My first printer was an FLSUN delta printer, can’t remember for sure, but I think it was a Q5? This was before Bambu had hit the scene really. That thing was an absolute cake-walk to setup.
You had the bottom frame with the build plate already attached, 3 legs with motors and belts already attached, top section that holds extruder and basically all electronics, and the hot end/effector assembly already assembled and 6 poles for arms. One bold in each end of the legs and the frame is done, one bolt at each end of the 6 poles to connect the effector to the carriages and the motion system is done, and then 2 JST/Molex like connectors and it’s done.
Slapped the SD card in, did the auto bed level, and was printing without issues in well under an hour, and it was the first time I’d been in the same room as a 3d printer.
Not to mention that when things eventually broke (usually due to my own mistakes), I could buy “off-the-shelf” parts to fix it, I didn’t have to reach out to FLSUN. Bambu being the “apple of 3d printing” has always been a red-flag to me, and honestly I feel like they really pushed this idea that other 3d printers are very difficult to get working when it just wasn’t true (by the time they hit the market).
My Ender 3 required a little bit of assembly (attaching the Z-axis frame and the control panel, along with associated wires), but my Monoprice one came completely assembled. It was literally just plug it in, check the bed for level (which wasn’t automatic, but also required little to no adjustment out of the box), feed in some filament, and then print the lucky cat gcode that came on the SD card.
My first printer was an FLSUN delta printer, can’t remember for sure, but I think it was a Q5? This was before Bambu had hit the scene really. That thing was an absolute cake-walk to setup.
You had the bottom frame with the build plate already attached, 3 legs with motors and belts already attached, top section that holds extruder and basically all electronics, and the hot end/effector assembly already assembled and 6 poles for arms. One bold in each end of the legs and the frame is done, one bolt at each end of the 6 poles to connect the effector to the carriages and the motion system is done, and then 2 JST/Molex like connectors and it’s done.
Slapped the SD card in, did the auto bed level, and was printing without issues in well under an hour, and it was the first time I’d been in the same room as a 3d printer.
Not to mention that when things eventually broke (usually due to my own mistakes), I could buy “off-the-shelf” parts to fix it, I didn’t have to reach out to FLSUN. Bambu being the “apple of 3d printing” has always been a red-flag to me, and honestly I feel like they really pushed this idea that other 3d printers are very difficult to get working when it just wasn’t true (by the time they hit the market).
My Ender 3 required a little bit of assembly (attaching the Z-axis frame and the control panel, along with associated wires), but my Monoprice one came completely assembled. It was literally just plug it in, check the bed for level (which wasn’t automatic, but also required little to no adjustment out of the box), feed in some filament, and then print the lucky cat gcode that came on the SD card.