Home 3D printers, recommendations and things to look for.

[Deus Machina]

Alright, so getting a bit of a bonus from work and my creative urges have been getting pent up. Decided to finally look into a 3D printer like I've been intending to do.
Opening up this thread as to help me now, and other beginners in the future.

Considerations: I want something precise (I intend to make some miniatures) but still want a relatively large build area; I have friends that do the cosplay thing and I've been called upon to make costume gun parts in the past. Speed is nice but not the primary concern.
I do understand that filament won't be as precise as resin, but filament is the way I need to go. I'll need semi-structural parts, and smells and possible spills are a no-go in my situation.
I know CAD. Or at least I used to. I'm sure I'm rusty.
I've run machine tools in the past so I'm not afraid of assembly, but fully understand that is a hassle in itself. If it will save me a couple hundred dollars, I'll do that. A $50 difference to have something ready at the doorstep? I'll go that route.

This is largely a hobby and a way to fix minor things. I can't justify a $1500 machine. $500? Yeah, okay. $300, awesome.

Wading through Google is a bit overwhelming and things change every day. But off the top, a few recommendations have been...
the Comgrow Crealty Ender 3 which looks good, but I have no frame of reference.
the Flashforge Finder which looks nice but is considerably smaller.
And the Anycubic Mega X for larger ones.

[JonM]

I do all of my printing on a modified Ender 3. Out of the box, they are very capable printers for the price. That said, there are a lot of mods out there for them to make them perform a lot better. To put it into MCB terms, the Ender 3 is the base model Autococker of the 3D printing world. There are a ton of aftermarket parts out there made specifically for this printer and hardly anyone ever keeps theirs bone stock. Of the mods I've made to mine, the greatest improvements have been from the SKR Mini E3 mainboard, BL Touch ABL probe, and the all metal extruder. You can also print a lot of quality of life upgrades like cable chains, fan shrouds, filament guides, and tool organizers. If you're technically inclined, a Raspberry Pi and a webcam make the printer even easier and more convenient to use.

[Rainmaker]

JonM I like your autococker analogy!

Deus! Welcome to 3D printing!

The Ender 3 and the Anycubic Mega are both clones of the Prusa i3 variety (or as JonM analogized, different brands of autococker). I own two of the standard Anycubic Megas, and it's a very similar story to the Ender 3: they work great out of the box, but I did add several upgrades over time. The Original Prusa i3 is still kinda the gold standard for the i3 platform, and I believe it comes with most of the good upgrades already included. You pay for the quality though, at around $800 if I remember correctly. Most people seem to be very satisfied with their Ender 3's. I'm pretty happy with my Mega's. A lot of the "issues" that you see with these low end printers actually have a lot to do with the fact that, at this price point, people with very little technical background (or none at all) can afford to buy a printer. I think this is a GOOD thing, and try to be as helpful to the learning process for newbies as possible.

The Flashforge Finder is a different printer configuration altogether, known generally as a "CoreXY" type printer. The print head carriage does all the X and Y axis movement, while the print bed only has to move in the Z direction. This apparently lends itself to faster print speeds and higher precision, but I don't personally have experience with one. Lordkyleofearth on here runs a coreXY printer as his primary (though he might not be on the new MCB yet).

If I had $500 to spend on a new printer right now... I'd probably sell a few things so I had enough money for an Original Prusa i3. I'm really familiar with the i3 style printers now, and the Prusa is really nice. 2nd in line would be to try out a corexy printer, they intrigue me, something like a SainSmart Coreception.

[Arsenal]

JonM I like your autococker analogy!

It works, and we can extend it further...

The Ender 3 is the base Autococker - pretty decent out of the box, and can be made better with tinkering. Can be made really good if you're willing to put in the time and money to get some upgrades and really learn the system.

The Prusa is like a Westwood. It's the best iteration of the design that you can buy off the shelf (Not surprising, since it's the one that's made by the guy who invented the technology and has been improving on it for years). It can still be tweaked further by someone who really knows what they're doing but if you want the best possible performance out of the box, that's the one you want.

