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I have a Prusa Mini original launch edition, and can’t say enough good things about the printer - we run a low volume Etsy shop with the Mini and it’s been a reliable work horse.
One thing I learned that is not on your list is that Prusa has great customer support; live people that you can talk to on your questions or issues. This in my opinion separates Prusa from most other consumer printer companies.
Not sure about the sale price, but the Mini seems like a perfect fit considering your wants/needs. There are some cheaper options that still allow for tinkering but they may not have the same reliability as the Prusa. So unless budget is a huge concern and you really really like tinkering, I'd stick with the Prusa.
Personally, I would add the filament sensor and build sheets. My philosophy is that it's better to have them and not need them, than need them and not have them. Especially when shipping takes a while.
Can't talk for the price but you won't find an other company that match as much your requirements, only issue with prusa mini is the small print area but depending what you want to do, it can be enough.
The build size is really the sticking point for me. You can relatively easily upgrade boards, drivers, extruders, etc, but you can't just slap a larger print volume on the printer. If OP is fine with a 7" build plate, it seems like a good pick.
I wanted the larger build volume so I went with a Sidewinder X2 (300x300x400) as my first printer, but I've also dumped several hundred dollars worth of upgrades (aluminum build plate, magnetic sheets, upgraded fans, genuine BL touch, klipper, pi cam) into it and still encounter issues. Seems the market is still fractured where you can spend a lot to get decent quality parts with a small build volume, or spend a little to get crappy parts with a large build volume needing lots of upgrades almost right away. After about 1.5 years of experience, I'm dead set on getting a Core XY machine next to eliminate all the issues with the bed swinging back and forth at higher print speeds, but I'm in no hurry to buy a second printer.
I think I'd recommend either buying a larger prusa printer, or a cheaper starter printer. The mini has a small bed that you will probably want to upgrade at some point.
You can regularly find an Ender 3 for ~$100. It is one of the most used printers out there. Tons of information available online about them. You won't feel bad about wasting a bunch of money on a printer that sits unused.
I bought the Prusa Mk3s+ as my first printer, but I wish I had gone with something cheaper. I didn't know what I wanted because I hadn't had a 3d printer yet. Now I really want to build a Voron, but I can't justify retiring a perfectly good $800 printer to build a new one that's faster.
We got one a while back and love it.
tl;dr I would have been delighted if I'd started with the Prusa Mini!
I started with a (very cheap and cheerful) EasyThreed... then jumped all the way up to the top of the consumer space with the Bambu X1... but... then I bought a Prusa Mini as well!
Every single one of your bulletpoints are exactly what drove my decision to buy into Prusa. I bought the self-assembly model which is a bit cheaper than the semi-assembled one, and I have to say that the experience of building the printer was a delight - it is clear as one goes through the instructions, the level of knowledge and quality that is behind the kit and the printer and the Prusa team.
Now - I have to tell you that my daily driver is the Bambu, but as I mentioned, it is at the top end of the more consumer price scale. My favourite printer in the set is the Prusa Mini! I've printed a bunch of add-ons to the frame to improve the utility (tool holders and such), and it is a lot more fun and interesting to use and play with. I chatted with the Prusa folks at the TCT 3Sixty event in the UK a couple of weeks back and honestly said, "Thank You" - the experience of using their machine is brilliant.
A used MK3S or MK3S+ might be better for your desires. They have an 8bit board but you're free to flash the firmware for marlin or klipper and you're free to flash it back to prusa. The 32bit boards on the mini and MK4 require you to cut a resistor to do 3rd party firmware.
The MK3S and S+ work well with octoprint. The mini has it own wifi but really slow upload speeds and and uses the somewhat clunky prusa setup.
Used Mk3S and Mk3S+ are readily available with everyone trying to sell them and use the money to buy a MK4.
Down sides to the prusa are there aren't a lot of mods, people like their reliability, ongoing support, and other aspects so they don't mod them as much as other printers. I've wanted a better part cooling setup, there aren't many out there and the printer as is is definitely good enough that I keep going as is. I am as guilty as most everyone else in not designing the mod I wanted.
I have a very similar list of requirements and was looking at the mini but after adding up the textured build plate, filament sensor, taxes and shipping it was like 560 for the kit - the shipping cost to the US was a big chunk of that, not sure where you are located.
I ended up ordering a sovol sv06 with 1kg of filament for like $250 on Amazon (there was a coupon for $50 off plus a free roll of filament).
My thought process was if I like printing I will want to upgrade to something bigger and better and that's easier to do with a cheaper starting cost. Also the sv06 has some common known issues but it seems popular enough that there are plenty of guides to address them.
It hasn't arrived yet so I may regret it but we'll see I guess
I have no experience with the Prusa mini, but as a first timer, I found the Ender 3 (pro, I think) perfectly good quality. It might be due to lack of experience with anything else, so if definitely defer to folks who have experience with a few different models, but I've found it good for all of my printing needs (Cases, utility objects, and the occasional figurine/trinket). If that success is anything out of the ordinary, I think I'd attribute it to a few things...
I was generally in the same boat as you; Liked to tinker, and wanted the best quality but didn't want to pay out the ass for it. I typically tend to "overspend" when getting into a new hobby out of the fear I won't stick with it if I struggle with low quality gear, bit also have an aversion to parting with my cash. These upgrades seemed to be the consensus reached at the time for how to get good consistent results out of the Ender 3.
