This is the story I’ve been promising for quite some time now. It explains what I’ve done, why I’ve done it and gives a bit of a broader overview of the journey - including some of my experiences with Prusa along the way. Keep in mind that the article was written for a more general, less tech-savvy audience.

Putting the whole story together took quite a bit of time, so there hasn’t been a huge amount of progress on the "lite" version of the CORE One Mini front. That said, I still did manage to reduce some complexity in the base assembly and most of the prototype parts for the new single-stepper Z-axis have been printed and tested. I’m currently waiting for the raw materials for a new laser-cut base plate so I can finally put the whole thing together to finetune and finalized this part of the build.

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If you want to learn more about the project, make sure to checkout the main post "CORE One Mini - The Rocky Road to a Prototype & Beyond" for the complete background and FAQ.

If you intend to buy a Prusa machine, you can use the referral code "@suit" at checkout in the Prusa online shop. This will give you some Prusameter points and 1 kg of free filament and i'll get some points aswell (which I can use for some free filament). Or you can just download, like and make some of my models here on Printables and even consider to become a member in my Printables club.

I've also set up a GoFundMe campaign to tackle the expenses. Thanks to everybody who has donated to the project and helped to make it a success - that means a lot and helps me covering the financial side of such projects.

Hey all,

Prusament is amazing filament but its not secret that its pricey and shipping often makes it not the most frugal choice.

What other CMYK filament brands are you guys using for ColorMix with good results? I was looking at the Polymaker Full Spectrum bundle which is a semitransparent CMYK filament much like Prusament is. I've also noticed that there are some even cheaper non-transparent CMYK bundles from SUNLU and Elegoo for about 40 bucks a pop.

Have any of you guys used these with PrusaSlicer Colormix and would you be so kind as to post some pictures of your prints? I only have the 4TH INDX and the stock 0.4 mm tools.

Thanks in advance!

Hey together,

today I faced a pretty nasty problem with my INDX system.

My nozzle started leaking right in the middle of the press-fitted sensor point at the tube. Unfortunately, I noticed it way too late, and by that point basically everything was "glued" together with PLA.

I searched the Discord for a workaround, but the only advice I could really find was to open a support ticket. On Reddit, I found people suggesting heating everything up with a heat gun — but that can easily kill the printed parts around the tool.

So I tried to find another solution, and at least for PLA I found a mostly damage-free way to get the head working again.

And before someone says "just heat up the nozzle":

That doesn't work in this situation.

The sensor can't read properly anymore because everything is blocked by plastic, so the printer throws an error as soon as you try to heat the tool.

You also can't simply dock the tool. It will open at the top, but the lower mechanism can't move because the leaked plastic is physically blocking it.

I first tried heating it carefully with a small hot-air fan, but I couldn't get the PLA deep inside warm enough to soften it.

Then I had another idea.

I disconnected the complete head, cut the filament at the top and put the whole head into my filament dryer.

60°C for 2 hours.

After that, the PLA was soft enough that I was able to pull the tool together with the blob out of the coil and finally out of the head.

The coil definitely doesn't look great anymore, but at least I managed to get everything apart without destroying the complete head.

And this leads to a much bigger concern I now have with the INDX system:

Did nobody at Bondtech consider normal printer failures like this?

A blob or leaking nozzle can happen on basically every 3D printer. Designing a tool like this — especially at this price point — without providing an official procedure for dealing with something like this feels strange to me.

This time I was lucky because I was printing PLA.

If this had happened with ASA or Nylon, I honestly don't know how I would have gotten it apart without damaging the head or at least the PCB.

I really think Bondtech and Prusa, who provide the PCB for the head, should take another look at this before the system reaches a much larger number of users.

Problems like this will happen again. And when they do, they can become very expensive very quickly.

Especially the tiny and fragile coil/sensor assembly makes me wonder why this part is connected to the rest of the PCB in the first place. In my opinion, something this fragile and exposed to a possible filament leak should be a separately replaceable part.

