How 1 Man Took on Prusa Research And... Won ? XL Enclosure Comparison

Could it be that a solo designer out classed an entire department at Prusa Research? Perhaps. In this video I compare Josef's Original Prusa enclosure for the Prusa XL to the aftermarket Sumo enclosure, designed by Joseph Willis from 3D Sourcerer. I compare these two alternatives on the basis of 5 criteria: ease of assembly, aesthetics, performance, value added features and overall value for money. To answer the question of which enclosure is easier to assemble I challenged two 3D printing enthusiasts to a race to see who could assemble their enclosure quicker. The results surprised me.

00:00 Introduction
00:53 The Criteria
01:30 Assembly Challenge
07:39 Ease of Assembly
08:48 Aesthetics
09:36 Performance
12:11 Value Added Features
14:13 Value For Money
14:52 The Results
15:12 Discussion

[CodexAdrian]

Wait what. You talked about all the downsides of the sumo's performance and how the prusa performed better with temperature and how the sumo lacks any actual hardware in the default config, but still gave the points to sumo?? The top of the sumo being flat I feel doesn't add enough value to overcome the cumbersomeness of having to take off that massive lid just to get access to the same things the hinge of the prusa allows you to access.

[theheadone]

It took me 4 hours to build my sumo, impressive that that guy took 10 hours to do it.. The assembly guide was awesome with the interactive 3d views. One issue I've had is that the left side belt tensioning screw is obstructed as the hole to allow for adjustment isn't in the correct spot.

One change I would recommend is to 3d print some washers or just use normal washers under the head of any screw that is in direct contact with the acrylic, since acrylic is extremely prone to cracking. I had recommended that they offer a polycarbonate version, but I doubt that'd ever happen since the cost would go up and they probably wouldn't have as good of a market at a price closer to Prusa's.

[MikeKobb]

I have the Prusa enclosure, and it works great. One thing I like about the design is that if you open the lid and the bellows, it's very open, and well suited for printing something like PLA that doesn't like to be in a hot environment. I agree that having to replace the parts with PCCF was an unpleasant surprise, given that they were showing some version of this enclosure at trade shows long before I bought my printer. I can only assume that they originally thought that the PCCF wasn't needed but they got late into the final testing and discovered issues. For what it's worth, new printers ship today with those parts in PCCF from the beginning.

[trinodot]

I like the bottom of the sumo and the top of the Prusa tbh. If someone could combine the two, it would be perfect

[hippiemcfake]

At that price delta and given that Prusa is a massive company with tons of engineering experience and they made the XL, I find it puzzling how poor their enclosure is. Also why doesn't Sumo offer the printed parts at an extra ~$120 for people that want a turn key solution?

[Zombull]

Once I saw the design of the Prusa, it sealed the deal. I went with the Sumo. I just like being able to see what's going on in the printer. The Sumo is also much more moddable, even beyond the optional parts on their website. Sure, it took a while to print all the parts, but isn't that just part of what we do? Seems odd to complain about that. For me, the assembly was pretty smooth once I figured out how to muscle those shrapnel nuts into position. I printed the parts in Polymaker Polylite PLA Pro and had no tolerance problems. No regrets!

[spooknik-zt]

The Sumo and the Prusa Enclosure are both ugly, but the Sumo just looks bad. I cannot describe it any better than a Fisher Price aesthetic. And then a curved arch 2/3 the way up and then a box of clear acrylic panels for the top, who thought that looked good? Prusa Enclosure is ugly but in an industrial way.

[crashkg]

The ergonomics of the Prusa enclosure are great. I was tempted to use an aftermarket enclosure, but I didn't want to spend so many hours printing. I'm glad I went for the Prusa. The lid lifting up gives so much access to the inside. I can see the most important part of the printing, the tool heads, at all times. The bellows, although strange looking, is a great solution, because it is so easy to pop on and off. All in it took me about 2 hrs to assemble.

[maxwphoto]

The shrapnel nuts do not need to be "pre-bent, " you just need to insert them correctly. See @7:54 how he is holding the nut where the leaf spring is attached, and trying to put the open end of the spring in first. Flip it around so the attached part goes in first and it slips right in place.

The Prusa enclosure comes with M4 shrapnel nuts just like the XL itself. The Sumo uses M5 shrapnel nuts, so they're a little bigger and slightly harder to seat, but if you don't try to do it backwards it will not take an hour to install 12 of them!

[unatommer]

The price of the prusa enclosure is insane. I’m saving up for an XL and I’ll be going aftermarket or self build enclosure for sure.

[jean-marcgruninger]

I have the prusa enclosure, so far its worked great.

[OneIdeaTooMany]

If companies who make use of 3D printed parts want you to print your own parts they need to design a part that tests all aspects of your printer. A single part that contains 1 vertical hole, 1 horizontal hole, a horizontal nut cutout, a vertical nut slot for each type of bolt and nut size. You print that out and if they don't fit, increase the size of the print until it does and use that to compensate on all other parts. Should save you time and filament if done right. I had to do something like this after I wasted heaps of time printing a base for the Prusa mini and it was slightly undersized and completely unusable.

One printers have automatic first layer calibration and linear advance compensation etc standard then it will be easier.

[OutsiderDreams]

Thanks for the comparison!

However, I would not scale the 3d print as you suggest at 8:20 mark.
That will scale the entire part and it wont fit with all the other parts that you are not scaling up (like the plexiglass panels)

If you have access to the CAD files, you want to slightly open up the slots.
OR
Grind down the metal pegs

[jjptech]

What about swapping them to the other enclosure?

[mattmeyer]

I like the other encloure that is on the market before the sumo. It cost me about 380 and had little to no printed parts can see everything and works great!.

[jackofsometradesmasterofnone]

The sumo clearly shows it's price.

Yes the prusa is expensive, but the sumo seems like something you download the plans for and build it yourself at the cost of materials.

[kurtgluck]

You probably should have explained more about why its important to upgrade the parts of the extruder. Sure the new XL’s its not needed, and yep that is a miss by PRUSA, but in both enclosures cases if you dont do that upgrade you are at risk of melting parts of your printer if you dont upgrade those parts.

[PatrikTheDev]

You mentioned the flat top being a major advantage (13:24) but I honestly don't see how it would be that useful. The machine is incredibly tall when on a table and the enclosure is not very strong. Please do NOT put another printer on top (or even filament for that matter, it still can get pretty heavy). Acrylic panels held together with a few small printed parts are not load bearing and you might crack them

Even if they don't crack, acrylic likes to scratch, it's a relatively soft plastic.

[FireDragonD]

The sumo is impressive considering the size of the team that created it. Lol. At $800 the Prusa enclosure is very expensive, then again the XL is quite expensive in its own right. Great video!

[JohnOlson]

I think the pricing and value sections of the video (0:30) about Prusa costing $650 compared to Sumo should include the $300 + 65 hours (your cost per hour of any labor, plus lost revenue on the printer?) + 3kg of filament ($20/each minimum). Btw - I have a Delack enclosure (one of the first) and really enjoy it. It was a lot cheaper.