Best 3d printers

alowhum

https://www.cnx-software.com/2019/04/22/zonestar-z6-entry-level-portable-3d-printer/

I bought the Ender 3 (non-pro). It's my first 3D printer. So far it's great. I'm going to add an Mini E3 board to decrease the high-pitched noise from the stepper motors. I also bought a $9 3D Touch, a fake BLTouch, for auto bed levelling. Although it's not really needed? The bed has remained stable. Then I'll install that following this guide.

I've also used a Pi Zero W I had lying around to install Octoprint. No more hassle with SD cards. There's even a plugin called "Spaghetti Detective" that uses machine learning to watch webcam images of your print being made. If your print goes wrong, it automatically stops it.

dzjr

MySensors Friends,

I also plan to finally purchase a 3D printer.

What do you recommend for a beginner right now?

What do I want to make?
Enclosures for sensors.
small parts .
and who knows what else in the future.

So I am looking for a 3D printer that I can gain experience with as a beginner.
not too small, maintenance friendly, but that does not mean that I do not want to carry out maintenance.

I don't really know yet what material I want to print with, what is the best and most versatile material to start with?

Thank you in advance for your advice and thinking along.

dzjr

pptacek

@dzjr it depends what do you need it for. This is my 2 cents on 3d printing at the moment.

If you need to print something small with high detail, get an SLA printer like Elegoo Mars. It is cheap, easy to understand and resolution is amazing. Prints out of the box, but it is messy and smelly.

Otherwise:

You are a complete noob, you have no clue how that stuff works, you just want to print. Get Prusa and print PLA. Basic printer, not great but reliable and great company support and great community.
You are a complete noob on a budget but willing to learn. Get Ender 3 and print PLA. It is basic, cheap, but gets a job done. Community support is great, but expect you will have to tinker with the printer.
You are a moderately experienced in tech and you need a workhorse. Get FlashForge Creator Pro or similar and print PLA, PETG or even ABS. Community support is great, that thing is an older design but it just works.
You are moderately experienced, with special (tinkering) demands. Here it gets very personal. There is a bunch of RepRap style printers with a moving bed (which I hate). There are some deltas (why??) and there is growing number of CoreXY printers of various sizes (Two Tree, Elf, Tronxy...). I would probably go that route. Stick with PLA and PETG.
Geek with time, resources, and curiosity. Build your own CoreXY printer. Voron, Railcore, etc. Print what you want.

I skipped 1) and 2) and went through 3) - 5). I personally own Elegoo, FlashForge CP, Elf, and CoreXY of my own design.

alowhum

@dzjr have a look here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/3Dprinting/comments/gdbu1o/purchase_advice_megathread_what_to_buy_who_to_buy/

I think the 'consensus' is that these are the beginner printers to go for currently:

Under $200
Ender 3. It's recommended as a cheap beginners machine. This does not have any automation features though, such as automatic bed levelling, detecting if your fillament runs out, etc. Although you can add those if you want. It's also quite noisy.

Above $200
For a more hassle free experience I believe the Prusa i3 Mk3S is the recommended one to go for. It's more expensive of course, but you get a lot of that automation.

It also depends on what material you want to print. Woodgrain filament cannot be used with the Ender's default extruder, for example, it will damage it. Something worth checking before purchase is it it can print flexible filament. That stuff is amazing! In general it seems ABS filament has become very unpopular.

Don't worry too much about things like touch screens. You'll likely want to get a Raspberry Pi and install Octoprint on it. That way you can send prints to your printer and monitor its progress without having to babysit it. You don't want to be sitting next to those fumes and the noise all the time.

Also don't worry about flexible removable magnetic printer beds. From what I can tell glass beds offer the best quality for things like PLA, which is what you'll most likely be printing in generally.

Whatever you do, go for a printer that has a large community of users. If you go on websites like Thingiverse you'll immediately notice which printers are popular. If you look at the most popular new 3D print designs you'll currently find a lot of Ender specific creations.

akyle32

Im using the Monoprice 3D Printer the price is below $200. I bought it a few months ago so Im not sure what its price today. 3d printing is a really fun hobby. If you need more 3d printer options, you should check out this website.

dzjr

@pptacek
Thank you for your response to my message,
It took a little longer on this side because my work took a lot of time this week.

