TriangleLabs MK3S Clone
Background
When people hear the words “clone”, they’re often dissuaded. Especially in the tech world. Clones usually conjure up terms like inferior quality, Chinesium material, poor craftsmanship, patent-infringing, and disposable. These were my thoughts as well when I began looking around for a new printer to replace my old MonoPrice Maker Ultimate. I heard the horror stories relating to the Anet A8, the printer that literally exploded into flames. This made me concerned and diligent when it came to looking for a suitable replacement. I wanted a printer that had a large and interactive community, an abundant amount of upgrades, continuing support from the manufacturer along with third parties, is open sourced, and easy to troubleshoot. The search involved browsing Reddit threads, searching the Maker-verse, hours of YouTubing, and the gradually it came down to two printers that caught my eye: The Ender 3 or a Prusa MK3S.
During this time the most economical choice was the Ender 3 because I was able to check all the boxes for things I wanted in a new 3D printer. My only concerned with the Ender 3 was the fact that it had a few things that I was not familiar with. The way the printer worked was very different than the standard smooth rods and lead screw type of printers I was use to seeing, and there were concerns about the longevity of wheels, and electronics. I was not too familiar with how I would fix things if they were to break because the system was different. Looking back, I think the Ender 3 would have been a fine machine, I hear complaints here and there but that is also true of the Prusa MK3S and even printers that are in the thousands. I spent weeks reading on the Prusa MK3S, and everywhere I turned most sites rated the Prusa MK3S as the best printer for the price.
The Decision
The Prusa MK3S was what my heart really desired, it had the community I craved for, the upgrades I wished to implement, and it was open sourced. I had the printer in my basket and figuratively paced back and forth thousands of times. One day while browsing Reddit I came across a post on r/Prusa3d that I found interesting. It was a question someone had posted about the TriangleLabs Prusa MK3S Clone. I was curious as to what that was and if anyone had experience with it. I searched all of Reddit and Google for those keyboards and found nothing. Youtubers made videos about building their own Prusa clones, but this was not the same animal. The TriangleLabs clone was essentially the Prusa MK3S in terms hardware. After realizing that all the parts I would need to build my own MK3S was available through AliExpress, I gathered everything together and the total cost ended up being way more than the kit provided from TriangleLabs. My concerns with the clone was everything I stated in the first paragraph of this, and so I felt uneasy about giving my money away and being a guinea pig. I decided to take a leap of faith based on good past experiences with TriangleLabs, I decided to go through with purchasing it. My thoughts were, I can always source the parts and replace them if something didn’t work, and if I get no support from the seller I can always turn to the community. Since we all know that most electronics come from China, I wasn’t too concerned with being able to find parts. At this point I knew that most printers consist of all the same parts, smooth rods, z lead screws, nema stepper motors, belts, and bearings. The more I thought about it, the more I realized that there was a reason why the Prusa MK3S was so popular and why it’s one of those printers that, from the outside looking in “just works”. All things point to the Einsy Rambo board as being the defining factor of what made it work so well, it was specially made for Prusa, it ran their own custom firmware and they were constantly making improvements. So that was what led me to purchasing the TriangleLabs printer. I saw that there were other MK3S kits from other vendors like BlueRolls, and Fysetc, but I as I mentioned I had great experiences with TriangleLabs so I decided to go with them even though they were a bit pricier compared to others. Here are a few affiliate links from AliExpress:
Shortly after I made the purchase, I joined a few communities on Facebook and Reddit. A lot of folks in those groups were not happy that I purchased the clone, making mention of the fact that it was somehow going to be inferior to the genuine and was going to not receive any support on it. There were others who were super interested in my experience with it and wanted to know if it worked well, and if there was any noticeable difference in print quality, or if I had any complaints. I haven’t had the opportunity to write about my experiences until now.
