The next "BIG" thing: Prusa Mini review! 

"What are your expectations for Prusa?" Orange

In an era when so much of RU-vid 3d printer content is live streams, its nice to see a review that is concise, well written, thoughtful, and interesting. It is content like this that keeps me as a Patreon supporter.

Tip for hot weather: Drink a glass of water every time Tom knocks over a 3d printed part

Having just gotten a mk3s after a year of owning a Chinese delta, the sentence that keeps coming to mind about Prusa is "The printers they sell are identical to the ones they use in their own print farm".

I received my Mini a couple of weeks ago, and this review is pretty much spot on to my experience so far. It's just a solid, reliable printer for those who want to make things and not have to tinker.

Very honest and on point review. Given your friendship with the namesake man himself, you are very unbiased, and hats off to that.

Desk footprint is much smaller on the mini too vs ender. Makes a difference if space is at a premium.

Thomas, you are a master at editing your videos, you manage cuts so well, you don't have audio issue but we can see the ghost around when you have done many takes and your body and/or the objects around have changed between the takes

Excellent review, Tom. Way back in 2016 (almost 4 years ago this month) I waited until the end of your MK2 assembly livestream to pull the trigger on a MK2 purchase. I’ve since gone on to a MK3S with MMU2S, a delta, and a Railcore CoreXY printer. You cover so many important “quality of life” features in your reviews that others ignore. One item that also tilts the scales towards the Prusa Mini is the excellent Prusa support. Especially for a new printer owner, they might not know all the ins and outs of forums, Discord’s, and FB groups for community support. The ability to chat with Prusa, get replacement parts easily if needed, etc., is really another great selling point for the Mini.

This is one of the most accurate and honest reviews I’ve come across in a very long time. As I watched this I was wondering if any of the things I have experienced would be covered and everything was. Btw - I recently switched from an Ender 5 to the Mini and I’m very happy that I did. Keep up the good work!

I purchased a Mini after having an Ender 3 for 8 months. I had the exact opposite experience with the Mini than what I was expecting. I wanted a printer that was plug and play with no tweaking or problem solving. From the first day it was nothing but problems. I eventually worked through them all most with solutions not officially supported or suggested by Prusa. I was never able to solve the Z offset changing from print to print no matter what heat up procedure I followed.I also had bed adhesion issues with the textured sheet with PETG. I was so disappointed that none of my expectations were met that I sold it and bought a Artillery X1, took a couple of days to solve it's assembly and part shortcomings and have had a reliable printer since then. I'm gonna have a hard time considering a Prusa printer in the future. Just my 2 cents.

I bought and tested one of the first editions. I wasn't sold on it at first, but with the next revisions of parts and firmware sold me on it. I wound up buying 36 in total for my farm.

Great review, Thomas. Answered all of the questions I've had for months. Thanks again!

Great review! I am considering purchasing a few of these for the mini-print farm I want to set up for my printing projects, and this looks like it might be the answer I was looking for! Thanks!!

What comes to my mind first If I hear "Prusa"? 3-6 weeks

I bought a Prusa Mini+ yesterday and watched this video today. Glad to hear. Thanks for the review.

Thank you so much for this review. I am asking for a printer for Christmas and wasn't sure which one to ask for. This seems like the best one to start with

I've been looking forward to this video since june

I’m getting one as a birthday gift and I can’t wait, thanks for the info

The ease of use and the bed leveling to be able to just print without fiddling with the printer for someone that doesn't print every day was the main reason why I ordered the Mini as my next printer after having started with a kit printer.

thank you, been waiting on this review for a while and you didn't disappoint.

Have had mine for a year now and really like it, other than the Prusa reputation and the ease of the sheet metal print beds, physical space was a big consideration for why I went with the Mini. Thanks for your excellent and detailed reviews.

Hi Thomas, I really like your reviews and thoughts abot a specific topic. Keep on like this. Considering the Mini after ordered my MK3S+...

Thank you so much for your helpful review Thomas! Just placed my order a few moments ago via your link! 🥳

I like how you keep putting that printed part back together the other way, it's funny :D Great video as usual, Tom!