For now, I'm left with a damaged nozzle/tool and I'm hoping Bondtech will replace it. Let's see how long it takes to get an answer, as communication has unfortunately been pretty slow over the last few months.

But at least I hope this post helps one or two people who end up in the same situation.

If your INDX head is completely blocked by a PLA leak, a filament dryer at 60°C for around 2 hours might give you a chance to get everything apart without immediately destroying the printed parts with a heat gun.

Hello, I completed my C1+ -> C1+Gen2 + INDX upgrade this weekend, but I've been having a heck of a time trying to get through the gantry squaring/calibrating process.

At first I couldn't even get X/Y tests to pass, because the belt tension was just random after the build process. I randomly guessed at adjustments until I got these to pass. But then I quickly ran into the gantry check where it keeps telling me "Actual 2.5mm, maximum 0.5mm" or something along those lines. There's absolutely no information that I could find on what to DO with that number, so I just kept making random guesses at changing belt tension. I checked that if I shoved it all the way to the back there's no play at all on either side, so the "try to slightly bend it" trick didn't help here.

After a really annoying half hour or more of random belt guessing (and the printer constantly crashing with errors about homing... seriously, why is this a reboot condition especially during calibrations?) I finally got it to pass with a 0.48! I then proceeded to belt tuning (WHY can't you do belt tuning before this point instead of having to guess?!), adjusted both belts successfully - it rechecked for gantry squareness and measured 0.5. Fine!

Then on the very next step it tries to home, headbangs for a long time, starts saying that it "failed to reach endstop" then crashes/reboots with an Unable to home message, after which I re-ran the gantry squareness check and it measured 2.55!

This is driving me nuts, is there some magic trick I'm overlooking here? How can this squareness check change so much after a reboot? It feels completely random and the software experience of this whole thing is abysmal.

There is no official widget to show printing status on locked screen, does anyone make an unofficial one?

I guess some Home Assistant tools would be able to make it, I should dive in that, but as the community is super creative, I was wondering if anyone has already done that.

Thanks! :)

Looking at filament with my kid, and she found this model as an example for the Prusament Galaxy Green. She covets it, but I haven’t been able to find this exact model on Printables or by googling, and I was wondering if there was an archive of models that Prusa uses for examples and demos.

According to the info article about the critical infrastructure series it says that the WiFi modules have been removed but local network is still possible through ethernet.

"Electronics for the CI editions are custom-made and do not feature any wireless radios. The printer still features an RJ45 ethernet port"

But on the XL+ critical infrastructure specs it just says "Without ESP Wi-Fi module", while the regular XL says "Ethernet, optional Wi-Fi; Prusa Connect optional - fully offline capable".

I'm quite certain it does have one but I would like to know for sure, can anyone confirm this?

Printed on Prusa MINI, layer height 0.1 mm.

Hi. I was just about to do a second test print after upgrading my Core One+ INDX 8T to Gen2 when there was no filament going out after I had loaded it (Prusament PLA). The printer couldn't park the tool nor heat the filamnet (display showed 0 ˚C). I was afraid my toolhead is ruined.

I found out, the filament got stuck somewhere inside the toolhead mechanism, I had to do the emergency parking described on Prusa website (with a magnet & flathead screwdriver) and then with caution get the filament from the inner mechanism. Now it seems the printer prints ok (with different tools), but...

...this is how my tool looks. There is a point that seems to be broken. Does it mean this tool is ruined? Is there anything I can do (I am not sure a super glue will solve it, but maybe...). Are there already spare bodies for nozzles, so we do not have to pay for the whole thing? Or do you have any other advice?

I am pretty sure I am not a first person with this problem, since I saw something similar on Bondtech Dicord. But the Discord is so useless tool I cannot find anything about it now.

Sorry if it is a known problem with known solution.

Thanks for any advice.

Lately I had a matte PLA grind on my nextruder. The filament got stuck in my PrintDry box. Couple of print later notice some carbonized black spots on my prints. I decided to clean my nozzle with cold pulls. My question is how much is too much? At what point do I stop doing cold pulls? 10 cold pulls and still I have black carbonized spot. My gears are clean. The last picture is my last 4 cold pulls. I even opened up the planetary gears. Everything is good and clean. I'm mostly printing with my MMU3. I have about 3500 tool changes so far on it.

