Prusa mk3s+ to 3.5s upgrade story =)

[Lynette Miles]

Hi! 

I got a prusa mk3s .. 3 years ago? It's been a super solid printer the whole time, even if a bit dated now. I thought I'd share my upgrade story!

I got the kit for myself for Christmas and have been stalling, and this week I decided that I'd never get it done if I didn't just DO it. I picked the 3.5 kit for a few reasons, but mostly financial. The 3.5 kit would give me a lot of the speed benefits and the shiny touchscreen, without having to rebuild the extruder. The 3.5 upgrade kit was is 250, while the upgrade all the way to a 4 is 579. When I realized I could spend a couple hundred more and get an entire printer? I decided it wasn't worth it (I want an xl, but woof)

Notes for anyone who does this upgrade:

The instructions I downloaded were for the 3.5 upgrade, not the 3.5 *S* upgrade. For the most part this wasn't a big deal except that the wifi/heatbed cable holder are different, and the 3.5 has the NFC card. I didn't realize why I had the wrong instructions until I said "What is this NFC thing i have left over?" My recommendation is to use the online manual if you do this upgrade, don't download the pdf. The couple of places I got hung up a little were mostly answered by helpful users who left comments.

The 3.5 kit came with a front plate and supports - those pieces are part of the "print these parts" download, but I didn't need them. I could've printed 3 fewer pieces. No big, I got a 250g of PETG out of it and it made me also try PETG for the first time

The instructions were really good. For the most part very clear. There were a couple of spots that were a bit confusing - installing the new bed spacers was the big one. As a professional technical writer, i have pretty high praise for their docs.

I did this over 3 or 4 nights, one step at a time. The print quality looks great, and print time has been cut in *half*. HALF. I love all the very clear info the new screen gives - current time, time remaining, estimated actual clock time it'll be done, type of material loaded into the printer. Also, it's quieter. So much quieter. My initial calibration was pretty decent!

Overall, I'm very happy with the upgrade, and my husband is looking forward to me printing up a bunch of new stuff for his print & play games =)

- Lynette

[W'Ren]

Thanks for sharing Lynette, 

I hadn’t considered upgrading my mk3s until I read your experience. 

It is very compelling. 

W’Ren

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[Kurt Gluck]

My limited experience is Not only should you read the online manual, but read ALL of the comments.  In the comments people share where they had problems and sometimes useful suggestions.  Of course a comment isn't official documentation and the person writing it could be me (an idiot) but sometimes it's someone with some brains. 

Kurt-A

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Hey there Lynette - what a nice writeup! Quite extensive writeup. Once I saw you are a Technical Writer - I kind of knew that was why you gave such an extensive writeup. 

Will admit - a little bit of a Preface to your upgrade may have helped a tad. 

So, what's the deal. Was this in regards to the one new printer that Prusa released kind of recently? And, the new printer was built in a way such that a user could actually buy a Kit to allow them to upgrade their older MK3 to an MK3.5 printer. Is that the deal? And, what are some of the major differences? I know speed is one of them. But, is there a rather big change to the motion system of the printer? That part I wasn't sure about. 

Sorry for all the questions. Sure - I could have done a little research on the web about this. But, if the answer are posted here in the forum, that means - for Future members of the forum - all the info they need is essentially self contained in your posting. 

Also, I've done a little bit of technical writing in the past. I actually wrote a book of tutorials. I did it many years ago. Initially - I had produced the tutorials as webpages. But, a lot of the Foolish students in my classes in NYC - they would attempt to print the tutorials. But, they were NOT formatted for printing. So, something that should be like 3-4 pages, it would come out to a HUGE waste of paper when they printed it - and come out to like 17  pages. That would drive me SO Nuts - that I took the time to Reformat all the tutorials into a book. I last saw that it was available for sale on Barnes&Noble website, even though I originally produced the book for sale on Lulu.com - and now I see it's even available on Amazon:     3DS Max: A Step-by-Step Approach: Kurt Wendt: Amazon.com: Books

-K

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Ah - come on dude - you are NOT Idiot! Ur a Smart guy - REALLY Smart - even though, at this point - you're more of a Novice in 3D Printing.  (At least I hope Novice is the right word to use here...).

-Doppelgänger Kurt

[Lynette Miles]

Some places have much better comments than others, no doubt! But I saw several comments on the docs that the Prusa folks clearly came back and incorporated, which is always a good thing.

Besides, my job as a technical writer is to assume the user knows -nothing- and guide them from that perspective. Our goal is to make you successful! 

- Lynette 

On Friday, February 14, 2025 at 1:37:07 PM UTC-8 Kurt Gluck wrote:

[Lynette Miles]

Hey! 

So the deal was "I know the 3.5 is probably faster, and I hear that adaptive layering works better" and a few other things. To be honest, I was debating not doing the 3.5 upgrade at all until I heard that the print speeds were significantly faster. 

My mk3s+ was a stock machine, no klipper, I wasn't even running octoprint with it (my pi was misbehaving). This kit is what I purchased, which turns the 3s+ into a 3.5s. Same frame, new electronics, basically. 

