I’ve had access to a roommate’s 3D printer, but they’ll be moving away soon :(
Wondering if people have takes on machines that are considered entry level today but may have evolved handy features since, well, when you were an entry level user.
If this isn’t the right place for this please be nice I’m sorry
EDIT: okay I left out way too much detail for this to be answerable.
I’ve been printing for a year, so im not absolute beginner tier, and can benefit from some of the fancy gizmos like auto leveling, multi filament, etc. but i dont really venture beyond PETG and PLA. I mostly use 3D printing in other maker/diy projects; creating custom fixtures, quick tools and jigs, attachments for sewing machines, table saws, tool organization etc. You get the idea. Im not a mechanical engineer or prototyping medical equipment. I just really enjoy the power of being able to model something i need, print it, and immediate use it to complete a project. I dont do any figurines.
My budget is a maximum of 300 canadian dollars, including filaments, replacement parts, and add-ons. I am impartial to any brands or companies, i actually would perfer something that doesnt have proprietary bullshit, but the printers my roommate have are a (GEETECH) Ender 3 Clone and a TwoTree SP-5. The two tree is really awesome, but also over kill for what i need personally.
Other considerations are that It should be relatively compact, not mini/micro or anything, I would rather print twice or rearrange the models on the print bed some times and have more space than the other way around.
I think it would be better to say what your budget is since entry level is subjective.
Doesn’t entry level basically mean “what’s the cheapest you can get, while still being worth getting”?
Depends, some people see it as what is the most accessible (eg. Prusa) while others want affordability (eg. Ender 3 and clones) and most want a mix of both.
Hey! Thanks for the reply! The fact that this is subjective is extremely true.
My budget is roughly 200$ for the machine alone, with a max of 300$ with filament, extras, etc.
Well then if you are not afraid of tinkering creality printers are great to dip a toe at that price point and also serve to give you a solid foundation of the hobby. I started with a standard ender3 and then upgraded for a while as I learned more and finally have settled for now with a bambulab.
I’m a huge fan of Creality printers. If I were starting over today and didn’t have my eye on any specific bell or whistle, I’d probably get a Creality Ender 3 V3 or Ender 3 V3 SE. The Ender 3 Pro and Ender 3 V2 Neo I have now are great. Very reliable and easy to maintain.
One bell/whistle I’d 100% pay extra for is autoleveling. (A z probe rather than a z endstop.) My Ender 3 Pro came with an endstop rather than a probe. As soon as I got the V2 Neo that does have a z-probe I immediately decided to upgrade my Ender 3 Pro with a z-probe. With just the endstop, I had constant issues getting the first layer to adhere, especially if I was printing something that used a significant portion of the bed.
Fuck creality. They have issues all the time, no customer support, no auto bed leveling out of the box, the firmware out of the box isn’t even good. I would go for Elegoo Neptune printers. They work perfectly out of the box, have amazing support, good firmware, auto bed leveling, and prints faster than the enders.
I’ve never had occasion to need to contact Creality customer support, and aside from bed adhesion with my Ender 3 Pro before I added a CR-Touch, I haven’t had any issues with my Creality printers. “No auto bed leveling out of the box” isn’t the case for most of Creality’s printers. (I didn’t mean to imply by “I would pay extra for autoleveling” that Creality makes you pay extra for that. Their bottom-of-the-line printers have autoleveling now-a-days.) And my experience with my two Creality printers was that they “work perfectly out of the box.”
I don’t have any experience with Elegoo printers.
Hmm ive dont know much about the players in the 3D printer market, nor the drama, but from the site Elegoo has reasonable prices for something that looks pretty decent
Hey! Thanks for the reply! Auto-leveling is something my roommate has never had so i’ve never experienced what youre describing, but I do see how that would get rid of lots of faff.
I, like others have mentioned, would love to know how “locked down” a company/brand makes they products. I know there are a lot of Ender 3 clones, and I wonder if going with something like that would keep it really diy while also being based on a tried and tested product.
Yeah, good call. I’d definitely say Creality is good about being open. I’ve flashed the firmware on one of my two Creality printers. And upgraded it a couple of times, though admittedly only with official Creality parts.
I have a friend who had a printer that I believe didn’t have an SD card slot and the Wifi died on it, so it became roughly-speaking useless. I like to lean toward fewer moving parts even if it makes for some inconveniences like having to actually load it onto an SD card and put it in the machine.
If I did really care about wifi connectivity, I’d probably still buy a machine without Wifi built-in and attach a Raspberry Pi running Octoprint to the side.
I coach a robotics team and we were sponsored by Elegoo (so grain of salt). They gave us a Neptune 4 that’s pretty incredible. It printed a flawless benchy in 38 minutes. It’s a bit picky and takes some finessing, but it’s a great printer. You can get the predecessor, the Neptune 3, for about 210USD. It’s highly rated by several sites for a beginner printer, and I would definitely recommend it.
If you’re only doing one project every once in a while, consider just ordering parts from people online. They do the work, and mail you a finished part.
With the prices I saw, just a few prints costs like buying an ender 3 but without the fun of maintenance
The printing services are good if you need metal prints or if you need resin prints and can’t deal with the fumes and mess.
If you just need filament prints, it’s better to buy a printer. It really sucks to wait a week or more for the part to show up only to find that you made a mistake and it doesn’t fit.
I definitely am not a power user like others, but after practicing with 3d modelling for the last little while, it has become an integral part of my workflow on most of my projects from household repairs, woodworking, electronics, etc. Its also something I am looking to increase my proficiency in so i dont thinkn the ordering online route is for me.
Thanks for the reply!
Do you want resin or filament?
