Caribou vs Prusa + Bear Exxa Print Quality Test 

Found you while trying to decide whether to buy the Caribou. Thank you for the great review and comparisons and also for the assembly streams! Really helpful!

Never seen your channel, subbed instantly. Awesome production values, thank you for the effort.

Love this content - please keep it coming!

You could get 2 Prusa printers for the price of the exact green one he's showing here, The printer being compared almost evenly to the Prusa aside from a few things is 793.87$ more after shipping. 1,591.54 for Caribou and 797.67 for Prusa, both kits. I live in the U.S btw shipping was about even on both.

Other than likely longevity, the main difference I’d expect to see in the Caribou would be better quality at high print speeds, thanks to its more rigid frame. Indio generally like over-engineered things, though, and as you’ve pointed out, the base Caribou is cost-competitive with the Prusa. The option for larger build height is very nice too, although as another commenter pointed out, that’s the weakest axis. Excellent job with the build videos and this test comparison; you’ve won another new subscriber :-)

I like the various tests. I hope you test other models head to head in the future.

Wondering whether the wear on the Prusa is a factor contributing to dimensional accuracy (i.e. the Prusa is not "factory fresh")

Omg. I was waiting for so long for this review on RU-vid lol.

Good points Thanks for sharing :-)

Are these tests based on a single print run? Can you do it using 3-4 different test prints? Maybe its possible other prints on the Caribou could show reduced drooping

Last year I had quite a bit of on location printing, involving a two hour long car ride each direction. I had a stock MK3S and a Caribou 220 I sourced and built myself (no Misumi parts used). One time the Prusa just couldn't get past the initial mesh bed levelling, until I redid the XYZ calibration on it. The Caribou didn't have that problem. Maybe just luck, but I attribute it to the much more rigid frame. I'll be building an MK3S clone with the Bear frame soon, so I'm curious about how rigid the frame is going to be compared to the two others.

What is the build plate dimensions for both machines?

I made a similar clamp in PLA and it made the same creaking noise when I first assembled it, but after using it a few times it loosened up and no longer makes the noise.

Have you done e-step calibration and made a correct flow calibration? Also 1/3 gearing compared to prusa mk3s extruder makes a huge difference in surface quality.

Ooh, I do like that wire management! That may not be what was intended as a big feature of the Caribou, but it's probably what stood out to me the most from that video! I may have to "borrow" some ideas from that ;) (The Bear X-axis parts are on my upgrade list, too. Especially since the Gates toothed idler I bought from E3D is too wide to fit in the standard MK2 part, so I need to print a new X idler side part anyway. I haven't checked if the Bear version would accommodate it, but I can try to modify it if not...)

I see you have an Artillery in the back. Comparing to the Prusa, what are your opinions? Would you consider going from a Genius (with BLTouch, Y and Z rails and Hemera mods) to an MK3S an upgrade?

Never heard of Caribou. A Canadian brand? 😁 What interests me is how steel rods and rod bearings have given way to v-wheels running in v-grooves of aluminum extrusions used for the frame. Pretty much all printers being sold these days, other than the Prusa, use the v-wheels. My only printer at the moment is a Wanhao i3 Plus I bought in 2017, and like most printers back then, used the steel rods. I wonder if the v-wheels are better, or plain old cheaper, or if it's just a matter of trends and styles.

I am trying to figure out what printer to purchase for best quality and ease of use. Prusa i3 mk3s looks to be the best. But still have a lot more work to do. Thanks for making the video and thanks to your supporter for loaning his amazing looking Caribou printer. @rusty, that is good to know.

nice one! building my mini)

did you try to calibrate each printers steps/mm? I dont think print accuracy shouldnt be a "comparison point" because you can practically calibrate each printer to theoretically print +-0.01mm accurate

I own a mk3s with Bondtech system, would you recommend me to upgrade to the Caribou frame? height doesn't really matter to me. but the print quality does.

Could you please provide a link to the Prusa extruder motor replacement?

What filament did you use for the neon green

Dosent the 3s have the P.C. fan on a 45?

What’s the cost on the Green printer?

Prusa switched recently to Misumi bearings.

so once you bought a prusa can you just upgrade it to the Caribou to get extra build volume?

