Prusa mini+. It wasn’t the cheapest and isn’t the fastest or most expensive but it’s crazy reliable and is just always there and ready when I need it.
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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I fell for the marketing, paid reviews and fake review sites so I ended up with an Ender 3 v2. Spent a lot of time trying to level and calibrate it but never managed to get rid of the gantry sag entirely. Eventually discovered that the x axis tensioner didn't quite fit on the aluminium extrusion and had been bent from overtightening at the factory, which was causing the belt to wander, but it was pretty easy to fix by jamming a thin metal spacer in there after I found it. Have spent a bit over €350 on upgrading the printer to get it to a state where I'm (mostly) happy with it.
Was hoping to build an Annex K2 some time, but the component costs have gone up so it's even more expensive now..
That's what I started on (well, a knock off clone) and I still say it's a great printer if you want to learn 3D printing.
Now, if you want to actually print right after buying, no no no. Not a good fit.
It's basically a set of parts that can be cheaply replaced, but measured properly (mostly) and lets you avoid putting together a BOM. Plus, there are tons of them out there, so lots of community support and many cheap, occasionally working, 3rd party upgrades.
I feel like it taught me the mindset of FDM troubleshooting and how the parts/variables interacted with each other. It was $150 a few years ago, so it's great for screwing up and figuring out what you want in your first real printer. It also has a lot of potential and folks that have modded them to actually run well, so it helped me figure out where I fell on the "It just works" to "Let's test these 200 different hotend fan duct designs" spectrum and which features were most important to me.
Since lemmy is bugged and won't let me reply to @[email protected]'s comment, here's what I tried to write:
Buying a simple printer with lots of modding options can indeed be a good way learning, but there are a few reasons why I don't recommend Creality: They appear to have done some serious cost cutting after their initial success where they established themselves as the makers of the best printers for beginners. Primarily this is noticeable on their (lack of) quality control, and there's a too big risk that you get a unit with manufacturing or assembly flaws. An experienced user might be able to quickly diagnose and fix these errors most of the time, but it's very difficult for a first timer, who is more likely to assume they're doing something wrong and keep bashing their head against the wall.
The second issue is just lack of value for money. Creality can put their prices higher and people will still buy Enders because of their reputation and marketing. The Ender 3 v2 barely had any meaningful improvements over the first Ender, and was definitely not worth an extra $100. I used to say that Creality has fallen way behind the competition (i.e. compared to other cheap Chinese printers) but IMO their Sprite extruder is decent, and they also put dual Z on the Ender 3 S1. I would even go so far as to say the E3S1 is a good albeit overpriced printer, assuming you get lucky with quality control. And if you can get an Ender 3 Pro for $99 when Microcenter runs that campaign that's a very good price for a bare-bones printer.
The important thing to keep in mind is to never have any brand loyalty when it comes to cheap Chinese printers. Most companies have made a few ok, or even good, printers but also sell several bad models.
And to clarify, I didn't meant DIY would be an alternative to Creality for a first printer, rather that there are other cheap Chinese printers that offer better value for money and slightly lower risk of getting a flawed from factory printer, for example one could get an Anycubic Kobra Go instead of an Ender 3 v2. Currently Sovol SV06 looks like the over all best choice for budget printer, but that can change at any time. A few years ago Artillery Genius was considered a relatively good starter printer, but then they replaced it with Genius Pro which is more expensive and in some ways arguably a downgrade from the previous model.
its an ender 3 in the same way that a dune buggy is a vw beetle. the only stock bits that remain are the frame and some of the steppers. it's gone direct drive, all metal, glass bed, klipper firmware on a btt mini e3v2 all running off of a mac mini with octoprint.
Voron 0.2 - down for upgrade from 0.1 to 0.2
Voron Switchwire w/ ERCF
Voron Trident - down because one of the CANBUS boards died
Voron 2.4r2
Voron crew! Granted, you're much further along than I am. Currently working on wiring my first Voron - a 2.2r2. Before that I've had a monoprice maker select plus (a rebranded wanhao) for > 5 years.
Is there a dedicated voron space in the fediverse?
I use a Prusa MK3 (not MK3S/+) that I got in 2018. Later this year I hope to get an MK4 to join it, and maybe a Voron 2.4 for big prints. My first printer was a SeeMeCNC Rostock MAX from 2013. Its controller board died for the second time just before I got the MK3, and I never fixed it.
ender 5 pro mostly stock with bltouch and cardboard bolted to the side as side panels. im saving up for a p1p currently. while i like the idea of the machine im done with creality. if im using the official firmware from their website i shouldnt have to rewire my stepper motor to extrude correctly. its small things like that i cant trust them with. sure there might be issues with bambulabs in the future but the base machine is still a good starting point. hopefully i can go full print farm and then have it as a side job.