Big differences: 
- Speed, obviously. Print times are half of what they were on a stock mk3s+
- The 3.5 upgrade kit replaces the Einsy board with a Buddy board

- Replaces the old LCD with a shiny new touchsceen.   

- It's quieter - not that the old hardware was really loud, but I could hear the steppers humming from 30 feet away and in a different room before and now I can't.

- Has Wifi, and uses the Prusa Connect software or Prusaslicer can just directly send prints to the printer. This is pretty nice, because I don't have to use octoprint for remote control now unless I want to. Prusaconnect also has an app so I can see printer status, and get a notification if i need to change filament. As a person with ADHD, i can't tell you how many timers I've set for "go change the filament!" So I *could* see something on printables in the Prusaconnect app, and directly tell my printer to print it, from wherever. And that's why my prusa password is complex ;) 

As for books, I wrote one about.. wow, 17 years ago now, so it's more than a little out of date :D

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

I hear you on your comment about making people successful - in regards to your technical writing work. 

Reminds me of a comment from a co-worker of mine years ago. HE was actually bitching that my emails were TOO Long! I then explained to him that I try to make things very clear. And, when He does short emails, it becomes a Time waste - because details are lacking and one must go Back and Forth in emails to clarify things. As such, that's part of why I would do long emails. 

But - will keep this reply short...

-K

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Thanks for all that feedback. So - speed increase was a major reason for the upgrade - I totally get it. I will at times go out of my way to fine tune a print job in the hopes of making print times faster.

I recently did a project for a buddy of mine (and his project was my impetus to get my 3DP printing again) - and I actually did a whole bunch of calculations and planning - such that lower layers of object are thicker - and carefully reduced layer heights - such that top layers are very thin. Because he had details on the top of the object that really need to be really clean. So yeah - in regards to print times, I hear you completely on this upgrade. 

As for my book - it kinda IS way out of date. But, it's close enough for one to still use it to learn 3DS Max. 

-K

[Vance Howard]

The new control board and screen are definitely worth it. I took my MK3s that started life as a plain MK3 when the MK3 was first introduced. I upgraded it to the MK3.9 and then the MK3.9s. I did the MK3.9 because I wanted the new nextruder also. Still my most reliable printer, but the speed is disappointing. 

[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Vance - because it's a Bed Slinger (if I am not mistaken) - it's going to be slower than other types of printers - like a Core-XY. 

AS they say - It Is What it Is...

-K

[Lynette]

You are not mistaken, it’s a bed slinger. 

That’s another reason I decided to upgrade to a 3.5 honestly - between seeing the XL and the core one… I wanna see how those really go 

- Lynette 

Sent from my iPhone

On Feb 14, 2025,mat 17:59, Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!! <vr...@optonline.net> wrote:

Vance - because it's a Bed Slinger (if I am not mistaken) - it's going to be slower than other types of printers - like a Core-XY. 

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[Kurt The 3D Printer GUY!!]

Yup - Bed Slingers are slow - like my Ender. 

I've seen the Bambu X1C printing fast - it's COOL!!

I've also seen the VisionMiner printer going REALLY Fast - and it's pretty wild to see things going FAST! 

But - FAST is not ALWAYS Going to give Good Results! Take it from me - and my experiences at Essentium - which SADLY No Longer Exists!!!!!

😢😢😢

-K

[Alan B]

Just to be clear, this upgrade from MK3 to MK3.5 is going from an old maxed out 8 bit system to a 32 bit system with much better firmware, space to grow, touch screen, wifi and NFC.

The speed difference between a good stiff frame properly tuned bed slinger and CoreXY is not as much as you think. The MK4S really moves.

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[Vance Howard]

I have my eye on a core one kit. But I will wait until they are available through Printed Solid.

On Friday, February 14, 2025 at 8:01:01 PM UTC-8 Lynette wrote:

[Alan B]

I'm very impressed with my CORE One. I'm thinking I may get the upgrade for my MK4S as well.

I'm thinking that the 3.5 upgrade is a good stopping place for a MK3. It will be a good place to use the inventory of old hotends and nozzles. The other MK3 kit I had as a backup spare and never assembled is being built out on a Bear Frame with Klipper. That's a stiff bedslinger so it may be possible to go faster than most.

One disadvantage of the CORE One is portability. It is not an easy thing to move. My back still hurts. It's just heavy enough and bulky enough to be a pain. I haven't weighed them but the similar sized Voron Trident 250 is easier to move around. Hopefully the CORE One won't need a lot of moving about.

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[JanE]

Alan B wrote:

One disadvantage of the CORE One is portability. It is not an easy thing to move. My back still hurts. It's just heavy enough and bulky enough to be a pain. I haven't weighed them but the similar sized Voron Trident 250 is easier to move around. Hopefully the CORE One won't need a lot of moving about.

Portability is just a challenge, not a problem. 
I can buy a TeslaBot to carry your CORE One around. Or mount the printer on your Spot: https://bostondynamics.com/products/spot/



-JanE