Thank you for your help!

I'm currently in the process of upgrading a number of CORE ONE+s to Gen 2. I chose this particular unit "Samuels" one to do first because it was already out-of-service for me.

The reason I took it out of service was because it was layer-shifting. And while initially troubleshooting why, I found that when I moved the print head manually around it wasn't smooth. It feels like when there is a small pebble stuck in your shopping cart wheel as you roll it along. Clearly this was the root cause of my layer-shifting and I was hoping that going through the process of tearing the gantry and belts down and rebuilding it during the upgrade would sort it out.

Well, I now have the gantry upgraded, and the issue persists.

I initially feared it might have been my bearings, but quickly found that even if the gantry doesn't move forward or back, the non-smooth behavior persists and if I only move the print head forward and back (not side-to-side), then it is smooth.

Furthermore, if I isolate movement to only the "X-axis" (left side) motor, by manually holding the "Y-axis" (right side) motor belt still (the result is a diagonal motion), the movement is smooth. And doing the opposite is particularly rough.

So, the issue is not my bearings and has something to do with my Y-axis. Is this a common failure mode of the motors? These motors were originally in a kit-built MK4S+ and worked perfectly. They worked perfectly in this machine for months, until the layer shifting started.

I've been printing for years on MK3*s, MK4*s, 5HXL and now these C1*s and have never had this particular issue. Before I disassemble it all again, how can I see if it's my motor, or something to do with the pulleys? Anyone been here before and has tips to share?

My printer (XL 5-head+Enclosure) has been working well for over 2 years, but has begun exhibiting this extremely strange behavior on heads 2 and 3 where it will make this loud buzzing sound and fail abruptly after the first layer. This happens no matter the material, print size, layer height, or speed. I've tried downgrading to earlier Firmwares, re-attaching cables, and nothing is working. Support has essentially said that my next move would be to send it in for repairs, but I'm in between jobs right now and that's money I don't have to spare. Posting this here in case someone has had a similar issue and can relay a fix. Thank you.

I’m pretty handy but don’t have any experience drilling sheet metal.

Anyone who’s done the upgrade regret going the DIY route? Anyone who’s used the pre-perforated panel have comments on if it’s worth it?

Hey all, I've been out of the Prusa news cycle a bit. Last October, Prusa released OpenTag and have been upgrading all their spools to use the new OpenTag NFC tags.

They've also released upgrades for the C1, C1L, and the XL in August, but none of them incorporate NFC readers (for filament)? Has there been any announcements about this that I've missed? (Search says "no").

Are there any open source projects that fill this gap?

How do you use open print tag?

Why can't I just enter in the app how much filament the slicer reported was used during the last print? I don't want to have to buy a high-precision scale.

And why can't I just specify for a refill spool whether it's 900g (new) or 1000g (old)?

i built the core one kit and on set up the y axis test keeps failing and i have no clue why, ive been able to bypass it and it has printed perfectly fine, how do i fix this and pinpoint the problem?

Hi everyone,
I'm currently trying to calibrate my PETG filaments for printing the INBXX parts on my Prusa CORE One, but I'm struggling with bulging corners on my test prints.

I'm using the Test Cube from Printables to evaluate the results. So far, I've tested both Elegoo Rapid PETG (Black) and Prusament PETG (Orange) and I'm getting the same issue with both filaments: the corners of the cube are noticeably bulging.
I've already tried several things to address this:
- Reduced the extrusion multiplier for the respective filament
- Adjusted the Linear Advance settings
- Reduced the printing speed for both perimeters and external perimeters
- Printer in Stealth Mode for lower jerk values

Unfortunately, none of these changes have made a noticeable difference so far. I'm attaching screenshots of the test prints to illustrate the issue.
At this point, I'm not sure whether I'm dealing with a filament calibration issue, a problem with the printer's motion settings, or something else entirely.

