It is hard to believe it has been a year since I bought my Prusa i3 MK3S printer. I have used it a lot. I am completely satisfied with its performance. I would estimate I have burned through about 8 rolls of filament. Along the way, I learned a few tricks – many of them the hard way. Here is the list:
- Completely clean the print bed between prints. This is super important. Everyone seems to have their favorite method, I prefer to use acetone to wipe down the bed. It should be as clean as a surgery room floor.
- Make sure the extruder nozzle area is spotless. When you have a print fail, it is often because the print object did not stick to the bed. Depending on when you discover this, you could have quite a mess on your hands. Before you start a print, make sure the entire areas around the print nozzle is clear of debris. If there are any remnants of melted filament from the previous print, it will surely mess up your current print.
- Invest in better filament. I have used both PLA and PETG filament in my printer with excellent results. As I said in a previous post, I am not a big fan of the Prusa filament. I also had pretty miserable experiences with the Inland brand of filament sold at MicroCenter and on Amazon. It is cheap – so I guess you get what you pay for. I have had excellent success with the 3D-Solutech and HatchBox filaments, and highly recommend them. HatchBox seems to be a favorite among Prusa users. I also bought a roll of pink PLA from TecBears and it worked great.
- Store filament in airtight plastic bags with a desiccant bag. Living in southern California does not put a lot of stress on 3D filament. If you live in an area with high humidity, beware – filament breaks down quickly when it is around moisture.
- Clean everything up after a failed print. You will have prints blow up on you. In many cases this will make quite a mess. Most of my failures occur because the print object is not oriented correctly. One time, I failed to clean up the mess completely, and some hair from the failed print got stuck in the print fan. This caused the thermal sensor in the print head to shut down the printer.
- Keep your printer firmware up to date. I use the Prusa slicer to prepare my prints. The slicer puts a notification file on the SD card that tells the printer there is a new firmware version available for the printer. It only takes a few minutes to upgrade the printer firmware using a laptop coputer.