1 & 2 will not apply to me either, I may not have 3D printing experience, but I have enough technical skills to adjust and assemble something, but I don't want to be able to print something first. half an hour to adjust everything.

So if I see your message like this, it would end up on the Ender 3 (Pro?) Or the Flashforge Creator Pro.
I was thinking of max € 500 myself, but is it worth the price difference of about € 400?

Ender 3 = € 180
Ender 3-Pro = € 235
Flashforge Creater Pro = 625

dzjr

@alowhum

Thank you for your response to my message,
It took a little longer on this side because my work took a lot of time this week.

I have read through part of the link, and keep reading that the Ender-3 (pro) would be the best choice?

Of the Prusa i3, I read on the Dutch platform Tweakers.net that there are some safety aspects, so would the power supply not be fireproof?

So if I see your message like this it would end up on the Ender 3 (Pro?)
Also thanks to @pptacek's response

How did you mean the touch screen? do you mean that you actually have to replace the controller with a Raspberry pi?

alowhum

Of the Prusa i3, I read on the Dutch platform Tweakers.net that there are some safety aspects, so would the power supply not be fireproof?

I haven't read that, but I haven't looked into the Prusa deeply. I bought the Ender 3 because of its price to performance ratio.

I wondered if I should get the Ender 3 pro. The only thing it really added that I wanted is a better power supply. But since it doesn't really impact anything, and you can always upgrade later, I decided to go with the normal Ender.

How did you mean the touch screen? do you mean that you actually have to replace the controller with a Raspberry pi?

No, I mean that some 3D printers come with fancy touch screen interfaces. The way you normally use them is that you put a file on an SD card, put that SD card in the printer, and then use the on device interface to start the print.

But you can also connect a Raspberry Pi to your printer (it has a USB port), and then it can control the printer. Once you do that, you can start, stop and follow prints through a web interface. No more hassle with SD cards. It's something you will want.

I use a 10 euro Raspberry Pi Zero W for this.

dzjr

@alowhum

I also think I'm going to buy an Ender-3,
The difference between the 3 and the 3-Pro turns out not to be very big, in this video they tell the differences.

If I would like to have a larger / other later, the costs are manageable, I think ....
Or is the Flashforge Creator really worth the extra money (my dad wants to contribute too)?

Thank you for explaining the Raspberry Pi addition,
I have already seen a tutorial how it works, I still have a Pi-3 and Pi-2, which I can use nicely, also in combination with a camera.

alowhum

Go for the Ender. It has wide support. You'll love it. Later you can always sell it second hand - precisely because it's such a popular machine.

pptacek

@dzjr difference between Ender & FFCP is huge. Let me point out the most important once:

Enclosed build volume. You can print ABS, ASA, HIPS, PC, or any other "engineering" materials which shrink a lot and they WILL delaminate if printed on something like Ender.
Two extruders mean you can print support structures using soluble filaments. That will give you an advantage in printing complex parts.
Z only moves up. Let it sink for a bit. On the Ender, you are moving the entire mass of the print with every Y move. It is a terrible concept and only works for tiny printers.

I understand why people like small RepRap printers (Ender). They are cheap, simple, easy to understand, and easy to fix. But they have serious limits which some people are underplaying. RepRap printers, in general, can never achieve higher print quality than gantry or corexy printers. It is simple physics. Enclosed, they take prohibitive amounts of space compare to their build volume, etc ...

I'm not saying they are bad. Just know your limits. Ender is great if you are on a budget.
Good luck!

Edit: It is also important to mention, that getting "a printer" to where you want it to be, usually costs at least the same amount as the printer itself. So if you buy € 235 printer, expect to spend another ~€ 250 to do upgrades (PEI build surface, better extruder, better hotend, BL-touch, stiffening brackets, ... list never ends). This is not a cheap hobby, really.

dzjr

@pptacek Thank you,

Clear explanation, it certainly has an important difference.

Do you think I have to pay a significant amount for the FFCP to improve it?

I had more or less opted for the Ender-3, but I can still opt for the FFCP ...

I understand that it is not a cheap hobby, hence the question of what is the best buy for me as a start.

pptacek

@dzjr To be completely fair, there is one big downside of the FFCP and it is the control board. FFCP is running an 8-bit MightyBoard (MakerBot board) clone which is running Sailfish firmware. That FW is great for what it does on 8-bit UC, but that era is now gone. I still have it, I still use it, but there is and won't be any new development. So sooner or later, you would likely have to replace it with something else.