What layer height were the overhang tests printed with?

the drooping problem is the biggest problem these extruder printers have. i suggest they move the object being made instead of the nozzle. in that way you can print in 5 axis. xw and z and also 2 rotations axis

The most important test should have been ringing test, everything else was kinda obvious (I own original with bear exxa and BMG clone and I know that the changes are negligible). I expected Caribou to be much stiffer, otherwise there's no reason to buy it.

I dont know why you would need a geared extruder since my bowden has no problem whatsoever to feed, and then i realised that people may not switch temp for increased speed..and it makes sence..that is it is designed by fixing an issue that doesent exist, to extrude filament better. What you need to get max force out of any extruder is to keep as close to the shaft diameter of the nema 17, and allow for alocking screw of the feed wheel. That gives that 5 mm + 2,5 on each side for screw and material properties would land on 9-11mm. If you got a larger feed wheel than that it need to work more than necessary. If you get feed issues on a direct drive wich should have even better feed performance than a bowden adjjst temp and or throw the motor, or adjust rhe stepper driver or the amp. Microstepping is not as necessary on the extruder ( to fix noise) as long as you put a sheet of rubber on the bolts bit an 8th is not a problem at all. However, if you dont build or understand the logic the upgrades seems understandable.since the majority of the upgrades is freely available you could just print them yourself

The zaribo is on the top of my "most desired" list

Ball bearings can easily be replaced for cheaper than changing the whole motor.

I think the main takeaway here is that the Bear Exxa has a better fan duct setup than the Bondtech extruder.

17:15 really?

Print volume still not large enough

It's about time for an update from Prusa or have they got too many MK3's unsold Printers to flog?

a clone that's more expensive than the original, cool. the multiple Z height options are nice, but really?

4:18 PLEASE tighten that left screw lol

The problem with this comparison is that it leaves out some of the most important points about a 3D-printer. Prusa does a LOT of quality assurance. Testing every electronical componant, using only high quality mechanical components and iterating based on customer feedback. Also: 10/10 customer support! Of course, as the inventor of the i3 and it's succesors, it's easier to maintain and improve your own machine. I have no experience with Caribou, but I can't imagine that they have a similar amount of QA and support as it's still a fairly new company. I wanna look more into that though. So if I'd be in a situation where I had to choose between those two machines, why would I buy a Caribou machine for a higher price, which - yes - has some improvements on rigidity but not really much difference in print quality, and they lack the level of QA and customer support that Prusa has? This decision would be easy for me. I'm not saying Caribou don't deserve their success. It's just that they still need more time to prove that what they do is really worth the higher price.

I would still take the customer support and production history and knowledge Prusa has developed over the years any day. Live chat 24/7 is amazing + potential future upgrade kits straight from the manufacturer. Who needs that Z height? No one prints things that tall in the weakest structural axis 🥴

Here's the thing about making a project based on another. The benchmark is always unfavorable. It's based on a Prusa but it manages to be more expensive than the original. What this causes is that if the copy is not REALLY REALLY better than the original, people will always prefer the original. Not that I give too much props to Prusa anyway, but when you make a copy of something it will always be seen as just a copy. But the truth is that FDM printers are already in the diminishing returns curve of the graph. They are all basically at a point now that there's not much to improve

You're basically comparing a brand new printer with a used one...

Thank you for the video. The video starts with the Prusa on left and Caribou on the right. Then all the print samples are reversed. An important thing to note is Prusa has put millions of hours on their design. Caribou, while looks impressive, doesn’t have the bulk runtime. There is no actual data if their cable management is longer lasting. I would still suggest Prusa for someone running a 24/7 print shop.

Since Prusa MK3S+ ... no Caribou needed anymore.

i have a tronxy xy2 pro titan extruder 3d printer

Most of these tests are useless for comparison. You need to tune each profile to the machine, and they were obviously suboptimal in key areas. And then the question becomes if the Caribou can print faster while maintaining its quality. But the MK3 is outdated anyways...

Extrusion was always better.

way to expensive.

Its just crap compared to Ratrigs or upcoming Bamboo Lab X1 Carbon

using the same gcode for two different printers is actually pretty stupid