I find the Ender 3 to be occasionally too small for things I want to print, but generally a good size, and look forward to being able to tinker further with an upgraded/quieter main board.
So, all in all, I can't help with anything specific to the Prusa mini, but can vouch for the Ender 3 as fitting my needs when I think I had the same general quality/cost criteria as you. Hope you found this helpful! Good luck in your printer search!
The Ender 3 Neo comes out of the box with a bed leveler - that's pretty much my go-to recommendation for someone getting started.
A couple of months ago I bought an ender 3 neo as my first printer. I haven't been disappointed with it.
I spent ~200€ on my neo. I didn't go for the v2 neo, as I didn't feel like the extra features were worth it. Tensioning the belts by hand is not difficult and the glass bed has super good adhesion so far. If the prints are stuck to the bed, I usually put the glass into a freezer for 15min and the prints pop off easily.
The setup before printing was like 1h of assembly and 20 minutes to level the bed and set z offset.
Yeah, if you actively like to tinker, the Ender 3 series will give you every opportunity. And sometimes will require it. xD (My 3V2 hasn't really required it, but holy shit is it not stock anymore and I have learned a lot making it that way.)
Seriously though, the Ender 3 community and mods availability is unsurpassed. These things are truly the Model T of printers for both better and worse, and I'm glad I started here, it's been educational as hell and that's part of what I wanted. And it's a bit of a hotrod at this point! Because I made it so. :D
I found the Ender 3 (pro, I think) perfectly good quality. It might be due to lack of experience with anything else
How long ago did you buy it? Ender 3 was a great budget printer when it came out, but things have changed a bit since then. After Creality got the reputation of making "the best printers for beginners" it appears that they started cutting corners everywhere to increase profit margins. Genuine Meanwell power supplies were replaced with generic Chinese parts, and manufacturing quality control sometimes appear to be non-existent. Now, many customers will be lucky, and get no severe issues that can't be fixed with simple mods, but having spent quite a lot of time helping beginners on a 3d printing discord, I've seen my share of people spending days or weeks trying to calibrate their Ender, only to eventually realize that the printer itself has some issue. However if you live the US, Microcenter has been running campaigns with an E3Pro for $99. That's a good deal even though I generally don't recommend the brand.
The other thing that has changed is that the competition is much harder nowadays, and for the same cost as an Ender you can get a printer with better features. Don't get me wrong though, there are no "good" cheap Chinese printers. It's possible to get a bad unit that slipped through QC from any brand, and pretty much all models have some design flaws. My recommendation for anyone shopping on a budget is to find the "least bad" printer, or pay the premium for a genuine Prusa if they don't want to deal with upgrades and mods to fix your printer.
Next thing to be wary of when shopping Chinese printers is brand loyalty. There are no brands that is consistent when it comes to printer models. A few brands might be worth avoiding due to anti-consumer practices, but most of them have made a few decent printers, and several bad ones. Don't trust anyone claiming that one brand is good :)
Finally, many 3d printer manufacturers, including Creality, pay youtubers for "reviews", some even go as far as scripting them. Even very popular channels, who are generally very knowledgeable about 3d printing, have been caught lying about brands that compete with their sponsor, ignoring flaws on the printer they're paid to talk about, and/or rigging comparisons to come out in favour of it. There are also many fake review sites if you try to do your own research using Google. I.e. sites most likely written by a bot or someone who doesn't know anything about 3d printing themselves, so they basically only repeat stuff from the manufacturer's marketing info or copy from other sites. They can be difficult to spot for a beginner (I know I fell for them) but their goal is to make you click their Amazon affiliate links, not give you a fair review, so I think one thing they usually have in common is that all printers they list are somehow the best option for something.
I recommend people looking to buy their first printer check out this list. It's maintained by users on the 3D Printing discord. They have first hand experience with multiple printers, they've seen what kind of issues people come asking for help with, and to my knowledge haven't received any sponsorship money from any brand. Any rating is of course going to be subjective to some degree, but even if you don't trust their "top picks" the list includes common issues and known flaws for the printers, so you can prepare for what you might need to mod or upgrade if you buy it.
Thanks for the insightful comment! I wasn't aware of any big change in quality from Creatality, or those pretty shady review practices. I got my printer right near the start of the pandemic (May 2020), so maybe I got lucky with timing before everything went to shit :-/
If they're junk these days, that's genuinely pretty sad. Always a shame when the a product gets worse due to the manufacturer cutting quality.
Unfortunately it seems to be a recurring theme that companies start with a good, competitively priced product to gain some market share, and then reduce quality when they want to start making money. I've had it happen with food and clothes brands that I used to like too.
While the criticisms against Creality might sound bad, I wouldn't go so far to say all their printers are junk. They have a few models that aren't too bad, assuming you don't get unlucky with their lack of quality control. There are lots of countries where it's difficult to buy something other than Creality (or even worse brands, like Flashforge and XYZ Printing), and while there's a slight gamble with quality, most people can get great results from an Ender if they spend enough money and time on upgrades and troubleshooting. Though you can get better value for money, and a printer that on average requires much less upgrades and troubleshooting before it prints well.
For $100 more you can get the P1P. There's really no contest there, it's superior in every way. People will tell you that the support is better when you buy a Prusa. But the Bambu labs support combined with the community support is good as well.
I think this video sums things up nicely.