So, unless you really need to print ABS, ASA, PC, Nylon, or other "hard" stuff, my suggestion is to go with Ender with an open mind (and side budget) that you will do updates. This will get you into the 3d printing quickly and you will learn some valuable lessons without wasting much money. If you find out you like it and you "need some more", I strongly suggest you go for good CoreXY experience.

If you know you need to print for outdoors (ASA) or you will be doing some engineering parts from ABS, PC, or Nylon, forget about Ender and start saving for something better.

dzjr

@pptacek

Than i will order the Ender-3!

maybe when i will buy another printer later, but we will see.

dzjr

Well, so I bought the Ender3, but can't say it's a good buy ....

To be honest, I regret it very much and am thinking about getting rid of it.

I have had the printer for over two weeks now, and have been leveling the bed every night for two weeks.

I have already taken the printer apart and reassembled it with a square hook, but that does not help.

If I think that the bed has been leveled correctly and again prints a test print from here, the second print does not go well ....

Yes, I heated bed (45 degrees C) before leveling.
and I already have several youtube videos where they say, leveling is an easy job ...

Does anyone have a tip?
Or is choosing a different 3D printer a better idea?

BearWithBeard

If they ship the Ender 3 with the same bed as they did when it was still in "Public Beta", there's a good chance that it isn't flat at all. Mine had a wide and deep dip in the center that warped inconsistently when heated. Creality was kind enough to send a free replacement heat bed and build surface which was level.

I still added a glass plate (IKEA LOTS mirror tile, 8 EUR for a 4-pack) on top, because I think it is a better print surface than this rough and grippy BuildTak stuff. Prints are super shiny on the bottom side, they adhere well and come off with just a gentle touch if you allow them to cool down after the print has finished - just clean it regularly with soap and water. I didn't even need to level the bed again in years of regular use.

Another solution might be to get a bed leveling sensor like the BLTouch and flashing a suitable firmware like Marlin on the Ender. It'll detect any tilt in the bed or uneven surfaces and compensate for that in software.

NeverDie

@dzjr I don't think you mentioned exactly which problem you're having, but maybe try a different (better) print filament. They're not all the same, and maybe you got unlucky with whichever one you picked. The good news is that whatever problem you're having, there are known solutions on how to fix it.

The learning curve can be pretty steep if it's your first 3D printer. AFAIK, none of them are yet at the level of just unbox and print and never have any problems. Maybe that's why the big companies like Xerox, Canon, HP, and the rest aren't yet offering much in the way of consumer level 3D printers? I've been curious as to why they haven't jumped in to the market. I would think that professional level design from someone like, say, HP, would utterly blow away the mom and pop products that currently dominant. I have a Prusia printer, and, no offense, it looks like it was designed by sophomore college students who had only pocket change to pay for supplies. It works, but I have no doubt that a good team of engineers could design something better, faster, cheaper, more accurate, more reliable, more elegant, and easy to manufacture in volume.

dzjr

@BearWithBeard Thank you for your response,

I do notice that the print nozzle runs free on the sides, and gets stuck in the middle ....

and that the back seems more stable than the front, the springs behind are much tighter.

I will visit IKEA next week and purchase the LOTS.

dzjr

@NeverDie
The main "problem" is that I just cannot get the bed stable, I will get an IKEA LOTS first, and I will take the printer out and assemble it again.

I understand that the printer needs to be adjusted, but I am a little disappointed that the YouTube videos pretend that it is a job of 5 to 10 minutes, but it takes more than 10 days for me ...
Apparently I put something wrong together, I will watch the CHEP video again.

I'm going to take the printer completely apart and then reassemble it piece by piece, and then I'll post the result.

NeverDie

@dzjr Your build surface needs to be as flat as possible. You can easily check it with a straightedge: if you can see daylight under the straight edge in any orientation, then it's not flat enough. I don't know how Ender 3 does it, but on the Prusia there are extremely strong magnets that grab the build surface and flatten it against a fairly thick (and very flat) PCB (which is where the heating elements are).

In theory you could also overcome the problem with very extensive bed leveling (as is common in CNC'ing PCBs), but that's a slow process, and you're better off not having to resort to that.

Good luck!

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