17:00 "Literally a black box - more or less." Actually quite accurate since plane "black boxes" are also orange.

Welcome back to informative, well written and helpful reviews! Thanks Tom :)

Good that you mention that one of Prusa's goals is making the most of affordable hardware. Too often people would make a wish list for a Prusa machine that would easily break 2000 bucks if they actually made a machine to the requested specs. Just ordered a Mini the other day. Expecting it in November. I can grab a bunch of Prusament along the way.

I had finally caved to buy a 3D printer after years of wanting one, and now my MINI should arrive early October :)

The only “big” thing about it at the moment is the backlog of orders...

My first was an Mk3 i3 Kit. Hard to build but turned out perfect. My mini was easy and is perfect too. Thomas Sanladerer convinced me to buy my first printer.

Thanks I have been waiting for this review for a long time

Awesome review! Well rounded.

Very nice looking printer. In my mind I really think it should be supported by the extrusions on both sides, but good to hear it performs well.

Great, great video, man. Great review, very honest, nice pace, very clear... great points discussed. Subscribed, of course.

I love how many times you knocked over the model. I was cheering when @20:34 you are NEARLY knocking it over. the MK2(S) was my first printer based on your recommendation. Now it is a Haribo modded, Skelestruder printer but the Mini would have been the perfect starting printer.

Excellent video. I soooo want one. Gotta keep loading up that swear jar

We picked up 9 mini's for our farm.. We print mostly PETG and ASA and all our parts are around 2" cubed or less. Perfect little machine for us!

Thanks for the content Thomas, well done...

Good video. I have an Ender 3, but will be ordering the Prusa Mini before the weekend is over.

I had that problem with the USB as well lol. My solution was putting the printer on the edge of a desk. The key ring actually comes in handy.

I placed my order in March and got it 3 weeks ago (approx 4 months leadtime). Was it worth the wait? Oh, yes! After 30 minutes of assembly, selftest and calibration I was up and running doing my first print. Now it's printing around the clock in my basement. Sofar I'm very happy with it!

Just FYI, the two textured sheets I got for my regular MK3 also have serious adhesion issues. The only thing I've figured out that worked was to give it a vigorous scrubbing in hot soapy water, followed by a thorough scrubbing with a paper towel and isopropyl alcohol after every print. Even then, I still have to re-wash the sheet every few prints.

I really like the idea of this printer and love that they finally put out a more entry level printer. However what I'm really looking forward to is all the improvments that the i3 will get from this.

Great review, your videos are awesome keep it up!

The extruder gripe is totally valid. You can fix the fan probe issue and the USB stick issue just felt so silly to even mention lol.

My new MK3S came with the powder coated bed, and I had a lot of issues with PLA sticking. One person recommended washing it with dish soap and water, so I did. It helped significantly. Small parts can still detach but I have had much more success after the dish soap. It could help with the mini as well.

I really like your verdict. Myself, I bought an Ender 3 Pro precisely for having to tinker and thus learn about 3D printing. (And boy did that thing deliver, it made me furious at times...) Now I know a bit about 3D printing, and I have a printer that pretty reliably prints stuff. Should it ever break, I will look at Prusa's offerings for sure.

Please print and assemble the "mini base." Would love to see video and review. Always enjoy your considered opinion and reviews.

16:25 After receiving my Mini+ kit a week ago, I soon modified my extruder to solve both these issues ("Material Tolerant Extruder" on Printables). This as for me as well, an old roll of filament made the gear chew filament 4 times and it even damaged the original printed parts. Will update the Printables page later on how well my cleaning wheel ends up working, the mod both allowing for mounting a dremel bit or the original filament door. The increased clearance for cleaning the profile manually and channel for filament shavings to fall out have worked out perfectly. And thanks to the carved PTFE tube my previously problematic filament now prints as well as it can on my Mini.

Just passing by to say thanks for a lot of great videos 😊

As usual great review. Was looking for a 3D printer that just gets "stuff done". I think I found it.

