Currently using a FLSUN Super racer. It’s a delta style printer and fast as hell compared to the printers I had before. 400 hours on it currently.
Had a Ender 3 before it. Lots of issues. Ended up giving it away to a friend who still uses it and still has random issues.
First printer was a Printrbot Simple Metal. Bought one the moment a heated bed was a option. Great printer for the time, but dated now. Keep thinking about resurrecting it to print flexibles on of these days.
Prusa mini+. It wasn’t the cheapest and isn’t the fastest or most expensive but it’s crazy reliable and is just always there and ready when I need it.
I fell for the marketing, paid reviews and fake review sites so I ended up with an Ender 3 v2. Spent a lot of time trying to level and calibrate it but never managed to get rid of the gantry sag entirely. Eventually discovered that the x axis tensioner didn’t quite fit on the aluminium extrusion and had been bent from overtightening at the factory, which was causing the belt to wander, but it was pretty easy to fix by jamming a thin metal spacer in there after I found it. Have spent a bit over €350 on upgrading the printer to get it to a state where I’m (mostly) happy with it.
Was hoping to build an Annex K2 some time, but the component costs have gone up so it’s even more expensive now…
That’s what I started on (well, a knock off clone) and I still say it’s a great printer if you want to learn 3D printing.
Now, if you want to actually print right after buying, no no no. Not a good fit.
It’s basically a set of parts that can be cheaply replaced, but measured properly (mostly) and lets you avoid putting together a BOM. Plus, there are tons of them out there, so lots of community support and many cheap, occasionally working, 3rd party upgrades.
I feel like it taught me the mindset of FDM troubleshooting and how the parts/variables interacted with each other. It was $150 a few years ago, so it’s great for screwing up and figuring out what you want in your first real printer. It also has a lot of potential and folks that have modded them to actually run well, so it helped me figure out where I fell on the “It just works” to “Let’s test these 200 different hotend fan duct designs” spectrum and which features were most important to me.
Since lemmy is bugged and won’t let me reply to @[email protected]’s comment, here’s what I tried to write:
Buying a simple printer with lots of modding options can indeed be a good way learning, but there are a few reasons why I don’t recommend Creality: They appear to have done some serious cost cutting after their initial success where they established themselves as the makers of the best printers for beginners. Primarily this is noticeable on their (lack of) quality control, and there’s a too big risk that you get a unit with manufacturing or assembly flaws. An experienced user might be able to quickly diagnose and fix these errors most of the time, but it’s very difficult for a first timer, who is more likely to assume they’re doing something wrong and keep bashing their head against the wall.
The second issue is just lack of value for money. Creality can put their prices higher and people will still buy Enders because of their reputation and marketing. The Ender 3 v2 barely had any meaningful improvements over the first Ender, and was definitely not worth an extra $100. I used to say that Creality has fallen way behind the competition (i.e. compared to other cheap Chinese printers) but IMO their Sprite extruder is decent, and they also put dual Z on the Ender 3 S1. I would even go so far as to say the E3S1 is a good albeit overpriced printer, assuming you get lucky with quality control. And if you can get an Ender 3 Pro for $99 when Microcenter runs that campaign that’s a very good price for a bare-bones printer.
The important thing to keep in mind is to never have any brand loyalty when it comes to cheap Chinese printers. Most companies have made a few ok, or even good, printers but also sell several bad models.
And to clarify, I didn’t meant DIY would be an alternative to Creality for a first printer, rather that there are other cheap Chinese printers that offer better value for money and slightly lower risk of getting a flawed from factory printer, for example one could get an Anycubic Kobra Go instead of an Ender 3 v2. Currently Sovol SV06 looks like the over all best choice for budget printer, but that can change at any time. A few years ago Artillery Genius was considered a relatively good starter printer, but then they replaced it with Genius Pro which is more expensive and in some ways arguably a downgrade from the previous model.
its an ender 3 in the same way that a dune buggy is a vw beetle. the only stock bits that remain are the frame and some of the steppers. it’s gone direct drive, all metal, glass bed, klipper firmware on a btt mini e3v2 all running off of a mac mini with octoprint.
Ender 6 but swapped out most hardware and running Klipper.
