If you don't care about business practices and general privacy concerns, Bambu.

If you want a large printer that's decent for tinkering, Sovol SV08.

If you want relatively good support and to support a company that has a history of giving back, Prusa.

If you want something cheap with a lot of features that tend to be more high end, Elegoo Centuri Carbon.

If you just want something cheap that's arguably incredible value with an active community, Creality Ender 3 V3 KE.

> If you don't care about business practices and general privacy concerns, Bambu.

While I agree, I think it's heavily underselling Bambulab printers in terms of UX and print quality, they are the absolute best in the market and by a mile.

Prusa generally has better print quality in terms of accuracy and better overhang performance.

Prusa drives the slicer development ecosystem (Bambu Studio is a fork), so new production-ready advances typically come from them first, which is lovely to support.

The Bambu products are fine. They print well. But the "it's on another level" stuff is mostly paid influencer narratives (a rampant thing in 3D printer YouTube, etc.) that don't really hold up to any professional scrutiny.

With advent of EasyPrint etc. arguably Prusa may have also one-upped them on ease of use? Though this isn't first-hand knowledge as I haven't tried it personally.

I haven’t tried the Prusa XL so I can’t say much about that and I’m a fan how Prusa supports OSHW. But let’s be real, Bambulabs printer are vastly superior. I don’t deny that a lot of “free” and open source work was used to make Bambulab printers today but their printers just work out of the box for less money. I’ve been 3D printing since the reprap days, had cheap printers like Enders, tried Prusa used upto the MKS2. The Bambulab printer feels like a product. All the previous printers I owned or used was more like a hobby. (Minus maybe the Ultimaker 3, that thing was amazing for its time).

Truly meant without offense, but I'd say if you haven't had a Prusa since the MK2S (which I think predates Bambulab entire existence?) your opinion is outdated and not really relevant anymore.

The out of the box experience between a Bambu printer and a modern Prusa is not noticably different. You'll be onto your first print in 10 minutes with either.

Prusa's product history simply goes back longer to when 3D printers were more hobbyist kit. But they've grown up just the same.

It's a bit like saying a 2025 Lexus is superior to a 2025 Maybach because Mercedes' first car in 1886 was a rickety afair.

I've been eyeing 3D printers and since a friend of mine is so happy with the A1 Mini, that's what I was leaning towards to. Is there a Prusa equivalent model of the Bambu A1 Mini?

The Prusa Mini+ is basically the same idea but a couple of generations behind. Mine's an absolute rock, just throw prints at it and forget. Had it for years.

I'd love for Prusa to do an updated Mini. I'd have a hard time justifying the price point on the original today, given the competition, but it's genuinely a great bit of kit.

You’re telling me that there was any meaningful update between the MK2 to MK4? Prusa printer goes back longer, sure. My first printer was actually a Prusa style i3 reprap kit from 2014 even before Prusa made his company. Are they decent printers for the time? Yes. But they got complacent and had no meaningful updates for almost a decade. They had interesting additions like PANDA leveling, cyloid drives and etc, but end of the day it was still a bed slinger. Their MMU was absolutely garbage. The fact that Bambulab ate so much of their market between the two years it took them to even to sell a core XY printer is a testament of that. The out of the box experience superior for less money and actually great multilateral support. I honestly don’t care too much h for the multimaterial part. Just being able to swap filaments without heating up the hot end is already a godsend.

Mind you, I used to promote Prusa the same way I do for bambulabs now for almost a decade. But once again, Prusa did too little too late. Their Core One response was not quite enough.

I'll counter: My Prusa mk2s I've upgraded to the point of Mk2.5s+. After ~10k hours, I'll call it as much of a 'product' as I need. I think the 'vastly superior' perception comes from people singularly want the print things without learning about 3dp. You know how Tesla fans and Soulcycle participants are like wildly enthusiastic about the things they enjoy despite some evidence that they should be a bit wary of supporting their favorite brands?

What does “without learning about 3DP” mean? Why should a user need to know the in and outs of a 3D printer to enjoy 3D printing? I never really understood that gate keeping. From a technical perspective, Bambulab printers are cheaper and better in my opinion. Prusa just did too little and too late sticking with their i3 bed slinger. Of course they have the Prusa XL and Prusa Core now but they were late by over two years. By then, a large chunk of the market was already lost and it’ll take a lot to get it back.

You are missing the subtext in discussions about 3D printing online. Many people who discuss 3D printing are doing it because they enjoy it as a hobby and skill. They value learning to tweak and upgrade the products, troubleshoot problems, and knowledge about brands and models. If you are just trying to make prototypes, enclosures, parts etc, you will get confused without this context.

This is the weird gate keeping I’m talking about. In another comment I mentioned about this, but I started 3D printing during the reprap ages. Chrome rods were cut yourself, LM8UU cost over $25 a pop from NSK, we use pololu A4988 (TMC wasn’t even a thing), and my hotend was a Jhead. I enjoy tinkering and sounds like you do too. But don’t get the factuation of 3D printers get confused with 3D printing . If new users can print right out of the box without needing to fix anything, that’s a net win for 3D printing and for them. The need for a user to know how to fix and tweak stuff to “truly” enjoy 3D printing is frankly full of shit.

Well, I'd love to be able to just download the atl, and literally _print_ it from my phone or laptop, the same way I print PDF.

I just don't have enough waking hours to tinker with everything hobbyists around expect me to tinker.

Yea same; switching from Crealty to Raise3D E2 was a game changer. "just works".

Same here. I got a Bambu X1C and have been very happy with it.

>Prusa generally has better print quality

Only if you compare Prusa printing at 50 mm/s with Bambu at 500 mm/s.

>and better overhang performance

What? No. Proof: https://youtu.be/HcSOz-Lsxgg?feature=shared&t=293

>Prusa drives the slicer development ecosystem (Bambu Studio is a fork)

Prusa slicer is also a fork ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

> What? No. Proof: https://youtu.be/HcSOz-Lsxgg?feature=shared&t=293

So this video's claim, if I got it right while skimming in a subway, is that when Prusa redesigned the part cooling fan shroud to improve overhang performance they also went ahead and improved the slicer, and the benchmark results that have them generally win overhang comparisons around that time may be attributed more to the software fix than the new HW parts.

That's very interesting information, thanks for sharing.

It's also exactly the kind of thing where a Bambu fan would normally go "oh, so they just made the better integrated product that works better in the end without the customer having to care why".

But I totally agree they should document this transparently since Prusa Slicer can also be used with off-brand printers to good success.

> Prusa slicer is also a fork ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Sure, which it very prominently displays on the splash screeen to this day instead of hiding it, giving credit where credit is due.

The difference is that it was forked off from Slic3r much longer ago, Slic3r isn't really actively developed anymore, and Prusa has largely rewritten it since.

So it's a false equivalence. This sort of disingenuous comment is the reason a lot of people don't like the Bambu user/influencer brigrading.

+1. Bambu is the difference between 'my hobby is 3d printers' vs 'my hobby is 3d printing'. The damn thing sits in the garage idle for months and then it just prints a whole spool of stuff perfectly without even a drop of oil (which it asked for in between plates, I'll grant it that).

> Bambu is the difference between 'my hobby is 3d printers' vs 'my hobby is 3d printing'.

My experience was the same. I can just run the thing without having to tweak, tune, calibrate it. It takes care of that itself. I also don't let it talk to my wifi though. I just use the microSD card.

But my purchase was a while ago. While it is possible the industry has caught up, the reputation Bambu built still leads the pack.

A Prusa is equally reliable.

Bambu's marketing (handing them out like candy to every YouTuber) has propagated a lie that there's "Easy and locked down Bambu" and "Yucky hard to use custom printers".

I have an Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro. It was like $220. I have put approximately $30 into it for the Raspberry Pi I installed Octoprint on, and even that's a stretch since I already owned the Pi. It prints just fine. Sits for months. Fires up every time. First layers perfect every time.

The "printer being the hobby" is only true if you let it. Even cheap no name open source printers are really good these days, and in the high end there are plenty that are competitive with Bambu on print quality, out of the box experience, and features, often exceeding them.

I dunno, I guess I just don't think having to let a printer talk to some fucking cloud service in China so I can start an STL print from my phone is all that important of a feature.

Yeah, I did the printer as a hobby thing when I built my first reprap. It was fun, and I learned a ton, but the state of the art in 2014 just wasn't there for low-end machines to be reliable. I replaced it with a prusa in 2019,and I have had zero issues at all with it. The only print failures I've had were either due to part design or bad filament (pla stored in a humid garage). I've been super impressed with the quality of the machine, and have printed some fairly challenging parts. Plus, the whole machine is open and hackable. I didn't really even consider other printers, since I wanted to support prusa and what they have done for the community. Although I have used a friend's ender 3, and I was pretty impressed with the quality for the price.

I think the biggest change has been auto bed leveling, and software to make the first layer good almost all the time, across a wide range of filaments.

Many people started with something like an Ender V3, then moved to Bambu... and that is absolutely life-altering in terms of 3D printing expectaitons. But a similar difference is present moving to a modern Ender, Elegoo, or Prusa. Just their marketing is far from as solid as Bambu.

