Prusa Mini+ KIT

I’m Late to the party

I happily ignored the world of 3D printing until now. I know I’m late to the party, but waiting for an ecosystem to mature is a good way to avoid unnecessary pain when exploring something outside your comfort zone.

I know the best way to learn something is to just do the damn thing, but always thinking like that is also a good way to waste a lot of time on something that might not be your thing (or, more simply, not useful to you).

Here I am, using a work productivity bonus to help me understand something new.

Spoiler: why did I wait so long?!

Why Prusa Mini+

In anno domini 2026 I supposed that choosing the right 3D printer for you was an easy task.

As always when I expect something to be easy:

After an almost embarrassing number of hours on the internet, I found out that there are four main categories of consumer-grade 3D printers:

• Prusa
• Bambu
• Low-cost, half-baked Chinese machines
• DIY (ranging from poor quality to top-tier dream machines)

Being a developer taught me not to underestimate the complexity of something I don’t know well. So, let’s remove DIY kits from the equation.

I also read some horror stories about certain low-cost machines catching fire due to poorly engineered hardware. Goodbye, generic Chinese machines.

The big fight the internet is having right now is between the new cool kid, Bambu, and the older cool kid, Prusa.

As an open-source enthusiast, I’m naturally wary of Bambu’s recent decisions around security locks, network limitations, and the classic vendor lock-in approach.

…aaaaaand I like to tinker :)

Prusa it is!

Incidents

Life is difficult.

The happy incident

I ordered the smallest (and simplest to build) Prusa machine available: the Prusa Mini+ semi-assembled kit.

I watched the introduction video showing the whole build process, which consisted of putting together three large metal chunks: and that’s it. Easy.

The courier rang my doorbell. The box arrived. The big beautiful box was opened.

Oh boy…

That’s not the semi-assembled printer!

A wise guy once said: I don’t have time for this shit! Fuck it. I’ll do it myself…

The universe decided I needed to build my own printer. I chose to accept this “happy incident” and followed the more than 200 steps needed to assemble the damn thing meticulously…

The sweet incident

I also had my Haribos sitting very, very close together.

Yet another incident

After 3 days of assembly, I got the printer working… but the filament sensor was missing.

I contacted Prusa support, and they said they’ll send me the missing sensor.

Orange and black was the colors of my Yamaha Aerox

After some time, I got calibration, test checks, and a 3DBenchy properly done.

It’s beer time.