I run an ender 3 pro with a sprite extruder, silent board, and gulfcoast robotics bed and gantry. The only one of those that was really necessary was the gulfcoast robotics one cause the 3 point leveling solved a lot of my leveling issues.
Flexible couplers for the z rod was also a great little quality of life upgrade.
MK3s+ and a heavily modified KP3S Klipper WIP.
Ender 6 but swapped out most hardware and running Klipper.
- 7 inch capacitive touch screen
- BTT Manta E3EZ + CB1
- EZ2209 drivers
- Micro Swiss NG direct
- Magnetic PEI bed
Prusa Mk3S+ with something like 1600 hours and a new orange pi octoprint server.
Next year I may get a MK4 or a X1 Carbon
Ratrig v-core 3.1 that I've heavily modified from "stock" configuration and still tinkering. Thinking of picking up a vzbot 235 kit to replace my old ultimaker 2+ at some point. I like the ultimaker, but it is pretty dated by todays standards.
Ender 3 S1 Pro.
Started with an ender 3 which taught me the fundamentals. Heavily modified it. Picked up a sidewinder x1 for larger prints. Dabbled into resin printing with the creality LD-002H, didn’t really love it too much prep and clean up. Did the kickstarter for the ankermake which is a great printer but not worth the price in my opinion.
Just got started with the hobby, bought a stock Ender 3 v2 Neo. Happy with it so far!
Using a self-sourced 350mm^3^ Voron 2.4r1 as my primary,and have been very happy with it. Also have an Ender3 kicking around somewhere and may or may not end up converting it into an Enderwire eventually.
Sidewinder X2 that I've modified quite a bit.
I'm using a genuine BL Touch, aluminum bed with magnetic build plates, removed filament spool from the top of the printer, Klipper/MainsailOS, Pi camera, silicon bed spacers, bi-metal heat break, larger part cooling fan and duct, and more.
I have probably 600-800 hours on it so far (about 500 since installing Klipper and about a year of use before that), but it's working well so far with all the upgrades.
Anycubic i3 Mega-S, bought in 2019 as my first printer and modified quite a lot since then (replaced all fans except part cooling, stepper drivers, Z couplers, silicone bed spacers), and it works fine, but I still don't fully trust it to be left unattended for more than 2-3 hours. And since it's lacking most of the newer "convenience" features like ABL (and is rather slow) I'm really considering to replace it with a newer/better printer. Hottest contenders are currently either a Prusa XL or a Voron 2.4.
Paper: Standard 80gsm copy paper on a HP LaserJet 4 Plastic: Fillamentive rPLA on an Ender 2
Started printing with an Elegoo Mars 2 Pro. Upgraded to Elegoo Saturn 8k and bought a Neptune 3 Plus recently. After getting the Neptune I haven't touched the rest yet. But still missing working with them.
Ender 5, currently adapting an E3D toolchanging system to run on that printer.
Really good piece of kit once you replaced the mainboard, extruder, hotend and beefed up the bed mount to not wobble multiple mm up and down while printing.
Would not recommend for anyone who just wants to print.
Started with an Ender5. Mostly stock, but got a cheap direct drive bracket, and put a metal throat in the heatbreak to make it an all metal hotend.
Then I got a Sainsmart coreception because I liked the frame of the ender5, but the concept of Corexy just seemed better, and looking back, it definitely is.
Then I got 3 more Creativity Elf printers, which are basically the same as the Coreception.
Then I got a Voron. I want a bigger bed. I really wanted to go with RatRig as they have a kit with 500mm. But I just didn't feel comfortable with how much smaller the community behind it was and the documentation just didn't seem as good as the Voron. This kit was from Formbot. The wiring sucked. After 1000 hours, wires literally just came apart inside the cable chains. One after another. I could print for more than a few days without another wire breaking. All in different places too. I moved all the wires out the chains, and it's been solid since.
And just this last week or 2, I got another Voron. This time from Magic Phoenix. And I am documenting the process on my blog.
I just finished it up a couple days ago. It has been awesome. The details are there in my blog post, but I'm definitely going to be buying from them again. This project(when including all the stuff I add to my printers like cameras and stuff) cost $350 less than the formbot kit. And it has a LOT of quality of life improvements over a standard Voron kit. Tap, StealthBurner and CANBUS are a few. Highly recommended.