Not that Bambu printers are bad; in fact I still like their AMS solution the best of any I've seen or tested.

Sadly, Prusa is not equally reliable.

The fact that the Bambu printers use linear slides means they have a huge accuracy advantage right out the chute. And the Bambu printers have a bunch of other quality of life improvements that really add up.

While you can certainly slag Bambu for their business practices, the other 3D printer companies are absolutely lagging on the engineering front. Companies like Prusa need to step up their game.

As for phoning home, we isolated the printer on its own network and it hasn't caused us any issues. Sure, some of the monitoring features won't work, but it seems to print just fine without network access.

My Prusa has been very reliable over the years. However, it’s not as cheap as the Bambu.

It’s going to be hard to justify supporting open source hardware at these prices.

I had used a Prusa MK3 in the past and had a good experience with it. When I went looking at printers again Prusa was what I assumed I'd get but after looking at Bambulab, their A1 is about 1/4th of the price while being better than the Prusa MK4.

It's almost impossible to justify buying their printers today. The issues and concerns about Bambulab seem to be primarily driven by disappointment with how a new company that didn't open source their hardware was able to absolutely steamroll the entire market, rather than actual real issues you as a user will have.

It's the crab bucket mentality. Before Bambu Lab 99% of the 3D printer offerings were absolute garbage to the point of not being far from being a scam. You get a CoreXY printer with an enclosure and AMS for a really good price and if you buy their filament in bulk, it is not much more expensive than e.g. Sunlu where buying at least 3 spools per order is mandatory to begin with.

The only way to beat Bambu Lab is to be better than them at the 3D printer game, but most companies can't do that, so people have become resentful while grasping for straws to find things to criticize. Snapmaker got the message and decided to come out with the Snapmaker U1, the rest can wallow in their "open source" superiority complex to silence critics.

What kind of problems do people expect to have with lesser models? I have a second hand kit build that I didn't assemble and was cheap years ago and just threw in my car seat one day to bring home, and the worst that happened was the poorly run temp sensor wires drooped and snagged on a print and pulled out. I don't even know what could go wrong or need any "tweaking" other than a drive belt someday failing. I just don't understand how any 3d printer these days could be problematic, the hardware is not really that complicated or under that much stress.

The P1S was my first 3D FDM printer, mostly because what I saw in the scene, in Makerspaces, and on YouTube before was mostly people tinkering with their other machines ('use this hotend', 'this is my grandma's secret recipie for bed adhesion issues', 're-fasten this particular nut to exactly 1.32 newton, but only if that part has been printed from ABS, instead if PETG, use 1.29 newton' ...) ... and I didn't want to work the machine, I wanted to work with the machine.

Bambu were the first that gave me the feeling 3D FDM printing has become more appliance-like, less 'spend endless hours maintaining the machine'. Sure, the Bambu also needs maintenance. But it is not the main procedure with the machine.

I don't have a lot of time on my qidi pro4, but that's been my experience with that printer.

My Prusa Mk3 also does this?

The A1 is a tiny fraction of the cost of the MK3 while having a ton of extra features.

My A1 has lots of annoying issues. It did print great out of the box, but requires a fair bit of maintenance to keep that up.

My prusa has be far more reliable so far. admittedly it’s newer than the a1 so it’s too early to be super conclusive on that, but so far it’s been quite a bit better

Of course, it’s quite a bit more money too

My old work ran 6 FFF machines, the only one that seemed to have 100% uptime was the Prusa. Mind you this was several years ago, before Bambu hit it big. But we had several machines with autoswap beds etc, fancy stuff.

After that experience I got a Prusa, I'm only an occasional printer but I've put maybe 5 rolls of material through it over the course of a couple years and haven't had any stop+fix issues.

I got a Bambu A1 Mini a few weeks ago and it's practically easier than 2D printing. Printed a whole tabletop game that I played with friends, and replacement parts for a gun that held up at the range.

100%. Same feeling when we got our mini. It's neighbor on the desk is a cricut joy extra! (Or whatever) Which I'm always fighting with, to cut paper, in 2d.

Next door,3d items literally being built. No fight. No fuss.

Wow I’ve heard about these 3d printed guns mostly in the context of the gun control debate. I can’t wrap my head around “how does plastic stuff withstand the stresses of a bullet?”

Small caliber, lots of plastic, short lifespan, unreliable.

Most serious 3D printed guns have at least a metal barrel. Often, 3D printed guns are just a lower receiver, that is the part you hold in your hand, the parts that actually fire the bullets (barrel, pin, slide, etc...) are bought off the shelf from real gun manufacturers.

This is a workaround for some laws that considers gun parts to not be a gun. For example, outside of a gun, a barrel is just a metal pipe and can be traded freely. The part that makes a gun a gun is the lower receiver, and you can 3D print that in plastic and still get good performance. In fact, Glock makes this part in plastic and these are some of the most popular and proven guns in the world.

I think this is why 3D printed guns have not been an issue in Australia. Since you couldn't easily buy all the metal parts you still need.

They aren't really an issue anywhere because if someone really wants a legit gun they are not that hard to buy on the blackmarket or even produce yourself. There just isn't much actual demand for 3d printed guns, people do it because its fun and an engineering challenge. If someone can buy a tabletop mill or lathe, or if they are patient with a file, we have 100+ years of well documented and engineered gun designs anyone can copy. Like you are seriously only cutting a couple hundred bucks off the price between buying a 3d printer or a CNC mill and all the CAD files you need for either version are easily accessible online.

Yeah, and while 3D printing a gun is cool and all, you can’t print bullets, so the person who is interested in printing guns is at the intersection of two hobbies: 3D printing and gun ownership. It’s a niche.

Everybody else who needs a gun for lawful purposes (i.e. self defense) is simply going to purchase one from a reputable manufacturer.

It wasn't for the parts that go boom, it was custom ergonomic parts for a legally purchased, factory made firearm - the bits of the gun that you hold. Those are under less stress, so with the right filament and infill settings it holds up well enough. And when it starts to crack I can print another for $1 instead of buying one for $30-60. Plus I can change the shape and size to fit me better than an off the shelf part.

I had a buddy in high school who did competitive shooting, he did the same thing by carving these parts from wood, now it can be done for a fraction if the cost. Check out Olympic shooting pictures for an idea of the parts I'm talking about.

Most of a gun doesn't see that stress. put a barrel on a plastic gun and something metal behind and good enough for most needs.

Most "ghost guns" use factory made parts for pressure bearing components.

US is a rare country that treats only serialized parts as "guns" and don't regulate actual gun parts. This allow Americans to trivially "build guns at home", but easd of actually building guns is extremely exaggerated.

Also, there's little in 3D printers that actually makes it easy to build gun parts. It's all cosmetics. Real illegal ghost guns are always made with plumbing supplies.

> replacement parts for a gun

Perhaps the grip.

1000% this. I used to "lightly" follow 3D printing when it first started to become cool among hackers a decade or so ago, then I dropped off until 2023 much older and much less tolerant to BS in technology.

I went onto Reddit to get their recommendations. To someone completely new who hasn't followed any real developments occurring in the industry, it was confusing but it seemed like the Sovol SV06 was a good "starting point".

Well I didn't realize how far behind the industry still was. I thought surely at this point all printers much just be load file -> load filament -> click print. Just like regular printers no?

Nope, doing dumb things like using some third party slicer tool, transferring a file to a microsd card manually and then babying the printer for its super slow error prone prints feels like its still a toy not a professional device.

Imagine having to do that level of nonsense for your laser printer? Yeah maybe back in the days of "Office Space" but not today!

I was in a time crunch so out of desperation I took a gamble and dropped a wad of cash on a Bambu X1C. It is what I consider a professional product for normies in my eyes. Most everything else are just toys.

I was ready to say Bambu, Bambu and nothing but Bambu but then I read the user's last few sentences. Seems like he is not really looking for a end to end professional product and so hes got infinite options but for anyone else, its gotta be Bambu!

> UX and print quality

GUI and UX are not the same. Prusa has pretty good print quality too but not as good a GUI as the Bambu.

UX would include the ability to easily tear down a hot end, replace a nozzle, tighten any belts, and anything else that would affect your ability to print high quality prints.

For prusa, since that's the printer I have experience with the most. Replacing the nozzle and clearing filament jams are pretty easy. But tearing down the hot end to remove debris wrapped around the extruder gear was not.

I have and Ender 3 Pro I have done the :"Replacing the nozzle and clearing filament jams are pretty easy."

With my Bambu for 18 months, problem just doesn't exist. I have spare parts because previous experience said I'd need it. But not yet.

The most egregious operational issue is the occasional hairball, even then, the printer often catches the issue and pauses the print to let me check on it - automatic hairball detection.

I don't like the Bambu company and I wouldn't buy one now thanks to their lock in practices. My Bambu won't get the "fuck you" firmware update.

But as to their hardware reliability for "just printing stuff" - it's pretty awesome. If other companies have caught up to this, then the 3D printing world is in a much better place.

What bambulab printers that have the "A1" series nozzle, replacing one is a matter of 3 seconds, just by naked hands. 10x times faster than in the Prusa world (Nextruder included). Being this the single most important thing a printer need from the POV of servicing, this is a huge difference.