The older darker colored (more gray/black) textured build plates have better out of the box adhesion. However they start flaking and sticking leaving black flakes on your first layer over time. The newer more (yellowish/brownish) textured plate seem to hold up better but don't give you great adhesion out of the box. I do what Prusa tells you not to do... I wipe it down with acetone before I run a single print on it. After that I mainly use IPA with the exception of an acetone wipe down about once a month. I haven't had any issues since I started doing this. The first build plate I did this with is still good and it has been nearly a year.

So what were your expectations - and did the Mini meet them?

Have the issues you mentioned been fixed? It is Oct 2021, and I am about to order the Mini; just curious if there have been updates.

I like that he kept the 'oww' part in the edit...

Thomas, you did a great job there besides knocking the model over for 4 times. Great comparison with the Ender 3 V2, I did that too, what the display matters.

Just got a used Mini. Works great. Decided that I just need a 3d printer as a tool, and no longer as a hobby. My previous printer worked around 85% of the time. The remaining 15% was weird or random problems that would go away on their own sometimes. It was useable, but annoying. I've wanted a Prusa for a few years, and I decided the Mini/+ was going to be my next printer. After about 6 months of not using my previous printer, it was having problems again. So I searched my local used goods sites, and found a 1st gen Mini for $320. So far I'm very happy with the purchase.

I just sent mine in for warranty service for a z-offset problem. Since the day I got it 1 month ago, it wouldn’t maintain the z-offset. I had to adjust the offset via live z-adjust at the start of every print. Even when I performed consecutive first layer calibrations, it needed a different z-offset every time. Sometimes it was a difference of 0.5mm. I troubleshot it for 3 weeks with Prusa support and they finally asked me to send it in. It ended up not being related, but I found that the y-carriage was binding at the front and back of full travel because the hole spacing for the linear rods on the 3D printed front and back y-faces were at least 0.25mm too close. I 3D printed new ones on my Mk3S and fixed that problem. Anyway, I still think it’s a good quality printer, I just wish I had more than 3 weeks to enjoy it, and use it for anything other than troubleshooting a problem it shipped with.

we got 3 mini's kits. 2 worked from the moment I turned them on and a year later are just wonderful. The other one has been a real problem child.

I have been waiting for this!!!

Excellent presentation.

Joe Prusa sent me this: "schaut so aus als ob der mini bald deutsch kann" "looks like the mini will soon be able to speak German"

Thank you for reviewing this :)

Thanks Thomas for this honest review! I missed one downside wich i was sure will be mentioned: MINDA! No temp. compensation. In my case, its really a big flaw. I can not start a print and be sure the first layer is right without live-z adjusments. I really wonder if you have the same experience like me and many other mini owners. Cheers

Sadly the reseller in Thailand jacks up the price so much that it isn't the same league as Ender 3 V2 anymore. And the process you have to go through to import one yourself is mindboggling.

Your videos are very informative and enjoyable...even if I just ordered the Ender 5 Pro. $400 and 8 weeks out for this Mini...Yikes!

My expectations are that it does it's job. It appears to do so... 10/10 would think about getting one again... :D

I'm a noob to 3d printers, and I don't care to spend too much time troubleshooting; that's what I do at work. My first printer is an Ender 3 v2, and I've wasted too much time trying to print just about anything. I recently bought a mk3, and spent maybe 1 hour figuring out what settings to use, and haven't had to make a single adjustment since. Not only has this been the best user experience I could have asked for, I've actually learned a lot due to their provided documentation. I'm watching this video because I'm already thinking about adding a mini to my workshop.