Very happy with MK3S+, ordered upgrade kit last month for MK4. Trying to get a Prusa XL for my office but availability is shit.
A Voron 0.1 with a 0.2 gantry and a Voron 2.4 with a 2.4r2 gantry (currently being upgraded to canbus and stealthburner).
Voron 2.4 300mm
Upgraded to Voron TAP with the stealthburner. Amazing prints!!
A heavily customized Ender 5 Pro. I'm running Klipper with an Octoprint server on a Raspberry Pi. I have the BL touch, Micro Swiss direct drive kit, a custom printed heat shrowd and a 20mm fan, silicone spacers, and a spring steel bed. It prints amazingly well and I don't see myself replacing it any time soon.
I'm printing with a heavily modified Ender 3, a heavily modified CR-10 V3, and a Anycubic Mono 4k.
I usually refer to the Ender 3 and CR-10 V3 as, "The printers formally known as Ender 3 and CR-10 V3," due to the amount of modifications to them both.
All of them do a fine job for stuff in their wheelhouse and I dig them all.
A BambuLabs X1 Carbon (a nice printer that would be great if they didn't close source it)
A modded Voxelab Aquila (Ender3v2 clone used to learn, break, and train my patience)
I'm thinking Voron next, but I'll see what's out there when it's time to expand.
I've got an Anycubic Kobra Max at home for big prints that is relatively reliable and a corexy poject printer cobbled together from about 10 different sources.
My first printer was a makerfarm i3v in 2014.
Started with Ender 3 but got annoyed with it not being very reliable for me (probably due to my own modifications). Now using the Sovol SV06 and very happy with it so far after a couple months.
Ender 3 Pro with Klipper, SKR, dual Z, solid mounts, slice engineering bimetal heatbrake, 84mm Noctua for power supply and 4010 for mobo, PEI sheet, Noctua 4020 fan and dual 5015 satsana duct on Speeddrive with a BMG clone
Ender 5 Pro with Klipper, same direct drive setup as the 3 but stock cooling fans and housing, microswiss all metal hotend.
The 3 sits by me in the office and is completely silent idling and barely noticeable when running. Mostly use it for prototyping with PETG, running 100mm/s at 3.2k accel
The 5 is in the garage and prints CF Nylon, Nylon, ABS and glow in the darks and sometimes TPU.
Anycubic Photon Mono 4k. It's been pretty good so far. Lots of hours on it, so expecting the screen to burn out ar some point.
Currently printing on an anycubic photon D2 ultra, have a prusa XL on order for my FDM machine. Last FDM was a monoprice maker select + that was a workhorse for years before I gave it to a friend when I moved in may.
Kingroon KP3S here. Totally stock. No issues with it, always had good quality from it out of the box. I want to add a touch sensor and klipper to it but haven't had the time to figure it out
Makerbot replicator 2. Old as hell but still gets the job done for my limited purposes.
Your experience with the Ender 3 mirrors my own lol. I also gave mine away after never getting it to work properly.
Wanhao i3 Duplicator was my first printer. Used it for ever but I finally gave up on it after countless hours modifying and upgrading it.
Bought a p1p and holy shit is this thing amazing. I should have done this so much sooner.
Just built and enclosure for the p1p, and I am going to salvage what I can from the i3 and make a voron 0.2
I'm running a Prusa Mini at home, and a Markforged Mark Two and Ultimaker S5 at the office. I've been considering a MK4 for home, but I don't really use my Mini enough to justify it.
I'm using a Prusa Mini, works perfectly, no tuning, but I want to get an 0.6mm nozzle at some point.
I switched to .6 a while ago on my mk3s and am really happy with the speed and quality.
Primary: Artillery Sidewinder X1, absolutely stock except for parts that needed replacement but even those are just part swap, no upgrades or mods.
Secondary: MP Select mini Frame and some motors. The board is the motherboard form a Tronxy X5S. the bed is a manual replacement from an off brand and it has an off the shelf 12 V 300W PSU.
I got a ender 3 S1 to start with. Which I upgraded pretty soon after getting it, full copper hotend with a mellow V6 pro extender and cht clone, 0y bltouch bracket and klipper.
It has since printed a self designed 150x150mm corexy build and a VzBot 235 upscaled to 330 with a kinematic 3z.
Planning on getting rid of the S1 as soon as both builds are up and running.
AnyCubic Chiron. Still going after many years, though sometimes I do need to spritz the plate with cheap hairspray to help adhesion
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