How often are you changing nozzles? I can't think I've ever done it except for swapping out the manufacturer supplied brass with a hardened steel after or arrives

For tabletop gaming I'm switching between nozzles pretty regularly, so I can have fine detail on small minatures and faster prints for bigger terrain, bases, scatter and grid pieces.

I'm not changing out nozzles daily, but I do sometimes make small parts that need the .2mm nozzle. Not for gaming or miniatures, but typically mechanical interfaces where the .2mm nozzle gives a better result.

But then for most stuff I use a .6mm high flow nozzle.

It's worth noting though that this part of the game is about to change majorly for both brands.

Prusa is widely known to launch their next-generation tool changer at Formnext in Nov, which is going to be a concept where you have a rack of nozzle+heatpipe+filament tube tools that the print head grabs and heats up inductively. And Bambu is more or less working on something similar they will probably launch some time next year.

This is totally changing the "nozzle swap" equation. It means purge-free and much faster multi-material printing without outright duplicating print heads like the XL does, and the ability to park and mix nozzle sizes as well.

It'll be cool to see which company pulls it off better. As someone who was never convinced by either Bambu's shoddy and wasteful AMS or Prusa's ridiculously humongous MMU+Buffer approach, this is the leap I've been waiting for for an upgrade.

Edit: Amazing move to downvote a comment that simply and neutrally adds new information to the thread.

Prusa is going to use Bondtech's upcoming INDX system, which swaps out the entire filament path.

Bambu Vortek seems to just be swapping nozzles so, while that should cut down on waste, it's going to be much slower (XL is already much faster than AMS based printers but comes at a substantial price increase).

INDX tool changes are expected to be around 8-12 seconds. Vortek would be probably be around 30+ seconds.

Interesting, yeah. I'm mainly interested in making multi-material faster without upping to the size of an XL, so it looks like the Prusa solution would be a better fit for my needs personally.

If Bambu are only swapping nozzles it also means they still need something AMS-like to swap the filament path, which somehow feels a bit clunky. I think having seperate filament paths is overall a cleaner and simpler design.

Someone's made an animation of how they think it'll look like: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/YNSlx0GJ5Ig

No need to speculate, Bambu posted a video of their design:

https://youtu.be/rluJj3NEdQA

The problem with the AMS is it feeds all the filaments into one nozzle so it requires a purge every time the color changes. There are other filament spool designs without this problem.

By UX I mean the overall experience, from assembly to Makerworld integration to the OS. I know because I'm a UX designer.

I looked at a bambu printer a friend owns and it is pretty high quality engineering.

It stands on soft rubber feet so the whole machine has a low natural frequency (similar to the drum of a washing machine). This has the advantage that the high frequency movements of the motors/axes never resonate with the casing.

In the beginning it does a lot of tests and seems to also shake the machine to analyse the frequency behaviour.

Watching the tests is fun. First run,.loud. second. Less loud. Third. At worst case 1/2 the original volume. Up through a large tonal range.

Your ears can immediately note that it is a nice feature for sure.

i have an x1c sitting next to an elegoo centauri carbon. i rarely use the AMS on the bambu.

potential print size is basically the same print quality is the same as far as i can tell..

i use the elegoo more often.

-- if all you care about is yourself and your family.

The only thing I need the internet for to be disgusted by Bambulabs' practices is to learn about their practices in the first place.

I did read up on them when they and I feel like the Internet echo chamber inflated the issues and Bambu basically addressed all of them reasonably well.

Are you talking just about the "Authorization" thing? Or did you read about them abusing Printables to reverse engineer it for their own copy-cat platform?

Both.

Scraping a site isn’t illegal or immoral.

None of this impacts the customer negatively in any way.

Also given what you've said about privacy, that probably eliminates Bambu and possibly the Centuri Carbon (not sure). The SV08 can be ran offline, but it does try to phone home (3rd party) whenever it's online. Prusa might be your best bet of these when it comes to privacy.

Prusa is by far the most "open" probably with the SV08 second because it uses so much from the open source community (it's Voron inspired).

If you have a lot of time to spend, you could build a Voron, but I would not recommend that to anyone new to 3D printing.

It's incredibly frustrating that the majority of devices today report usage to the mothership without the user's consent. Does firewalling the device cause any issues? A printer (of any kind) should not reach the open Internet, period.

All of these printers can be run completely offline, although then you obviously lose any network-related features such as sending prints over the network. I know that at least the Bambu printers (and I assume most others) can also be run in LAN-only mode, where they only work with devices on the same network. In this mode you could definitely firewall them without causing issues. The main features you lose by being in LAN-only mode are the phone app and being able to access the printer from off your network.

I second this. I run an A1 on a separate IoT wifi network that doesn't have outbound connectivity and using nftables rules for forwarding can send prints from my normal network with minimal fuss.

I did have to play around and use orcaslicer to get the printer set up using the network printing and camera feed working.

The one issue I do have is that it seems I would need to connect the printer to a internet enabled Network to get firmware updates, because the firmware version I have is ironically the one before they enabled SD card updating lol.

Back to the original question, I've had this printer for about a month and have been printing virtually non-stop with very minimal complaints. Coming from an ender 3 it is absolutely night and day in terms of ease of setup and general usage.

If the printer is functional, doing what you got it for, what do you need firmware updates for?

Lan Only works by making you use the Bambu connect software. If the Bambu Connect software isn't running, Orca cannot start a print job or control the printer. It doesn't sound too onerous, but it should be mentioned that LAN only wasn't added till users gave 'feedback'. I suspect the original intent was Bambu Slicer only.

https://blog.bambulab.com/updates-and-third-party-integratio...

It's the other way around. You can only connect to orca slicer or other programs if you are in LAN only mode. Otherwise you need Bambu connect.

Or just stay on the previous firmware version and you never need Bambu connect.

That's not correct.

"Standard Mode (Default): By default, LAN mode will include an authorization process that ensures robust security. This option is ideal for the majority of users who prioritize security and ease of use. Despite claims to the contrary, LAN mode through Bambu Connect will require neither internet access nor a user account. This hasn't changed and won't change." With the firmware that implemented security in, third party only speaks through Bambu Connect. Reading the page I included that information and if you go to the original security update announcement, it is clear you can only use Bambu Connect for third party access. In addition you lose the ability to control the printer.

I own an A1. The only way to avoid using Bambu connect on the latest firmware is to enable Developer mode. Developer mode only works in LAN only mode.

So yes, LAN only mode (in conjunction with Developer mode) is the only mode that you can avoid using Bambu connect in.

can't you use something like this? https://octoprint.org/

i have no idea if it works with modern ones but my "old" Ender 3 plays nice with it

Octoprint is still a great piece of software that works with most printers, but it's running into a dead end where streaming G Code over the USB Serial emulation isn't fast enough on the newest generation of printers to keep them printing at their full speed.

surely they can all be run lan only with a clever dhcp server that doesn’t give a default gateway to the device?

Its not much to replace the SV08's OS and fork of klipper with more open source and standard options.

I wouldn't recommend a Creality to someone new to 3D printing. They can be a pain to work with. They're CHEAP, and there's plenty of aftermarket support, but that ends up turning the printer into a product for someone who sees the printer itself being a hobby, rather than the printer being merely an appliance that produces things.

Buying a Creality printer is like buying a hobby-grade RC car (ie, Traxxas, Team Associated, etc.). Decent out of the box, but you're likely going to be reaching for buying upgraded parts and it eventually becomes a Ship of Theseus.

I have an Ender 3 Pro, my list of upgrades:

- Replace the crappy flexible mat with PEI-coated flexsteel

- Filament runout detector

- Motherboard replacement (made flashing custom firmware 100x easier, and uses quieter stepper motor drivers)

- Automatic bed leveler

- Dual-gear extruder

- Customized firmware that changes the 3x3 bed leveling matrix to 7x7

- OctoPi

A decent printer will have half of these features already built in.

I did a similar path to you (Ender 3 Pro, same updates as you except runout), and I was miserable. Yes, I learned a lot about 3d printing while doing it, but I basically never printed unless I REALLY needed something, because I knew I'd spend a bunch of time fiddling and failed prints to get it working. A friend with an unmodified Ender 3 Pro has much better experience.

I wanted a Prusa but didn't want to drop the money on it when I first got started, so I thought I'd just add a bed leveler to get less tweaking and more reliable prints, and it went downhill from there.

I ended up getting a Bambu P1S, and gave the Ender 3 Pro to my kids school. In a twist of fate, I basically had to undo all the upgrades I did (I was able to keep the new mobo and Sprite extruder though) because the school IT couldn't allow OctoPi on the network and they needed something they could just drop an SD card in.

The Bambu P1S has been a real workhorse. In the first couple months I printed more stuff than I had with the Ender 3 Pro in 5 years. And the multi-filament AMS has been a lot of fun for making multi-color prints. I'm kind of glad I learned everything I did with my Ender, but now I want to focus on creating models and printing.

Prusa apparently makes great printers, I like their ideals and almost got one, but in the end I decided to go with the Bambu because of the AMS and a Father's Day sale and have been extremely happy.

