Prusa Research is one of the most interesting companies in the 3D print space, although they currently deliver only desktop 3D printers.

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It was founded only a few years ago by Prague-based Josef Prusa, who at the time had designed an open-source concept for a new 3D printer to replace the then-current designs, which were somewhat less than reliable. The design proved extremely popular, and subsequently, Prusa decided to found a company to market kits from which one could build one of his 3D printer designs. While not explicitly necessary, as one could gather up the required components locally, the idea of a kit that by default contained all the proper bits and tools turned out to be quite popular.

As a result, Prusa Research began shipping large numbers of desktop 3D printer kits, and eventually, some of these were sold pre-assembled. The popularity was unstoppable, as the social networks were abuzz with golden stories of experiences with Prusa equipment.

Prusa Research has released a number of different 3D printers, including the Original Prusa MK2 model, Original Prusa MK2.5 model, Original Prusa MK2.5S model, and their flagship Original Prusa MK3S model. Recently they announced a new Original Prusa Mini 3D printer available at a lower cost. They also market an inexpensive SLA 3D printer for resin prints.

Prusa Research has complemented its offerings with a number of community features. One area where their community can manifest is their new PrusaPrinters site. It’s a community website where members can contribute 3D models for others to share. Prusaprinters could eventually rival Thingiverse, but at the moment it’s still quite a bit smaller in the number of 3D models available. Many should be quite suitable for 3D printing on the new Original Prusa Mini 3D printer.

All of the “original” Prusa 3D printers have proved extremely popular, with tens of thousands of each model being sold, leading to perhaps the single largest install base of desktop 3D printers on the planet. This should continue to increase, especially with the combination of original Prusa hardware and the 3D models on their community site, PrusaPrinters.