I got one of these some time back. Not the first batch, but an earlier batch. There are many good things, but also some bad things. I also have a i3 MK3 and a SL1. 1. That Z-axis to base connection is weak. I also had to shim the heck out of mine to get it square to the table. My cubes were coming out as parallelograms before I fixed that. Yes, I had assembled it correctly, in the correct order. It's just a 3d printed part in a very critical spot. 2. Check that end cap on the x axis arm. It twists very easily. 3. Related to number 1: put this on a firm, fixed base. Do not lift it by the Z-axis arm, or you have to go through all the straightening again. I've seen printed handles for the Z axis for folks to pick this up and move it around. I really don't recommend that. 4. Printing was only through USB drive and that USB jack was in a silly place on the unit. I bought a USB extension and mounted it to the Z axis arm. (oh, and I removed the ring ) 5. I had problems with the first and second layers that ended up being fixed by changing the movement speed to something like 60% (I forget which it was). Other folks on the forums ran into this. This was with PETG which sticks to anything, and using the smooth PEI sheet (appropriately cleaned) 6. Calibrating the probe distance took some thinking. For many of us, it turned out to be much larger number than originally suggested. I had a thread going on the Prusa3d support site because I had a difficult time diagnosing this problem. In the end, it's a nice and inexpensive printer, but it doesn't match up to their past printers. But it does still have those super important features like bed leveling and compatibility with PrusaSlicer

My printrbot simple metal is showing its age and so I have ordered the Mini with filament sensor and the extra flexible build plate. Mostly I print things to prove the viability of my designs.

After owning two delta printers, I was considering the Mini until I found a great Black Friday deal on an Artillery Sidewinder X1 for slightly less than the Mini. My point isn't to praise the X1 (which is supremely awesome), but to suggest comparing what else can be done with the same amount of money and some careful shopping.

Thumbs up from an happy mini owner!! First 3d printer and it worth every single cents, go for it ;)

Top video. Thanks for making my decision easy

I have to say, people keep telling me that a Prusa would have been easier to print with out of the box, but when I got my Ender 3, it took me maybe 30 minutes to assemble (as most of it was preassembled). It took me maybe another 15 minutes to properly adjust and tension all the axis. It took me maybe 15 minutes to level the bed. Literally within an hour of opening the box I was printing, and my first print came out perfectly. I don't know why people seem to think you need to tinker with an Ender machine so much. I only need to adjust my bed once out of every ~30ish hours of printing, and it takes me less than five minutes.

Early units plagued with issues, I had issues with levelling got sent a new probe and installed it, z offset kept changing so always have to preheat for a while before starting a print. A temp sensor in the MINDA would have solved this. LCD controller knob broke got sent a replacement. Also had issues with extrusion/clicking which is partly solved by lifting the hotend up. I still had some issues so I installed a bondtech heatbreak which helped some more, still not perfect though. For me not a great experience to start with, lesson learned do not rush out to buy a new printer, wait for a few months first. I cannot fault Prusa support though, always helpful and feel a lot of the issues could have been avoided if they didn't rush to get it out.

Great review Tom. I’d be curious to see what happens if you print a 1z layer across the entire print area. Wondering how flat it would come out with the cantilevered design. I do find it somewhat surprising that in 2020 we’re still having to use USB sticks to transfer files. I expected a networked printer to have “send to printer” within the Prusa ecosystem.

Kind of expensive for a small 3D printer, but after a bad experience with an Ender 3 that I could never get working properly (chronic underextrusion even after putting in a metal extruder until I literally stuck a bed leveling spring in the extruder, extremely finicky bed leveling, a "bumpy X axis) I think I'd be willing to pay the premium.

I would love to see a Prusa Mini direct drive conversion with a Zesty Nimble.

Prusa- I am waiting for that large format corexy! Put a hemera on it and ship it

Thank you for all of your videos about this machine, Thomas. I've seen them all and they were really helpful to better understand this whole new 3D printing world we are entering at. Now, I'm thinking about printing lots of small (2 to 3cms in height) average detailed figures for board games. Small figures like tanks, cavalry, infantry, artillery, trucks, cannons, and so on, are already on my list to be modelled and printed. I will be using Blender for all the 3D modelling stuff. Could this be the right printer for that job? Any particular concerns or tips that you can give me for this particular job? What kind of material should I use so that the small figures don't break easily while handled by the players? PLA? Any particular tips/warnings for the modelling itself? I've never used a 3D printer before so I am a completely newbie on this one. As I said, I would like the figures to have some detail, but not an outstanding one. Just normal figures that are being used nowadays on medium range price board games. Thank you in advance and I'm sorry for the long text. Cheers, JayF Lisbon

So, it's a decent and capable all-around printer, as long as you don't want to mod it. I'm good with this. A fallback machine that I can use when the modified Ender, or the Mendel, are on the fritz is a good thing.