I agree. I have a Creality Ender 3 V2. I wanted something cheap that I wasn’t going to worry about if it became a paperweight (due to lack of use). As I worked more with it, I upgraded it a ton, putting about as much money into it as it cost (which wasn’t much). In the end, it’s a decent printer for what I want to do with it.

I added:

* Bed leveler

* Flexible build surface

* direct drive extruder

* second z axis screw drive

* octopi

Everything except for the octopi was a Creality kit. So it’s not like they don’t know their market is looking to tinker and do upgrades themselves.

If you want to make things because the end product is the goal, get something fancier. If you want to know how and why it works, spending a bit more time on the journey part (which might be frustrating), the Creality might be a good fit. It’s not going to have the same user-experience as a Bamboo or Prusa, but for me, that’s okay.

well this.

when I started tinkering there were none of those kits, and the Ender I have now has pretty much nothing in common with the Ender I bought back then except some parts of the frame and the drives. and still the whole journey cost was about the same as just buying Prusa and then learning nothing.

this is a bit philosophical, but when you do want to shape material, be it wood or plastic, you have to not only understand how it's done, but to feel it. or you will repeatedly end up with crap and then endlessly wonder what went wrong

this cannot be bought, it's experience. for 3d-printing the fastest way is to get something like Ender and then build your own perfect printer out of it over several years.

If you are going with Creality the K1 series is what you want. I am new to 3D printers and it absolutely was perfect for a beginner such as myself. I recommend just using their slicer to start, specifically the desktop one.

Concur. I had a grin on my face when I threw my ender into a dumpster. Then regret for not Office-Spacing it first. Replaced it with a Raise3D E2, which just works.

Of these options, I'd recommend the SV08, provided you are okay with some mods essentially being required for consistent, reliable use.

These being:

- Eddy sensor (for faster bed meshing, eddy-ng addon for Klipper adds auto z-offset)

- Mainline Klipper/Kalico (required for eddy functionality)

- Some motherboard fan replacement mod (the default is tiny, noisy, and always-on)

Of the others listed:

- Bambu printers and the Elegoo Centauri Carbon have locked-down firmware (possibly with hidden license violations).

- I think the only Prusa machine with that build volume is the XL, which is out of the price range

- The Creality Ender 3 V3 KE is okay, but the build volume is 220x220x240mm

This is if you like tinkering with printers. I gave away my Wanhao and bought a Bambu, and I haven't thought about the printer since. Now I just print.

These are upgrades, not tinkering. None of them are necessary, just QoL. The Eddy sensor is better than anything Bambu's "AI" cameras can do as far as leveling.

You can buy upgrades for your Bambu too.

Yes, but with Bambu I don't need to. Their 5x5 leveling works perfectly, though I will admit that eddy leveling is super cool. I bought a sensor but didn't use Kipper and couldn't use the sensor with Marlin, and I got a Bambu before I switched to Klipper, so I gave the sensor away.

Our makerspace at the office has a few prusa mk4's, and they're really great machines.

> I would prefer something that doesn't phone home and can work offline. Opensource firmware/software and repairability are important.

Bambulabs is out.

If OP isn't in huge hurry I'd also add the impending Snapmaker U1 [0] to the list. It looks like it's going to be a better machine than Bambu has out in the long run for cheaper and much more in-line with one that you have full control of, unlike Bambu.

[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/snapmaker/snapmaker-u1-...

Bambu is very slow with starting up a print. Even if you just printed something less than a minute ago, it will take at least a few minutes before it can do the next print.

> If you want a large printer that's decent for tinkering, Sovol SV08.

I disagree about Sovol the company though. I have a Sovol SV07 in the garage gathering dust. Its printer head got all clogged up and when I complained to them, they just sent me a random part with no information on what to do with it. I guess I could get into the tinkering mode, but who has the time?

I'd just love to have a sub-$1000 printer which prints whenever I have something to print (which is not too often, I concede), and does a fantastic job of it.

> If you want relatively good support and to support a company that has a history of giving back, Prusa.

Someone in a HN thread a couple of weeks ago said when you turn one of these on the companies CEO's face is used as the boot screen...

> If you don't care about business practices and general privacy concerns

What are the actual concerns here? What has Bambu done that other 3D printer companies haven't?

Creality K1 SE is only $50 more over the Ender 3 SE right now. Much better deal.

Can I use custom slicer or other firmware/software with a BL?

Big thumbs up for “ Creality Ender 3 V3 KE.”

Svo8 bed is warped on mine, unfortunately.

Bambu P1S, no question. Enclosed with filter for ABS fumes etc. Personally I've only used their A1, but it's the best printer I've ever used by far, and it's the first one that you can treat like a paper printer: plop it down, ignore it til you need to print, hit print and assume it works with no supervision. An absolute joy. It's also FAST compared to last gen printers.

They do have a bunch of cloud service BS and phoning home that runs afoul of the HN spirit, but there's a LAN mode that allows you to send prints from LAN without opening up to the wider internet. If that's still too restrictive, you can always do direct SD card transfers via sneakernet.

Software might be too closed for you, IDK if there are jailbreaks. Repairability is possible but fiddly – akin to current gen car engines, rather than 70s types. They're very popular printers, I've only needed to open the head once, and there were plenty of YT teardown videos to help.

The Bambu slicer is good. They've got niceties for basic operations like snapping to bed or scaling up/down by a few percent. I believe it's based on cura slicer, which is also excellent.

P1S is at the midpoint of your budget. Their next model up is $1200, depending on your flexibility. Might have some value if you're doing more obscure materials. Didn't realize how cheap the enclosed ones had gotten. I've got half a mind to upgrade myself now....

> Enclosed with filter for ABS fumes etc.

I agree that the Bambu printers are as good as it gets for plug-and-play printing, but I wouldn't trust the tiny carbon filter for toxic fumes in an indoor environment.

The better VOC filters use a larger amount of activated carbon and they recirculate a high volume of chamber air inside the chamber.

Activated carbon also needs to be replaced over time as it loses capacity to adsorb more VOCs.

Their printers are also not sealed well. See for example @CanuckCreator on YouTube where he does a teardown, revealing large holes.

This is not the way to go with toxic fumes or how to get good ABS printing performance.

Does it have to be sealed? Thinking of fume hoods which aren't but are ok. Can you link the vid?

Fume hoods have an exhaust to outside the inhabited area, which allows the interior of the hood to operate at a negative pressure. This means air is drawn in through the gaps rather than allowed to escape through them.

If this filter itself is effective, not saying it is, then gaps aren't necessarily a problem depending on where they are and if it still maintains the right pressure/airflow to the filter. Brought up a fume hood because if one of those had a filter for whatever was bad inside, and instead of exhausting outside it went through the filter, it would work still work despite the intentional gap.

I'm not saying the gaps are intentional or in the right place here, but that there could be an ok design with gaps. If you are exhausting through a filter you have to pull in air from somewhere.

A fume hood isn't at all comparable to what typically exist in the 3D printer world though.

He talks about it in this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HD__e064_U4

What's the timestamp? I can't tell from the part near the beginning if the holes that aren't on the part with the fan (presumably with filter in front of it?) sealed to it would be intaking or exhausting, and/or if some of them are for heat from the electronics but not contiguous with the build chamber.

To be fair, phoning home for a printer shouldn't be ok for anyone, regardless of their spirit.

He asked for a good printer not a great one:)

Except this person cares about privacy and openness, and Bambu is an awful VC funded push everyone out by undercutting prices and then enshittify company.

To all the people in the comments popping off about how "it just works". I have a Makerbot 2 running Sailfish, it's "just worked" for 12 years. I haven't replaced a single part on it. Ever since I started using the Prusa Slicer I've got dimensionally accurate parts every time I hit print. At least from my PoV "the printer just working" is a solved problem and has been for a long time now. PLA, PETG, PCTG, TPU. No issues with anything and I've been able to drive it at about 150% the speed I could with the original firmware/software.

Yes, but you said it yourself - you had to replace the firmware with one that lets you run faster than the original, and you're using a different slicer.

With Bambu Labs printers, you just plug them in, turn them on, and feed them filament and your files. They work so well that you don't have to think about firmware or anything else.

I got my first 3D printer around a dozen years ago as well, and the comparison to the experience you get with a Bambu Labs X1C or H2D is absolutely night and day. It feels like with the previous generations of 3D printers, that operating and maintaining and tuning the machine itself was the "hobby". With Bambu Labs (and I'm sure some of the other competing printers that have come out since the X1C was released), the "hobby" is what you actually make.

It just works, requires no tweaking, no fiddling, no flashing firmware or bed leveling or hairspray, and it has totally changed 3D printing from a nerd hobby to something anyone can do (IMHO).

Sure but the last tweaking I did on this printer was years and years ago, and it's been "just working" ever since. I haven't fiddled with anything, I haven't even leveled the bed, I don't use hairspray. I don't think you can even find the firmware I flashed onto it in 2014 anymore because of link rot. It's just a solid printer that makes the part I want every time I hit print. I use it all the time for mechanical parts. I do prints that pause to embed hardware. Heck I even have it clear the bed by hitting parts with the print head so I can make multiple copies of things unattended. (only works on parts with low bed adhesion)

It's not a brittle system. I don't deny that Bambu makes a good product, an excellent product even. If you can't afford to support the general ecosystem get one and do your thing.

