Prusa Research has lowered their price for the tool-changing Prusa XL 3D printer.
What happened? The company abruptly issued a price reduction on this large (360 x 360 x 360 mm) machine. The machine was first announced — and I am amazed to say this — back in 2021, almost five years ago. However, it took another 16 months before the company was able to ship the machine to the public, mainly due to pandemic supply chain challenges. So in a way, it might be considered a two-year-old machine.
But back in 2021 when the XL was conceived, the world of 3D printing was quite a different place. The notion of multicolor 3D printers was essentially a fantasy at that stage, so the tool-changing XL was quite shocking at the time.
Then Bambu Lab announced their AMS system, with many other machine makers following that path. The AMS and similar accessories allow easy swapping of filaments during FFF printing. These were all priced far, far below the XL. Initially, the five-tool fully assembled XL was listed at US$3499, but more recently it has been US$4099, although some temporary sales brought the price down to US$3899 at times.
Now we see that the company has decided to permanently reduce the price of the XL to US$3899, which is US$200 off the higher price – a decrease of five percent.
This is not a substantial discount, but it may signal something else going on.
Could Prusa Research be feeling competitive pressure from the many other companies producing multicolor FFF equipment? Most of those are far less expensive, but do waste a considerable amount of material when changing colors. On the other hand, there are less expensive alternatives that also do not waste material, such as Bambu Lab’s Vortek system, or a few others.
Another possibility is that Prusa Research is gradually preparing for the discontinuance of the XL entirely. Companies typically start lowering the prices on outgoing products to clear out inventory.
This could make sense, as Prusa Research has been working with Bondtech on that company’s INDX system. That is a technology that acts like a tool changer, yet is more efficient and has more colour possibilities. If they are getting close to releasing an INDX machine, they probably should get rid of their XL inventory. An INDX XL system would be much more desirable than the current XL system.
What would be the advice for buyers? Should you wait for an INDX system from Prusa Research? Buy a current XL at the lower price? Wait for even lower prices as discounts keep appearing?
In such situations, the advice is always the same: buy what you need right now. You might be waiting a long time for the INDX system.
Via Prusa Research