- 7 inch capacitive touch screen
- BTT Manta E3EZ + CB1
- EZ2209 drivers
- Micro Swiss NG direct
- Magnetic PEI bed
Ratrig v-core 3.1 that I’ve heavily modified from “stock” configuration and still tinkering. Thinking of picking up a vzbot 235 kit to replace my old ultimaker 2+ at some point. I like the ultimaker, but it is pretty dated by todays standards.
Prusa Mk3S+ with something like 1600 hours and a new orange pi octoprint server.
Next year I may get a MK4 or a X1 Carbon
ender 5 pro mostly stock with bltouch and cardboard bolted to the side as side panels. im saving up for a p1p currently. while i like the idea of the machine im done with creality. if im using the official firmware from their website i shouldnt have to rewire my stepper motor to extrude correctly. its small things like that i cant trust them with. sure there might be issues with bambulabs in the future but the base machine is still a good starting point. hopefully i can go full print farm and then have it as a side job.
MK3s+ and a heavily modified KP3S Klipper WIP.
I use a Prusa MK3 (not MK3S/+) that I got in 2018. Later this year I hope to get an MK4 to join it, and maybe a Voron 2.4 for big prints. My first printer was a SeeMeCNC Rostock MAX from 2013. Its controller board died for the second time just before I got the MK3, and I never fixed it.
Voron 0.2 - down for upgrade from 0.1 to 0.2
Voron Switchwire w/ ERCF
Voron Trident - down because one of the CANBUS boards died
Voron 2.4r2
Voron crew! Granted, you’re much further along than I am. Currently working on wiring my first Voron - a 2.2r2. Before that I’ve had a monoprice maker select plus (a rebranded wanhao) for > 5 years.
Is there a dedicated voron space in the fediverse?
I run an ender 3 pro with a sprite extruder, silent board, and gulfcoast robotics bed and gantry. The only one of those that was really necessary was the gulfcoast robotics one cause the 3 point leveling solved a lot of my leveling issues.
Flexible couplers for the z rod was also a great little quality of life upgrade.
Anycubic i3 Mega-S, bought in 2019 as my first printer and modified quite a lot since then (replaced all fans except part cooling, stepper drivers, Z couplers, silicone bed spacers), and it works fine, but I still don’t fully trust it to be left unattended for more than 2-3 hours. And since it’s lacking most of the newer “convenience” features like ABL (and is rather slow) I’m really considering to replace it with a newer/better printer. Hottest contenders are currently either a Prusa XL or a Voron 2.4.
Started with an Ender5. Mostly stock, but got a cheap direct drive bracket, and put a metal throat in the heatbreak to make it an all metal hotend.
Then I got a Sainsmart coreception because I liked the frame of the ender5, but the concept of Corexy just seemed better, and looking back, it definitely is.
Then I got 3 more Creativity Elf printers, which are basically the same as the Coreception.
Then I got a Voron. I want a bigger bed. I really wanted to go with RatRig as they have a kit with 500mm. But I just didn’t feel comfortable with how much smaller the community behind it was and the documentation just didn’t seem as good as the Voron. This kit was from Formbot. The wiring sucked. After 1000 hours, wires literally just came apart inside the cable chains. One after another. I could print for more than a few days without another wire breaking. All in different places too. I moved all the wires out the chains, and it’s been solid since.
And just this last week or 2, I got another Voron. This time from Magic Phoenix. And I am documenting the process on my blog.
I just finished it up a couple days ago. It has been awesome. The details are there in my blog post, but I’m definitely going to be buying from them again. This project(when including all the stuff I add to my printers like cameras and stuff) cost $350 less than the formbot kit. And it has a LOT of quality of life improvements over a standard Voron kit. Tap, StealthBurner and CANBUS are a few. Highly recommended.
Ender 5, currently adapting an E3D toolchanging system to run on that printer.
Really good piece of kit once you replaced the mainboard, extruder, hotend and beefed up the bed mount to not wobble multiple mm up and down while printing.
Would not recommend for anyone who just wants to print.
Very happy with MK3S+, ordered upgrade kit last month for MK4. Trying to get a Prusa XL for my office but availability is shit.