I just think the reason Bambu is where it is right now is because they are VC funded vampires on the ecosystem and supporting them will make things worse in the long run. If you can afford to support someone else you should because it helps make things better for everyone.

FWIW until recently I championed Bambu as just the default easy solution, recommending it to my friends every time, but I had a long conversation with Josef about the future of 3D printing and it really changed my mind.

> I don't think you can even find the firmware I flashed onto it in 2014 anymore because of link rot

This is exactly what I am talking about - you claim to have a reliable and easy to use solution, but it's not a solution that someone who wanted to print dragons for their grandkids could use. Bambu Labs is (and Prusa's current offerings, to some extent, are as well, although that is up for debate as you can imagine).

It sounds like your issue is not with Bambu Lab's products, but with their business practices, and I share your concerns there - but it still doesn't mean that "my old printer I've spent a lot of time getting to work the way I want it do" is a viable alternative to "I can buy it at BestBuy, plug it in, and hit print"

I think the point I'm trying to make here is that my printer is bad and old and it works every time, and I attribute that to Prusa Slicer, a free open source piece of software. The Makerbot was a finnicky piece of shit before Prusa Slicer, and now it's excellent and makes dimensionally accurate parts every time, I don't even remember the last time I've had a print fail and I use it all the time, tens of hours of printing per week recently.

The upfront ont-time cost to get to something that works reliably with a non-Bambu printer is real, but I am perhaps naively assuming that if my ancient makerbot has been working reliably for years now the same one time cost can be paid with any modern printer and amortized over hundreds of hours of printing to be nearly negligible, and you still have a reliable printer AND you're voting with your wallet for a better future.

I am not claiming that what I've done is the same as "go to best buy, plug it in and hit print" but I do think the alternative is really really not bad at all.

This isn't "For a Linux user, you can already build such a system yourself quite trivially...". I'm saying "surely if my ancient makerbot is like this with really minimal tuning, a modern non-bambu printer is worth the cost of a bit of extra setup in order to fund people who are improving the space".

But he's also using a 12 year old maker bot. They're not really even in business anymore. Why are you pushing so hard that GP needs to provide a completely turnkey solution for their long out of production printer? All of your comments are attempting to make it sound like bambu is the only turnkey solution, and you aren't doing a terribly effective job refuting GP's point that there are and have been other printers that just work as well. For another comparison point, my prusa MK3s (also now out of production I believe) has been absolutely turnkey and has required literally zero fiddling. The only print failures I've had have been due to part design, which would also apply to a bambu. I bought mine as a kit, it was a fun few hours to build but you can buy them fully built and assembled. Literally plug into an outlet, load filament, and hit print. Bambu isn't the only option for printers that work reliably and aren't a separate hobby, I don't know why this narrative gets pushed so hard.

> and you're using a different slicer.

yeah, Prusa Slicer....who do you think Bambu labs got theirs from? All of the major slicers are forks of Slic3r. Hardly a "oh wow this is such a pain in the butt" change.

> no flashing firmware

BambuLabs have firmware, and they have updates too. Or are you complaining about, what, having to take an SD card out and drop a file on it?

I wasn't complaining, I was noting that the commenter was not comparing apples to oranges. They are using a 3rd party slicer (not the one that came with their printer, which is the old Makerbot Desktop) and an alternative firmware, but claiming that their printer was just as easy to use as a Bambu Labs product.

It's like trying to compare installing Gentoo on an old Lenovo and a Macbook Pro - yes, they both work fine, but the amount of work that one might have to do to get one of them to work reliably is much different than the other. Once you get them working, sure, they are reliable, but obviously most people would rather not have to flash an alternative firmware, etc.

Their machines are also excellent.

I guess. Having just bought a Prusa Core One because of concerns about the direction Bambu is headed...

I regret it. Hands down. It is absolutely worse from a practical standpoint than the much older X1C I have, and the absolutely maddening part is that the "worse" bits are mostly software related.

You can hate on Bambu all you want (and frankly - a good chunk of it is well earned, but some is exaggerated or false) - but it feels like they use their products, and they care enough to fix the rough spots.

So while I like the ideals of Prusa... I can't say I'm super impressed with their latest offerings. Bambu's ecosystem is justly WILDLY better. The slicer is less annoying, the printer is more consistent, the monitoring tools are better, and most importantly - when I hit print, it just fucking does it.

I've had the Core One for less than 3 months, and I'm already into the double digits for number times I hit print and I come back 5 hours later to find.... it hasn't even damn well started the job. Instead...

"nozzle wipe failed. Retry?"

"different filament is loaded. unload? Select No to start print" (side note - it's just fucking wrong here, the filament from the correct MMU slot IS loaded, I just did it manually at the printer because if I don't and I switch materials - the next print is a guaranteed failure. The MMU is a whole different clusterfuck of bad software design, cool 3d printed engineering, bad software design)

"Nozzle clean failed. Retry?"

"The bed appears to be unlevel. Perform leveling?"

"Bed heating disabled due to inactivity" (This one still stumps me, I hit print, and came back to this message - my guess is nozzle clean fail and this just dismissed the first one... but who knows).

"Nozzle wipe failed. Retry?"

---

Basically - I am fucking tired of "Core One needs your attention!" popups on my phone. Especially for the stupid things like approving a nozzle clean retry, or re-leveling. I am also sick of wasted time thinking the machine is printing when it's not.

Right now, I would absolutely buy a Bambu over anything else in the market for FDM.

The reality is that “just works” is going to outsell just about everything, including high ground on morals and privacy. If competitors want to keep up they’re going to have to offer models that don’t require any tinkering/tweaking even if doing so is possible, supported, and encouraged.

Yeah... The market is still shifting in response to the X1C.

10 years ago... I would manually level my ender, religiously monitor it, and still deal with a decently high failure rate (esp for anything other than PLA). Tuning the printer took easily as much time as I actually spent printing with it. I upgraded all the things, flashed firmware, ran octoprint, etc...

It was like driving - gotta keep the hands on the wheel and maintain alertness at all times. It was an activity that required my attention and focus.

Then I caved and got an X1C in 2023. It's... a really, REALLY good machine.

It's like flying somewhere. I get on the plane, start up a movie or a book, and someone wakes me up when the flight is over. It's a tool that is doing things for me while I do other stuff.

I'm at the point where I'm not really interested in the "middle" all that much. Either go with a Voron and get the "I'm driving" feeling if that's what you want. Or get a Bambu and get chauffeured to successful print.

The 3D printing community is really two different groups: people who like to actually print things and people who like to tinker with their printer.

I hate this false dichotomy. Plenty of people like both.

People that buy expensive consumer grade printers are just satisfied with mediocre results because they don’t know any better.

To get great quality prints you need to actually know how the tool you are using works and what are its strengths and weaknesses.

I agree entirely with your first two sentences (I like both).

But I disagree pretty hard with the rest of it. An X1C spits out prints that are higher quality than my ender 3 would do, in a variety of materials the ender couldn't handle, even with a HUGE amount of time understanding the ender and how it works (incl upgrading or replacing just about every component).

Further - I think some of the divide is between the folks printing models, and the folks printing functional parts.

When I print nice models (ex: toys for my kids or gifts) then sure - I tweak still because appearances matter.

But if I just want a functional print because I need an enclosure for an electronics project, or I want a hanger for my wall, or I need a new footpad for a desk... Mediocre is a-ok.

And again... The X1C is not spitting out mostly mediocre parts. If anything - the "learning" you need to do mostly lives in the slicers/models at this point.

If I can get great quality prints without having to tinker, I don’t see how it’s a false dichotomy.

You can get decent prints, but that is true of every modern 3d printer basically.

I have been using a Core One at home for the past six months or so, and have not had this experience at all. For me, it just works. I can send prints to it and it completes them, hands-off.

It sounds like there may be a hardware problem with your printer. Did you buy it assembled or do it yourself? You may want to contact Prusa about this, because I can confirm this is not normal behavior for this printer.

You are sadly getting a lot of answers completely ignoring your requirements.

A Voron or RatRig are right up your alley. They are highly customizable, buy a kit as a base, then upgrade components as needed to do more complex printing. They are completely open source and repairable with no phoning home or any other shenanigans, the GNU/Linux of 3d printers. If you have CAD and machining experience it should be fairly straight forward.

My Vorons are both extremely reliable, I just hit print for 99% of my stuff and it just works with either auto leveling or static fixed offsets (depends on the Voron chosen). If something doesn’t work out, there is an enormous community with many swappable components and the machines are upgradable year after year, or can be kept in a specific older configuration.

As someone who owns both a couple Vorons and a couple of Bambu's printers, I do think for a lot of people the difference between the two can be "3d printers are my hobby" vs "3d printers are a tool". It's not that Vorons can't be reliable, in fact a lot of the reason why say the X1C is so reliable is because its design essentially started life as a Voron. But because you have to assemble them, they just aren't as "plug and play".

Sure, but go and read the OP's requirements again and tell me if you think they care about needing to assemble them.