Any of the I3 clones from China (other than the Ender 3) are like the Dragunfly. They work the same way and kinda look similar, but are not up to the same quality standards. You can get them to perform acceptably, but for the amount of time and frustration you'll spend doing it, you could have had something that performs FAR better.

The CoreXY types would be Automags. They're a completely different operating system. They're just as good as 'Cockers in most respects, and even better by certain measurements, but do have some drawbacks too. But since they're not as common, it's harder (though not impossible) to find aftermarket support for them.

Here's my experience: I've been going back and forth about buying a printer for years. Based on some recommendations from people here that were printing, I started lurking on the forums for one of the other I3 designs. (I didn't think I could afford a Prusa, this was long before the Ender 3 came out, and it was pretty much considered the best Prusa alternative at the time.) I learned a lot about the mechanics of 3d printing, because every day there were a hundred threads asking about problems people were having, calibrations that weren't working right, upgrades that were pretty much necessary, and how much time they had to spend getting all of their required upgrades to work together with each other...

Fast forward a few years; I'm finally ready to pull the trigger. The Ender is out now, and the consensus is that it's far better than the old I3 variants, but it still requires tinkering and tweaking to get it up to peak form. Thing is, I'm a single dad now. I want to spend the small amount of free time I have making stuff, not tinkering with the tools. So a couple of months ago I bit the bullet and ordered a Prusa kit. Spent a few evenings building it, a couple of hours doing all the initial calibrations, and then hit the start button. Out of the box, I was getting prints that were as good as anything else I'd seen.

So my recommendation is this: If you are truly constrained by your budget, or don't mind spending time working on the learning curve involved in getting your printer into top functioning spec, get the Ender. You won't be disappointed in the long run. If you don't mind spending the money on a Prusa (and it's not a small difference - you can literally buy three Enders for the price of a Prusa), go for it - you'll get up to speed and be happy with your results quicker.

Edit: I forgot to mention... One of the cool things about the Prusa is that every part on one that isn't made of metal is printed on a Prusa printer. And the design is open-source, so the files for all the parts are available directly from the manufacturer. That means that you can print a complete set of spare parts and have them on hand in case something breaks (It also means that you can build your own Prusa if you can source your own metal parts, and some people have done exactly that, but that's a bit out of the range of beginner-level stuff).

[Aperture3D]

This was an excellent summary that draws relatable parallels between the hobbies, bravo!

[Deus Machina]

Well, I shopped around, considered options and available space... and ended up ordering a FlashForge Dreamer NX.
Not ruling out getting something different I can play with on its own later, but for now I want to do printing, not tinkering.
Not that I'm opposed to tinkering. I love it. As much as actually using stuff. But priorities.
But all accounts say it's solid, that it doesn't have as much aftermarket support but doesn't need it, and replacement wear parts are readily available standards anyway.

And mostly that one will be easier to find space for in my apartment.

[Arsenal]

Hey, great! As long as it fits your needs and will make the parts you want, it doesn't matter that much who made it or what mechanism it uses...

[Rainmaker]

That looks like a nice one! Im interested ro see how you like it.

[Deus Machina]

Finished my first test.



No stringing, nothing seemed out of the ordinary aside from that 'preload line', the printer didn't make any dubstep noises.
Need to find a trick to make it stick a bit less though. The stock blue cover is absolutely ridiculous. That thing was welded on there.
Also, what CAD or modeling software do you guys use? I'm familiar with AutoCAD, but may not have free, legitimate access to it any more; I had been using my student access long after I was actually a student.

[Rainmaker]

Nice! Looks pretty good man! For test prints, there are several good ones on thingiverse to reveal a little more insight into your settings, with overhangs and bridges and towers and stuff.

As far as sticking too well, something like that box that has a big flat bottom with 90deg corners is prone to be hard to get off the bed. If you fillet the corners on that it will help to be easier to remove.

Many of us on here use Fusion 360, free for hobbyist I believe. Solidworks is also good, but not free. I've also heard a lot of people use FreeCAD.

