Throwing my hat in the ring regarding XL+ disappointment
Last year, I submitted a very thorough review of my time with the Prusa XL. (https://old.reddit.com/r/prusa3d/comments/1m79cyu/one_year_with_the_prusa_xl_review/) The original article in question is currently down, due to a planned website outage, but archive.org has you covered if you want to see it-- https://web.archive.org/web/20250828145813/https://nocoffei.com/?p=366
(P.S. Thank you Tommy for responding to my original post, I didn't see it until I logged back in to write this post as I never use reddit.)
In that post what I wanted to see most was a second revision of the XL, which set out to fix the platforms many, many little problems in one unified package. So I just wanted to write a quick follow up seeing as the XL+ upgrade is targeted very specifically at me in particular-- I'm hesitant to buy it when I don't know why it costs so darn much.
The Core One++ upgrade is $55. Why does this cost $560, an already further price increase from the initially stated $500? (Or $690 if I bought new nozzles...) Why of that price do I need 5 new dwarf boards because mine are a 2022 model, despite the fact that this unit shipped in 2024 (and our 2th -> 5th upgrade shipped in 2025)?
I was nodding my head along vigorously when I read the initial announcement post-- these upgrades clear up so many endlessly irritating paper cuts with this machine. I can't count the number of times I've started a TPU print, walked away, and returned to find that the nozzle was too dirty to finish """nozzle cleaning""" on the bed and gave up and stopped the print. A nozzle wiper fixes that. And I have similar things to say about every other addition offered-- this kit, speaking from an experienced operator of this machine, really does achieve its stated goal of "improv[ing] the everyday experience". (Aside from offering an out of the box way to print TPU, which is a surprising omission, but I'm printing so much of it at such high speeds at this point that I'm happy with my solution of printing out of a PolyDryer sitting above the printer.)
I just... Maybe I've been spending too much time online lately, but I felt it was worth offering the feedback that I'm currently unlikely to buy it just due to the sheer price differential.
(And because I've been spending too much time online lately, I should preface this post by stating that no, emdashes do not automatically mean I lifted text from an LLM to write this, they've been part of my writing style for years.)