After 18 months of use, I still love my original Prusa i3 printer. Everything about this machine is reliable and I rarely get a bad print.

So, a year and a half ago I took the plunge and replaced my Sunhokey kit with the real thing from Josef Prusa, the i3 MK3S. After assembling the kit, I have never regretted this decision.

After designing a part in CAD or downloading something from Thingiverse, my workflow is Simplify3D for slicing, saving G-Code on an SD card, and then printing with the Prusa. I used to always print from the computer over USB, but I now find the SD approach better. This leaves my PC completely free for other things. PrusaSlicer works well, but I have gotten used to Simplify3D and prefer its approach to creating supports.

One of my favorite features in my original Prusa i3 printer is the PEI spring steel printing surface. Long gone are all the blue tape, glue stick, and other surface treatments we used to get first layer adhesion. These double-sided sheets work great. Once cooled, your parts just pop off into your hand.

I have settled on PETG filament for all my work. Once in a while, I need to re-run Z-layer calibration, but not often. I find the 3×3 bed levelling sufficient.

Very rarely, when I get a power failure during a print run, the Prusa saves my bacon with its automatic recovery. Changing filament during a print is pretty easy, as well.

My Original Prusa i3 Printer – Great Hobby Workhorse

I am probably a fairly light user, maybe printing one or two projects a week, on average. But some of these prints are large, maybe running for six hours. That’s where the Prusa provides confidence – once started you normally get good completion.

Yes, at CDN $1,000 the Prusa i3 MK3S is not cheap. You can get lots of printers at half the price. But if you want to spend your time actually printing rather than adjusting or troubleshooting your machine, it’s worth the price. By the way, Prusa now sells a MK3S+ model with some improvements.