[ReconSWS]

I've been drinking so I'll be a bit more critical than normal/

Top is over-extruded (top / bottom solid layers)

1 or 2 layers on the side are missing???? Not an easy issue to diagnose. Retraction / partial clog??

You have a moire or some sort of texture... which is fine.. I love my moire... but speed / accel can alter this maybe.

A positive is, a simple large cube like that, is possibly the hardest thing to print to be reviewed. After 4-5 years of printing, it's the 'primitives' that scare me the most to print lol. Complexity seems to iron out a lot of printer issues (or can magnify them haha)/

[Deus Machina]

This is just a preprogrammed test cube. Just select the file and hit 'print,' not even the slicer program involved.
Heck, it's not even a cube. It's 40x40x20. But I figure they use that because it will make it very obvious if something's wonky.

Anyway, nothing seems to be missing. That 'gap' is a trick of the flash and texture.The rest I
There does seem to be a type of texture. It's really not that bad--the moire effect makes it look worse--but it is there. I'll be grabbing a file I can tinker with instead of the pure G code this is, and seeing if settings won't alleviate that.
I'll have to test out settings for the big flat bits. The bottom especially is pretty rough.

[Joshk]

I bought the Ender 3 Pro. Beyond setup, which was pretty straight forward, it hasn't really required any "tinkering" beyond bed leveling. The biggest pain has been fine tuning the settings for various filament types, but that would be an issue with any printer. Most of the mods I've seen for the Ender 3 are more quality of life things versus actual performance. Ultimately FDM printing is limited in performance regardless of the machine.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[JonM]

Most of the mods I've seen for the Ender 3 are more quality of life things versus actual performance. Ultimately FDM printing is limited in performance regardless of the machine.

Not necessarily. For example, hot end, nozzle and bowden tube upgrades allow you to print using materials that the Ender 3 would have difficulty with out of the box. For example, the stock bowden tube will give you trouble at higher temperatures that Capricorn tubing simply won't. If all you're printing with is PLA, then sure, the Ender 3 works fine as it comes. Then there's the issue of the stock bed. The Ender 3 is notorious for shipping with warped beds. A glass build surface would correct that defect if you're unlucky enough to have that problem. The Ender 3 is a very capable printer, but to say that upgrades won't actually affect performance is a bit of a misnomer.

[Joshk]

Not necessarily. For example, hot end, nozzle and bowden tube upgrades allow you to print using materials that the Ender 3 would have difficulty with out of the box. For example, the stock bowden tube will give you trouble at higher temperatures that Capricorn tubing simply won't. If all you're printing with is PLA, then sure, the Ender 3 works fine as it comes. Then there's the issue of the stock bed. The Ender 3 is notorious for shipping with warped beds. A glass build surface would correct that defect if you're unlucky enough to have that problem. The Ender 3 is a very capable printer, but to say that upgrades won't actually affect performance is a bit of a misnomer.

Good points. Was being a little overly simplistic, but a lot of the mods I've seen are like throwing a fart can on a Civic. You are also correct that certain filament types require modifications to the Ender; whereas, fancier printers can use those filament types out of the box.

The point I was trying to make is that the Ender 3 prints (PLA and PETG) very well with minimal fuss.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

[JonM]

Good points. Was being a little overly simplistic, but a lot of the mods I've seen are like throwing a fart can on a Civic. You are also correct that certain filament types require modifications to the Ender; whereas, fancier printers can use those filament types out of the box.

The point I was trying to make is that the Ender 3 prints (PLA and PETG) very well with minimal fuss.

Sent from my Pixel 2 using Tapatalk

I'd even be careful printing PETG on a stock Ender 3 unless you print it at the lower end of PETG's temperature range. The PTFE tube that comes with it will degrade at temperatures of around 240C. The PETG brands I use seem to work best at around 240C to 245C. In this case, Capricorn tubing was a necessary upgrade.

[Rainmaker]

Deus Machina Have you printed anything else so far?