> I am not very familiar with 'slicer' software yet.

and

> durable, temperature/chemical resistant materials such as PC/Nylon/ABS or infused materials.

are a little cart-before-horse. This is like asking what ink-and-paper printer to buy for making complex, multi-format printed books to specific criteria, while admitting that you've not used any form of publishing software or understand any of the non-software processes involved in making a book.

The slicer is by far your most important tool for _effective_ 3D printing with a variety of materials, moreso than CAD or 3D modeling. Get a cheaper, more plug-and-play printer that doesn't meet all of your criteria, and focus on learning how to effectively use its slicer.

Print basic things, experiment, and force and make hands-on mistakes with it on relatively forgiving PLA/PETG. Do these _before_ jumping up to a pricier, fully enclosed machine _and also_ before printing harder-to-use materials, each of which will add new difficulties. You don't want your first hotend blob to happen on a decent machine that you actually like while using a material that's difficult or dangerous to deal with.

A Sovol SV06 or SV08 meets most of your criteria at about 1/3 to 1/2 of your budget; I haven't had the best experiences with their reliability but they fit many of your criteria. Used Creality Enders might be even cheaper depending on where you are, and while also fussy are hackable and repairable to the point of often being used as platforms for entirely different printers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmMW6_7lrlQ

I agree in principle with the above comment, but for some additional context - slicer software has gotten really, really good these days. Especially (sadly) if you don't need open source software.

To make a CNC machining metaphor - Slicer software is basically just your interface to the dials and knobs on the CNC settings for speeds and feeds. There's more settings, because 3d printing is more like if a CNC had a baby with a welder and an injection molding press, only it's injecting and simultaneously welding up a blob of plastic. You're balancing the toolpaths, the temps, the adhesion, and the overall speed all at the same time, all for whatever material you're using.

So it's complex, but these companies have a ton of data and experience in order to make sure their preset settings are damn good out of the box. And these days, they get it right more often than they get it wrong!

Long story short - you should probably just get a Bambu. You'll learn what you need to learn from it, while having good quality output the whole time. If you find out it's not suitable for what you're looking to do, then you can sell it used with decent resale and get the best printer for your specific application.

No its not. Slicer software is just CAM software for 3d printers. It just creates Gcode like any other CAM software. Calling it " basically just your interface to the dials and knobs on the CNC settings for speeds and feeds." shows a deep misunderstanding of operating CNC's in general.

Your manual controls on pretty much all 3d printers suck. But that's because manual operation is considerable far down the priority list. I've never seen one that did jogging other than setting an increment and tapping a touchscreen button to make it move 1 increment.

Every CNC machine I have ever ran did way better with the jogging. Even the ones from the 70's. You set a speed with a knob and then hold down a button. It goes till you let up. Or you use a rotary wheel for fine control.

And don't even get me started on homing. The homing sequence on all the printers I have dealt with is home X and Y before homing Z. Most machinists will be aghast at this as if you are homing all 3 axis's at once you home Z first to get the tool out of the way.

While you are technically correct in that DigDug used the wrong analogy, they are correct in that slicers are really good now and you won't spend hours dialing in temps, flow rates, and speeds like you once did. You do simple CAD stuff (e.g. scaling and orientation), add supports if necessary (and the auto option usually does a good job), then press slice to get a gcode file which you send to the printer (either network, serial, or through a SD card).

Regarding Z-homing being last - usually endstop positions are on Z-, not Z+, so they do a bit of a hop (2-10mm upwards Z) before the X and Y homing so they don't crash the head. If your Z endstop is on Z-, you can home that first since you know the head is out of the way.

EDIT: to be specific, this is for "bed-slinger" printers, but the concept is the same for fixed height tool head printers (eg where the bed is what's raised and lowered).

I've been very happy with my Qidi Q1 Pro. I paid about $350 pre-tax off Amazon almost a year ago (Black Friday). For me, it was the most machine for the lowest cost I could find. It almost fits your desired print volume (245 x 245 x 240), but it is fully enclosed and has a dedicated chamber heater. I have almost exclusively printed ABS at a 60 deg. C chamber temp. It runs open source Klipper firmware, but I'd imagine repairability wouldn't be the best. Best of all, I have not needed any calibration. It seems pretty spot on out of the box.

My Voron is hands down a better printer but also required significantly more investments in components and especially time.

Qidi Q1 pro is amazing, especially for the price

And the Q2 came out recently, looks even better, with multi-material feed support (similar to Bambu’s AMS)

The first part of your post sounds almost like an ad for the Bambu Lab P1S. The second part sounds more like the Prusa CORE One kit (build volume is not a perfect match).

I really wouldn't bother buying anything else as a beginner. Pick between these two.

It's a weird thing in 3D printing right now that if you don't have the open source stuff as a requirement you get better print quality and reliability for half the price with Bambu Lab.

While I can't directly compare with BambuLab print results, the prints I get out of my Prusa Core One with current Firmware and Slicer are stellar and surpass even the prints of my MK4S (that being a benchmark in Quality in my bubble of the Internet).

> I am ok assembling the machine and learning how to dial it in.

Get a Prusa Core One kit, or build a Voron.

Bambulab should be off the table for their bait and switch behaviour. AMS is not particularly impressive and very wasteful. Get a Bondtech INDX down the road if you want true multi material printing.

This is a great choice if you want to learn how to be a technician for your 3D printer. It will probably save you on filament cost as well.

What is their bait and switch behavior? I'm not familiar with anything shady they've done but am very curious as I've had my eye on a Bambu.

They pushed a firmware update which blocked direct use of your printer without using their proprietary “Bambu Connect” application - because ‘security’.

LAN mode still works on my A1 & I can access it from Orca Slicer just fine.

I've been unable to connect Orca Slicer to my A1 mini over LAN and I'm led to believe that as a result of that firmware update it is impossible. It's possible something else went wrong and I just gave up because of a misunderstanding I guess?

Are you sure you aren't just running older firmware (my A1 mini is a recent acquisition)?

Same on my P1S. LAN mode doesn't even attempt to call home at all either, I've checked my logs. And even if you're super paranoid you can always walk an SD Card to the printer.

Mind clarifying how that's bad? It sounds just like a driver or something similar.

Authorization through bambulab servers.

Also probably AGPL infringement, since the slicer is a fork of priser slicer which is AGPL, and you can't build the slicer from source, because if you could, then you could use the binary plugin for communicating with the printer in other slicers -- but you can't.

It's pretty blatant IMO.

But it's also a printer that just works.

I am surprised nobody mentioned the Qidi printers. They are the perfect balance between tinkerability and reliability (but see below - QA varies), and have open firmware. They are the only ones that currently compete with Bambu in high-temperature materials. These will outperform PC/Nylon and can also print advanced stuff as PPS, especially on the new Q2.

Now, for their QA - it is not on par with Prusa or Bambu, however, there are a few tips to avoid the pitfalls. 1. If buying the Plus 4, buy the US version of possible. The EU models are older units with a faulty part. 2. Buy from places that offer returns. If the printer is faulty, you can always return it 3. If something breaks, document and send to support. Expect free replacement parts shipped within a week.

By following the above, you will get an extremely capable printer at a fraction of a cost of a Bambu, with offline modes, open source FW a great community and hotend capabilities that are virtually unparalleled and venture into engineering grade machines.

Happy printing :)

Another vote for Qidi from me. I have Qidi Plus4, which is amazing. I selected the UK version (where I live), and don't have any issues. I believe the faulty part issue you were referring has been resolved long since as mine doesn't have this, based on the part numbers.

I was against getting a Bambu mainly for the proprietary software.

I second qidi. I have a Q1 pro and have had great success with higher temperature/exotic materials. I live in EU, and I also appreciate that they stock everything in Europe and I always get delivery of consumables and materials within a few days.

> I would prefer something that doesn't phone home and can work offline. Opensource firmware/software and repairability are important.

I built myself a Voron, and it's an amazing learning experience. I learn how things work, and the trade offs. I get to pick and replace the exact parts I want. I design my functional parts knowing exactly the printer's capability. There is something very fascinating about it. You can look at a print, and can tell different issues at a glance because you have seen (and fixed) them while you built and tuned the printer. The majority of 3D Printing quality issue are due to Hardware constructions / trade offs, and not Software (slicer settings..). Without building a printer from scratch, it's hard to tell the root cause.

https://vorondesign.com/voron2.4

- Fully open sourced

- Repairability and updatability. Lots of fun mods.

- No phone home / privacy issue like Bambu

I think before going down the rabbit hole, it's best to make sure you have a clear answer for this question: Do you care about the learning / tinkering / optimizing part, or do you care more about "it just works" printing?

- Many recommendations in this thread is for the "it just works" printing case. The top candidates are Bambu, Creality, and Eiegoo. The quality is good for most cases.

- If you're an engineer and into tinkering like me, you would be much happier with a Voron v2. Depending on your effort, you can match Bambu's quality, or _greatly_ exceed it.

Regarding Slicer, don't worry much about it. You can learn one very fast. The top ones are Cura and Orca Slicer. I use them both, and they have pros / cons. Personally on my Voron, a well tuned Cura profile yield better result. But Cura is missing one important feature: it can't limit the speed based on Flow Rate.