The only two hits I'd give the mini are the lead time -- ordered in Dec, got it in May (but, to be fair, a pandemic was starting) -- and the PTFE tube I had in the hotend was a little short so I ended up with a jam I needed to clear out (sadly, not an uncommon problem, it seems). Other than that, it's been great. I can't fit a bigger printer in the space it's in. I had a Monoprice Mini there before, and its max 125mm build volume created many issues with some functional prints I needed. Prusa Mini's 180mm plate, by comparison, solves a lot of those issues. No, it won't print in-place an entire, full-sized Mandalorian helmet (I'll use a different machine for that), but for 90-95% of what I need in this location, in the materials it handles, it prints cleanly and without me having to fire up software or break out adhesives or fasteners to compensate. It hits the sweet spot for a small yet very capable machine.

I’ve had my Mini since late last year and I’ve got to say, it’s easily the best printer I’ve ever used. It’s basically perfect for my needs. 😎

I went from MP Select Mini V2 to Prusa Mini. Overall I like the experience from Prusa, but extruder drives me crazy. I never had to clean gears on MP, on Mini I had to clean them dozen of times from PET-G and from Matt PLA. Once ended up with failed print by that when Matt PLA filled all gear. Second thing is its inability to fast and easy access, especially when trying to print flex. 40D is doable, 30D hardly with constant monitoring, which is hard because of its location. I still like this printer but it needs a bit of refinement. Maybe Mini 1S upgrade kit ;)

nice review, thanks!

good review 👍

I'm using Prusa Slicer with my home brew repstrap. it usually works better than Cura, but it does have some issues with 'generic' printers. The biggest problem is setting and storing your own filament profiles, it won't let you easily copy 'their' profiles and save them for your printer. I usually have to turn off the flag that blocks profiles not tagged for my printer.

I have 1 complaint (not a deal breaker) of the mini. The tolerance for the PTFE tube in the hotend is 43.4 +/- .1mm and requires a 60 degree chamfer on both ends, and you have to loosen the heater block to squish it before locking down the upper bowden crush fitting; this also requires adjustment of the MINDA probe. Other than that, it has been a great machine.

Is that a swole Pikachu I see? I've been printing all the swole starters this week :D

I had the same problem with the PEI sheed. Think it was related due to bed temperature and a way to high nozzle in the first layer. You need to get the nozzle rly low (by calibrating it in the printers options, not in the slicers options). Everythink after that sticks fine and gets loose by itswelf when the bed gets cold.

Hi Thomas, could you please activate the subtitles in English so I translate them into Spanish, I'm from Argentina and I love your videos. Regards

Fyi, the PEI/PLA combo is not recommended by Prusa, but it is possible to print the combo. I've had success with prints that have 1) a large surface area printed on the bed, 2) and with prints that use rafts and/or large brims.

I have a MK3S and I wonder the same thing about the cooling fan not helping cooling down after a print. If I want to shut down the printer quick, I manually set it to 255, but I don't get why this is not a standard thing.

My usb sticks ring went away real quick too lol. I have a glass desk, that thing was pinging all around.

I was able to get PLA to stick to textured surface ok... just lowered first layer so filament paths squish together completely with no air gaps between them. Maybe set first layer at 0.2 and live adjust down 0.05~0.1... I did have a tall skinny wing profile pop off once because a small air gap

Currently I own a Anet A8 from 2016 which I modified quite a lot and now it is really worn down (I would say it has more then 1000h of printing) and needs adjustment before every print... Now I just want a solid and reliable printer, which just prints, like the Prusa Mini :D

ive watched a few of your videos now and i like them they're good. but i think it's time to start a betting pool on: will Thomas knock over another 3d model in his next video? lol i say YES!

So I own a print farm, we are at 40 printers, Creality Ender V2, best out of the box printer I have ever used, And I have printers that cost over $3000

I expected this review a lot earlier in the year