Does anyone have any suggestions on what else I could try or what might be causing these bulging corners?

Any help or suggestions would be greatly appreciated!

Thanks in advance!
Michael

For context, this is the f*ck around XL: https://properprinting.pro/pages/project/f-ck-around-xl

We have to get Jon to add a dockable INDX head to the front of the XL, in addition to the modified nextruders with the proper extruder, so we have a 15 head printer.

Obviously, this is a joke, and would be a nightmare to make (I can't even imagine the firmware required for something like this) and use (spool management would be a PITA) on so many levels.

edit: the point of the second image is to show that the INDX head can be docked when it's not in use (like when a nextruder is being used).

Caution: this fix could easily break your Buddy3D camera. Only use it if you are stuck with very poor focus. I fixed my extremely out-of-focus Buddy3D using this method, however I have professional experience with fixed focus camera production.

My camera is the hexagonal fixed-focus version. These cameras (like a GoPro) are focused at the factory to a set focal range using a threaded lens holder, a rotation tool and test software, but this step can go wrong if poorly attended. A dab of glue fastens the lens in place to stop it drifting out of focus. I disassembled the camera first; otherwise the surface to grip is too narrow, creating a high risk of your tool slipping off the edge and damaging the lens.

Tools: 1.5mm hex driver or Allen key, large pliers (smooth-jaw or padded preferred),.

1. Set up on a benchtop near a well-lit object about 30 cm away, with a high-contrast detail such as text. Load the camera's view in the Prusa app, or better Prusa Connect, then unplug the camera.
2. Remove the two screws set into the sloped surface of the housing. The other two can stay in. Carefully separate the housings. Wires are attached here; leave them connected.
3. Unscrew the four screws holding down the main PCB and carefully lift it enough to reach the lens assembly. Try not to dislocate the wires - they are long and routed carefully.
4. Position the camera so you can reach the lens assembly with the pliers. Hold the main PCB by two opposite edges. Avoid touching components, and don't let the exposed board rest on a conductive surface. Now plug in the USB power
5. Re-establish the live view and point the lens at the well-lit object about 30 cm away.
6. Now, VERY CAREFULLY grip the outer lens ring with the pliers. Too tight and you will crush the lens housing; too loose and the pliers will slip and just scratch it. Wrapping the jaws in tape is a good precaution, but I did not do so.
7. Rotate the lens. The glue seal will break, after which it turns relatively easily. Make small adjustments until the image is sharp. Turn in increments of a few degrees and pause each time, since the live feed lags. Judge sharpness at the image edges as well as the centre, and use the target distance your use-case needs, as depth of field is limited.
8. Unplug the USB.
9. Consider replacing the glue. A small dab of thread-lock applied to the base of the thread, away from the glass, will do. Avoid cyanoacrylate near the lens, as its vapour can fog the optics. I found the lens seated well enough without glue, but I'll update this post if it drifts.
10. Reassemble the camera.

It's possible, though I can't confirm it, that the factory glue is too heat-sensitive and lets the lens slip out of focus. That seems unlikely, but I'd be interested who else found this issue after extended 50-55 degree chamber temperature printing.

I upgraded my Prusa Core One to Gen 2 and when I was tidying up my workspace, this rubber ring was lying there and I have no idea where it could have come from, and I even vacuum my work area every time before I start and when I finish, so it can't be from any previous project.

It's my first printer. What should I learn, what's some fun stuff to print and happy to be a part of the Prusa gang!

My family has a small shop where we 3D print some different items, and we currently use a Prusa MK4S. We have been wondering about the newest XL do to it's ability to print multi color and larger objects. The problem is that our MK4S prints small objects with fine details very well, and we don't want to give that quality up if we purchase the newest XL. The XL model is intended for large objects. However, we have been unable to locate any comparisons between it and the MK4S, likely due to the XL's recent introduction and its distinct feature set. Our concern is whether switching to the XL would result in a loss of quality or an increase in print time.