Another quick tip:

- Take the advertised number with a grant of salt. For example, many printers advertised 600 mm/s print speed. The mechanical frame may be able to handle 600 mm/s, but the Hot End is the limit of the build (e.g. it can't melt material fast enough, friction, the ability of extruder motor to quickly change speed, etc).

Hope you have a great time!

I love the idea of building a printer, but I know that my attention span is limited on these sorts of things. As in, I’ll be reliably obsessed until it’s done and tuned, and then I’ll forget everything until the next time I want to use it.

So my big question, for someone who’s owned one a while: is the printer ever “done”?

Is there a point after which it “just works”? Or is it always going to be more like “it’s great! I just need to tweak the blah blah setting every time and retighten the frobnitz every 3 prints, no big deal really!”

I always see the quote about “if you like printERS, build, but if you like printING, just buy one” - but nobody talks about the timescale on the fiddling and whether it ever stops.

(currently own a Prusa mk3s I built as a kit and it’s been pretty solid as a tool!)

I assembled a Prusa Mk3 a few years ago, and other than swapping a nozzle that wore out (they don't last forever) it's still working fine.

I grease it about twice a year, and clean any gunk from the nozzle (takes a few seconds) every so often. I wash the print bed thoroughly about 3 or 4 times a year.

I'm interested in 3D printing, but not interested in fiddling with the printer itself. So, I have fiddled to print soft rubber filament for example, but for every experiment with something strange like that I have 50 or more routine prints in PLA or PETG.

Yep this matches my experience pretty well! It’s been a good printer and I haven’t had to do much, and I avoid fiddling and mostly use it as a tool. I’m always eyeing the newer faster printers but I don’t love the cloudiness of Bambu and Prusa’s new stuff seems nice but not quite worth the leap yet. Voron has interested me for a while though.

At least for me, the printer is never "done", but it isn't in the "I just need to tweak the blah blah setting every time" sense.

Rather, there's just always something to make better even if the current solution is fine. Say, swapping out the toolhead for a lighter or more modular one, or building another MMU because it can handle softer materials that I print maybe once a year and don't have to use the MMU for, or replacing the hotend with a higher flow or sturider one, or adding more lighting and cameras, or switching the motor mounts to a double shear design to be able to dial accelerations up, etc. Right now I'm working on building a TradRack MMU while planning out a teardown and rebuild of my backup Voron0.2.

I could stop at any point and still have a printer that's near the top end of what's accessible on the market, but the open source 3d printer community moves incredibly fast and it's nice to be able to participate in it.

I avoid buying 2d printers because they are so maintenance heavy... I use a 3D printer in a shared makerspace, where whoever has the most avialability takes on maintenance issues when they arise.

The Prusa mk4's we use are extremely reliable; most problems come down to users doing dumb stuff... or at least, doing risky stuff and not monitoring the print.

I find that I usually have some /kind/ of print I'm making (say, very hollow terrain pieces for tabletop wargames) get my printer settings dialed in over the course of a few failed prints, and then can print more of that kind of thing very reliably. In other words, good printer settings are project dependent, but can usually transfer reliably across simlar projects. And then I don't have to think much about the printer - it just does its thing.

> So my big question, for someone who’s owned one a while: is the printer ever “done”?

The printer is never "done" :). But there are plenty check points where it's "pretty good".

For example, here is my rough timeline:

- I sourced the parts and built it. Took around 4 weekends.

- The initial tuning took a while (like a month). But this was very fun. I tried almost all the Slicers. I fixed constructions issues (square angle, deracking, belt tuning, ...). After this step, the machine becomes "good enough". I can print various parts in the house and I was satisfied with the quality.

- I started pushing for speed and redid many parts of the printer. I learned about various limitations (like Flow Rate is the real limit for speed). This phase last a long time for me (like a year). I ended up replacing like 75% of the printed parts with CNC parts. During this time, the printer is still online and printable.

- I didn't modded the printer much after that. I found my sweet spot between speed / quality. I want to mod it with a 120W Hot End heater to increase the Flow Rate (already bought it), but it's not quite a necessary thing. It's more for fun. The tinkering goes on as long as you feel it's fun. But I wouldn't say you _need_ to tinker to _keep_ it working.

> Is there a point after which it “just works”? Or is it always going to be more like “it’s great! I just need to tweak the blah blah setting every time and retighten the frobnitz every 3 prints, no big deal really!”

After the first tuning phase, the Voron was "just works" for me. Or at least, if there was any issue, I could immediately tell what went wrong. And no retightening needed so far except one time the printed feet cracked (that was the reason I switched to CNC aluminum parts).

Edit: I built a large Voron (350mm), and it is really _heavy_ (almost full metal in my case). That's why the printed feet cracked. Beside that, maintenance is almost zero. I don't even wash the spring steel bed. Just click print and walk away.

Thanks for your insight! That’s great, seems like it’s been a fun project but not like a REQUIRED ongoing project. My first printer was a cheap i3 clone and it was more in the “never works right” category and I was hoping to avoid going back to something like that experience haha.

I bought a Creality Ender 3 V2 a little over a year ago, spent 6 months printing things and fiddling with it and finally had it with how primitive it is.

If you have the time and patience for tinkering, the Voron is great. I built a Voron 2.4 and Voron Trident this year. Both printers are designed with automatic bed leveling as a base feature and I modded them right from the start to have automatic z offset calculation as well with a fancy probe. With these 2 features I have print it and forget it operation 99% of the time with no issues. There have also been some open source multi filament/material projects that you can add to the printers since you have full control of the hardware and software.

Seconding. Voron 2.4r2 350mm here.

After having owned many 3D printers I can recommend Bambu Lab X1C with AMS. It will be a bit over budget but does not matter, you will spend time just printing and not messing with settings or bed leveling, it’s a workhorse and just prints what you tell it to reliably, no tuning or tweaking required. When using official filaments it will automatically recognize them, switch them during print etc.

After maybe 10 years of printing this is what I initially imagined it would be, now its finally there for consumer - I want this part in plastic let’s go

Oh and it’s also fast.

Hmm, I wonder if bambu gives me a cut for the sales pitch, but if not it is also ok - i just have to give credit to good engineering when I see it

PS: no prusa or clones, no creality, dont mess with that nonsense

> I do not need to print multi material models. I would prefer something that doesn't phone home and can work offline. Opensource firmware/software and repairability are important.

And your suggestion is Bambu with AMS?

Does OP want to print, or do they want to tinker?

Bambu make excellent machines. There is nothing comparable out of the box, especially at their price points.

OP stated the requirements I quoted above, AMS definitely doesn't make sense, and I don't think Bambu makes sense either.

Before Bambu, Prusa was the 'no tinker just print' brand, though I haven't used one I agree Bambu's taken the lead now, but I think given OP's desire for more openness and repairability etc. Prusa makes more sense.

Fwiw: I have a Prusa Mini, and I'd buy Bambu today, I'm continually tempted by an enclosed model with AMS. But I'm not OP, and I don't think that's right for them with their description.

An AMS is useful just so you can have 4 different filaments ready to go at any time. Doesn't need to be for multi material models. I have an A1 with the AMS lite and a Prusa mk3s, and manually changing materials is a chore.

Fair point, I don't print enough (nevermind change material often enough) that it's such a bother that I thought of it. I expected the argument to be keeping it dry, to which I'd have said a drybox and/or dehumidifier is better and (could be) cheaper.

Not the OP, but AMS can be useful for loading and unloading filament, as well as automatically continuing a print job when you run out of one spool of the same filament. It's not just for multi-color prints, although that's obviously the primary use case.

In this case the P1S without AMS is a better starting point.

Add an AMS later if valuable.

The step up from P1S to X1C isn't worth it for someone with a budget who doesn't need the incremental improvements of the X1C.

Personally, I'd still just get the X1C (and I'm not the person above you).

The price difference is low enough now that I'd just take the upgrade. Sure you don't "need" the better screen, better wifi, quieter fan, and default installed hardened nozzle/gear. But they're nice. And OP will want the hardened nozzle/gear if they're printing CAD designed structural parts - PLA is a bad pick for those, you really need to be in the ABS/ASA/PETG/PP materials, and those benefit heavily from the Carbon Fiber/Glass Fiber additions in the filament (PETG-CF and ABS-GF are fantastic).

Back when the difference was closer to $500, sure - get the P1S. But the X1C is frankly a steal at $799. And if you catch the occasional sale, you can get the X1C + AMS combo at literally OPs sticker price ($999).

I'm going to make an unpopular suggestion. Have you considered using a service that will print and ship to you, like CraftCloud?

Depending on volume, your total cost would likely be lower. I know you mentioned privacy concerns so this may not be an option. But it significantly simplifies your work, letting you focus on the parts themselves.

A counter argument is that the short turn around time with local 3D printing is absolutely a feature.

I've printed small stuff just to get the fitting right, before I finished the part with fillets, etc.

Also there is lots of small fun stuff, small fixes you'd never do with a 3d printer if you had to order prints online.

Example, I designed a printed a M8 nut cap with room for the 3mm sharp rod sticking out. I could probably have gotten a metal file to mill down the sharp edge, but it was hard to get at, and this gave a nice finish.

I, too, once looked into this, but for anything trivial you immediately exceed the cost of just buying a Bambu Lab A1 mini.