First Impressions
About a week after I ordered my TriangleLabs MK3S from AliExpress it showed up at my door. The box was taped with about 1000 feet of tape and looked like it had seen better days. Upon opening the box, I was greeted with some newspaper that was used as packing, a bunch of weird manga books, and beneath that were the actual parts. I was honestly surprised at how well everything was packed. I checked all the smooth rods to make sure they were not bent, tried all the bearings to see if they were smoothed, and even took the time to count and make sure that all the bolts and nuts were received, something that was nice and unexpected was the fact that they provided two sheets of paper with a parts checklist, one sheet was marked up to indicate that everything was checked and all parts were accounted for, the other was probably for my records. The only thing that was missing in the box was the 2 pin terminal block that went from the power supply to the Einsy Rambo board. I ended up ordering a few from Amazon right away. The Nema stepper motors that came with the kit were all laser etched, and the cables had enough slack to get them connected where needed, the GT2 belts were marked and had their respective lengths written on, the power supply was well put together, the MK52 heated bed was nice and leveled without any noticeable deformities, the magnets under the heated bed were securely fitted, and the bearings rode smoothly on the rods. The “Prusa” frame and carriage were anodized and looked great. I was quite impress with the quality of this kit, there weren’t any glaring issues at all.
Assembly and Test
Once I had gather everything together I went to the Prusa website and followed the step by step guide on how to assemble the MK3S. It probably took me about 3 to 4 hours to assemble the printer, and then I tore it apart again because I found upgrade parts on Thingiverse that I wanted in place of what came with the printer. I was also interested in a different color so instead of the iconic orange and black that is usually associated with the Prusa. Eventually when I was able to put the printer together I decided to also print the BMG extruder for the MK3S, after realizing how difficult it was to swap out parts on the R4 extruder. The wonderful thing about having an existing 3D printer is the ability to print spare parts when needed, it is especially useful if any part were to break. Fortunately I didn’t have to deal with any broken parts at all during my build. After the printer was built, it was the moment of truth. I plugged it in and flipped the power switch: Success! The screen glowed green and greeted me. I ran through the wizard and it passed, I then went through the calibration and failed. Google and Reddit were my best friend, I was able to figure out that the BMG required a different firmware because the extruder’s size. Once the new firmware was flashed the calibration was ran again and passed, the first layer calibration also finished without any issues. Onward to test prints!
The first test print I did was the one included on the SD card. It was a gnome, I believe it was set at 0.15mm layer height. The gnome came out perfectly, no layer adhesion issues, no inconsistent extrusions, or any sort of zits and blobs. It was surprising how well it printed and my fears and worries soon started to fade even more about the quality of the printer parts and no longer wondered if I made a mistake buying the TriangeLabs MK3S instead of the Prusa MK3S.
My First Print On The Clone
Conclusion and Final Thoughts
I’ve done a lot of upgrades on the printer at this point. It’s now in a bear frame, and almost all the parts have been replaced with various mods I’ve found online. The Bear upgrade will be another topic for another time. Usually at this point of a review people would make a Pros and Cons list about the printer, but if you’ve been looking at a Prusa MK3S then you probably already know all the Pros and Cons. Yes, this MK3S may not be a genuine Prusa MK3S, but in all honesty; if you were to purchase a genuine Prusa MK3S and upgraded to a Bear frame, replaced the extruder, replace the hotend, the motors, rods, and bearings, would you still consider it a genuine Prusa MK3S? At that point what about the printer makes it genuine? I believe it comes down to the reason why I decided to purchase this printer in the first place, the Einsy Rambo and firmware created for the printer is what makes it an MK3S such a great printer, these are obviously my own opinion and you may feel otherwise.
The TriangleLabs MK3S is an exceptional printer, I have no reservations recommending it to anyone who is interested in picking one up. Some folks may not be a fan of the fact that it’s not a genuine Prusa, but I have no complaints. I’ve had the printer for a few months now and never worried about not having support from the Prusa team or any issues replacing parts that have broken like the heater cartridge or thermistor which are fairly common when swapping out extruders or hotends. All the support I ever needed was provided by people on Reddit, Facebook, or through a quick Google search. There was never a problem that I came across that had not already been tackled by someone else. This printer has met each criteria I had set in my mind when I was making my mind on which printer to buy.
Here are a few random prints that I’ve done on the printer so far
