Would be so kind as to suggest a printer for me? I have no experience at all with 3D printers or 3D modeling. But I am super interested and have electronics and coding knowledge. I would like to print things like brackets, enclosures for custom circuit boards, organizers, keyboard plates, etc. Ideally I would like to spend around $300USD, but I am open to going as high as $500USD if it would save me headaches and make the experience more enjoyable and streamlined.
Please suggest something for me and let me know if I didn’t provide enough information. One final note, I live in range of a microcenter if that is a factor.
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As other people have mentioned, Prusa and Bambu make the most reliable printers on the market. The plus side to Bambu is the price. They are definitely cheaper than prusa printers.
However, I would make sure to be aware of the controversies surrounding Bambu. This is not a deal breaker for many people, but it wouldn’t be right not to at least take a glance at them. Especially considering you are on Lemmy.
This is where Prusa shines. They have not had nearly the same amount of controversies. Their hardware, firmware, and software are all open source. They also have amazing customer support. As others said, a used Prusa can be found within your price range.
This is just something to know of. I know a lot of people who are happy with both brands, and you can’t really go wrong either way. I just think this is another thing to consider.
What is the controversy? I’m probably as open source supporting as the next lemming.
I’m not fully in the loop, but I believe Bambu is pretty blatant about taking everything from the open source community and never giving back. And Josef Prusa even claims that Bambu Labs intentionally uploaded stolen models to Prusa’s site, Printables, in order to see how Prusa handles it - so Bambu can reverse engineer Prusa’s internal processes and clone them to Bambu’s new website, MakerWorld
In addition
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They have filed some controversial/anti-innovative patents.
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Their printers phone home with encrypted information. Last I checked, there were speculated security and privacy issues with it, though someone should correct me if this was resolved.
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They only open source their slicer because of the GPL licence, but they don’t open source anything else (firmware, hardware, etc).
Again, I just recommend people look into these things before they buy a printer. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions :)
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Bambu firmware is closed source. I’m 100% happy with my Bambu, but that being said, Prusa makes amazing printers. However, like everything else, it comes with a price. Buying used is an option, just note you’ll ideally want to see it in person and printing before plunking down cash. As good as their printers are, you could still be buying someone else’s problem.
My vote is for Bambu printers. I started with a super cheap Ender 3 V2 in 2020 and recently we got a Bambu X1 at work and it’s so much easier, faster, and better. No more hours of troubleshooting issues, it just calibrates itself and goes.
The P1P is cheaper and might be a good option to look at. These printers are highly recommended on the reddit community too.
I like the look of the A1 and the P1P. They claim to run right out of the box, is that not common for a 3D printer?
There’s a rabbit hole of things that can go wrong and things that need to be calibrated and upgraded. I had to assemble the Ender 3 and ensure that everything was perfectly straight, level, and 90 degrees. Calibrate the z-offset so it knows where the nozzle is.
I added an auto bed leveling sensor to my Ender 3, and that required custom firmware, and I replaced the bed springs because it wasn’t staying level.
I calibrated the e-steps because it wasn’t extruding consistently, then ended up replacing the extruder because it was cheap and unreliable.
Humidity was ruining my filament on the spools and making it brittle and snapping so I built a dry box that could feed the printer, similar to the clear boxes on some Bambu models.
The Bambu really was as simple as unboxing and turning it on. It comes pre-assembled and includes a lot more sensors that are able to keep it working smoothly.
The P1P, on the sales page, lists the hot end as an accessory? Is that the nozzle where the plastic comes out and is that usually sold separately?
Yes the hotend heats up and has molten plastic inside it and it gets pushed out the nozzle. I’m honestly not sure why they offer all those different versions as accessories. It includes a hotend and 0.4mm nozzle.
If you have a catastrophic issue it’s possible for the hotend to be clogged completely, but that’s never happened to me. It comes with a declogging tool which is just a long pokey wire to push up through the nozzle while it’s hot to clear it.
The nozzle itself can unscrew from the hot end and be replaced because it wears out over time from filament chipping away at it.
Also, you might want different nozzle diameters depending on what you’re printing. You can just buy spare nozzles without an entire hotend.
It comes with 0.4mm and they offer a range from like 0.2-1.0mm. The smaller nozzles print slower and more detailed while the larger nozzles are faster with lower resolution.
I’m late to the party and brand new, but I just went through what you’re going through. I ended up buying an A1 based on the potential ability to add AMS later on and potentially print ABS/ASA.
I was heavily considering an Ender 3 V3 KE, but a few mentioned they just wished they would’ve gone Bambu, even though they had success with their KE. I just don’t have as much time to futz with stuff as I’d like right now, and I want something that’s relatively easy for my kids to use.
If you’re tight on budget and like the tinkering aspect, I saw an eBay store oddly enough named SovolOfficial, that sells unrepaired and/or refurbished Enders for extremely cheap prices. Like around $50usd for Ender 3’s. If it went for the time and kiddo aspect, I’d be all over that, modding along the way.
Thanks for the input. I am leaning towards the A1. I don’t have prusa money for my first printer and I’m iffy on getting a used one because I don’t know what to look for to make sure it’s ok. If I went with the ender, based on what everyone has been saying, it might just become another in a long line of complex projects I start and never finish. I’d like to start printing things right away to get solidified in the hobby/craft.
Right, lots of suggestions for Bambu and Prusa and rightfully so. But their prices are high and while they are worth it, they wouldn’t be what I’d suggest for a first time printer.
The Ender 3 is what I’d suggest, though not the V1. The S1 or the v3 and good starting points for being in budget and having some modern features.
This isn’t like the mid 2010’s where it was hit or miss and the printers will have a slight chance of burning your house down. Hictop anyone? But these days even a $200 printer is good enough to start printing.
That said software is going to be your biggest pain point.
For the slicer make sure its compatible with PrusaSlicr or Cura. Preferability the former. This makes the models to print, and some cheep third party slicers makes their own with questionable quality and support.
For modeling, you have some options. Blender if you are looking to design 3d shapes like clay. Fusion360 is a cheap and free (while limited) solution for parametric cad design. With TinkerCAD is a good in between. But like Photoshop is to gimp, Fusion 360 is to FreeCAD and it may be worth learning how FreeCAD works since its an extremely flexible tool.
TL:DR Ender 3 V3/S1, Prusa Slicer, Cura, Blender, TinkerCAD, Fusion360, FreeCAD and you should be too to start printing and making brackets.
Bambulab A1 mini
Lots of different ways to get into it. I personally love my Elegoo printers (An older Neptune 2S and a Neptune 3 Pro)
