I made my own 3D printer in 2014 (E3D, Core-XY, oversized Nema motors, …), but it has been sitting in the garage for too long and it’s a bit bulky, finicky and so on. A good first try IMO back when crappy chinese ones was 700-800€ on AliBaba… But because my kid asked me if we couldn’t buy one, and this one specifically, I checked it out, it’s ~300€ which I thought was way too cheap for something reliable but things have changed in the 3D print world it seems, and I haven’t kept up.

So I’m mostly looking for something reliable (or easily fixable, I do have printed a bunch of stuff so I know how things work, at least I have had all the basics problems :-) ) and in a box, no need for anything fancy.

I read that the hotend isn’t interchangeable, or you go third-party, but I will mostly (only?) use PLA which is not very abrasive.

I also read that you can use other slicers, which is nice. Future proofing is nice.

Thoughts / recommendations ?

Thanks!

Edit: Kid just sent me the " 3D Bambu Lab P1S" too, but I think I don’t like the closed echo system of the Bambu… is it a legit concern ?

  • lpinfinity@retrolemmy.comEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    The price of a capable printer has come down quite a bit over the last few years. I haven’t got any experience with Elegoo printers myself, but I’d expect it to at least work well enough at first. Longevity could be questionable though.

    Bamboo printers have proven to be very capable, easy to use, and reliable, but they are locked down quite a bit. If you want a printer you can tinker with, Bamboo is not the way to go.

    Depending on your budget, a Prusa would be the best of both worlds, excellent print quality, reliability, and they’re about as open as modern consumer printer get. If you go this route, I would recommend against the Prusa Mini. I’m sure it’s a good printer, but it’s quite outdated now. If you can afford it, I’ve heard the Core One is a great printer, plus you’ll be able to add a Bondtech INDX system later for multimaterial.

    The most open option (though the one with the most commitment) would be to build a kit printer like a Voron or a RatRig (Prusa also offers their printers as kits, which I would recommend if you go that route). Building a printer allows you to truly understand the machine, plus, I find it to be a lot of fun.

    Prusa kits will come with everything you need to build a printer (except for some tools, I would assume).

    Voron kits are all unofficial, but most who build Vorons use a kit. The LDO kits are the best, but I’ve also built from a Formbot kit and it was fine. Voron kits typically won’t come with the printed parts, though some do. The parts need to be printed with either ABS or ASA, so not all printer will work.

    I haven’t got any experience with RatRig printers, but I think the kits are official, so I would expect them to be good quality. Not sure if they come with printed parts or not.

    Sorry for the wall of text TLDR: Elegoo: Cheap, open-ish, questionable reliability BAMBOO: Affordable, very closed, reliable Prusa: Expensive, open, reliable Voron: Expensive, very open, large commitment RatRig: same as Voron, with a little less commitment