So you might as well buy that and have a lower-spec iteration, because you're going to run into all sorts of design problems before you get to finer constraints.

Even if you buy a printer you should be aware of all the services. It might be more expensive but it opens up a lot more options too. Want a SLS print instead - they have it. Want to mill it from steel and then bend it - they can do that for you. Want to make something out of solid wood, no problem. Need a lot of parts fast - they have many printers and overnight shipping (at extra charge).

Sure it costs more, but if you will only do it once that is still cheap. And some of the things they can do for you are not safe to do at home.

This is the way. Multijet fusion has ruined me for anything else and it’s cheap from print shops. I just need to find one in town and I’ll get the quick turnaround time that’s the only reason to have my own printer.

I tried to check this on Xometry and the cost went from 4,83 € for FDM (quite overpriced unless they print with 0.05mm layer height) to 35,88 € for a tiny insignificant part of a much bigger print.

At those prices just the prototype alone will cost as much as an X1C. It's expensive enough that you'd rather print the prototype using an at home printer using random filament you have lying around and only print the end result once you're done prototyping.

Also there are no multijet fusion print shops "in town". That's an incredibly niche type of business you would expect in larger cities and therefore they would be priced accordingly.

Good thing I live in a big city! Only problem is finding one with an automated online process.

Try JawsTec for MFJ. Haven’t seen cheaper prices. Granted, I work in small scales, where the fine resolution is needed and it’s a low material volume.

CraftCloud is good. The postage is often half my print cost but they’ll get it printed and you don’t have to deal with failures.

Voron would be my recommendation. It ticks all the boxes of what you need it to do. The only caveat is you need to build it, screw by screw (unless you buy a pre-assembled one such as siboor). It also requires printed parts which can be ordered via Vorons PIF program (high quality, printer-verified parts).

Depending on how easy you find it, it will take at least 10 hours to build. But that is part of the fun.

Software and repairability are there. Spares are cheap and klipper is open source. It can work offline but it works better paired with tailscale. You can upload sliced models OTA.

Slicing models will be the easiest part. I'd recommend the basic orcaSlicer set up for the printer of choice and go from there.

Good luck and have fun. 3D printing has become the most addictive hobby I have ever taken up. Be careful with your time!

Second this, if you have the time to assemble everything that is.

On the plus side your Voron won't become obsolete as you can just upgrade it to the next version.

I just upgraded my Voron 2.1 to have direct drive. Having build everything myself in the first place, the decision was easy.

Meanwhile we have a Bambu X1 at work and some of the time I just have no idea why it does not work.

Bambu Lab A1 Mini ($299-399)

Excellent print quality out of the box Automatic bed leveling and calibration Very user-friendly with great software Compact size, perfect for beginners

Creality K1 Max (~$599)

300x300x300mm build volume Fast printing speeds (up to 600mm/s) Auto-leveling and enclosed design Good balance of features and price

Prusa MINI+ (~$429 kit, $529 assembled)

Exceptional reliability and support Magnetic flexible bed Excellent community and documentation Great for learning and consistent results

Neither mini are enclosed and can't print all the materials OP asked for.

A1 Mini build volume is 180 x 180 x 180 mm³

And not enclosed

The Prusa MK4S Kit is $669 right now. Best time ever to buy.

Elegoo Centauri Carbon. I am blown away at the quality which rivals or exceeds my X1C and it's like $300. It was on sale $49 off earlier this week which was insane. Subsidized by CCP but keep it offline and you're good to go.

Yeah, I have friend who recently got one and is loving it. Does seem close to the X1C (which has been really solid for me, but is hardly cheap).

I have a Bambu X1C and a Prusa MK3.9S (mostly upgraded MK3S).

The Bambu is incredible at PLA. It is so fast and consistently perfect. The 0.2mm nozzle makes unreal detail small parts. But I struggle to do other materials with it like TPU, PETG, ABS.

The Prusa takes generally whatever material I throw at it and does a great job just using the PrusaSlicer built in profiles. It's also the minimum viable printer -- it's 80% as good as the Bambu but a fraction of the complexity. I am 100% confident I could keep it running indefinitely where the Bambu is mostly proprietary parts and software.

I hate to say this. Bambu A1. I'm operating a farm of mixed plumage: 20 Prusa's, 12 Creality K1s and 24 Bambus. Of all of those the Bambus are by far the least troublesome and I would definitely recommend those to a beginner. That said, Bambu is a crap company and they can't be trusted not to do a rugpull sooner or later. We don't have them connected to wifi for that reason alone and tbh it doesn't really add anything to the experience. I like the fact that they're all stand-alone and as long as the power is up the printers are printing. In the last year we've processed about 3000 Kg total with these. In some more detail:

- The Prusa's are real workhorses. They are not the fastest, but they're expensive and they break. But you can always fix them and the degree to which you can tinker with them (especially while they're running) is much higher than the others. I've made a couple of custom ones (one 1x1 meter x 25 cm build volume, five more that are the regular width and length but 60 cm height), with adopted firmware. It's an insanely flexible platform. If you can think of it, handle a hex key and do some minor firmware hacking you can probably make it.

- The K1s... well. Initially we were very impressed. Got a couple to test with, decided they work and ordered 10 more. After a few days the first extruder broke. Gears just snapped their teeth right off. Turns out the extruder gears are plastic. So, ordered upgraded extruders. Next, one after the other, power supplies dying. After that print fans, Then cpu fans. They also had many screws loose right from the factory, we had a whole inspection list made just to structurally address all of the shitty stuff that would be wrong. For $10 more in parts and better QA it could have been a winner.

- The Bambus. We plugged them in. They work. They still do.

People in this thread are mentioning the SOVOL, if you have the money, that's probably the best printer. But I'd get a couple of Bambus instead and get that many more kilos pushed through. At 200 bucks for the mini and 350 or so for the big A1 it's insane value for money.

Does that help? Feel free to ask more questions.

> Feel free to ask more questions.

What are you doing with all those printers?

Bambu X1C: I can recommend the Bambu X1C. It would be my printer of choice. In addition to bed-leveling it has flow calibration and AI detection. With the H2S release prices on the X1C are coming down quickly.

Elegoo Centauri Carbon: I know lots of people will recommend the P1S but this printer has 95% of the features at half the cost. Also extruder temp goes higher (320C), for more exotic materials.

I bought a Centauri Carbon due to the pretty much unbeatable pricing and it has worked well for an old roll of Amazon Basics PLA, using it off-line by copying files onto it using a flash drive. Waiting for https://github.com/OpenCentauri/OpenCentauri to pan out before I'll consider putting it on my network.

Looking into GF infused PLA, or PETG for come up-coming projects, and wondering how things will work out with their "Filament Switching System" which was promised for Q3.

If money hadn't been a concern, I'd've chosen a Prusa XL w/ multiple print heads.

Buy a bambu P1s, a 0.4mm hardened nozzle for CF filaments, and maybe a filament dryer. You'll have a tool to spit parts out instead of a hobby in and of itself[0]. Bambu isn't the least evil company, but it's honestly just that good.

Can work offline, but you'll probably need to block it at the firewall level if you care enough about privacy.

[0]Unless that's what your looking for.

At that build volume I think you need to expand your budget slightly. The Prusa MK4S is on a deep discount right now but is just short of those numbers you listed.

Even the Core One just barely misses.

Prusa XL hits your target but is twice your budget.

Also honestly build volume can be a little overrated unless you're printing helmets. You can make things in smaller parts. More build volume brings with it more print issues you have to deal with. But also yeah look at a Voron maybe or the SV08.

If you're new to printing, start smaller anyway. If you've done machining you know there's a materials learning curve and the same thing applies here to the nth degree. Print material, volume, orientation, density, first-layer adhesion, temperature, etc all are things you will have to account for and will affect your print quality/strength. You want to learn about these things in smaller prints that waste less time and material rather than more/larger.

E.g., get the MK4S Kit.

I bought my first 3D printer six months ago, it feels as high quality as an HP printer, couldn't be happier.

Flashforge Adventurer 5M https://www.flashforge.com/products/adventurer-5m-3d-printer

There are fully open projects like Voron or RatRig, and sellers of DIY kits based on them. Potentially a lot of work unless you're interested in 3D printing itself as a hobby rather than as a tool.

Prusa Core One would be a bit more complete OOTB. It is 220mm in the smallest axis (Y) though. Slicer and firmware are open source, but the hardware is not (unlike previous Prusa printers).

Bambu gives you the same capability for much less, but the firmware is not open source (third party open source firmware does exist). I believe the stock firmware also has to "phone home" at least once before it can be used offline.

Even cheaper are less-well known Chinese companies, like Qidi. Firmware is usually a proprietary fork of Klipper or other open source projects; some people have had success flashing the mainline version.

I've had a number of different printers, and the one I like the most [by far] is the Bambu P1S. It doesn't hit your desire to avoid the cloud, but as a machine it is top notch quality, and very reliable. It requires far less babysitting and tweaking than something like a Creality. If you just want to print things and know that most of the time it Just Works, they are a great tool for that.

You can set up a P1S in LAN mode and everything stays local, no phoning home or cloud shenanigans. It's not the default set up but it is certainly possible and how I have mine set up.

First up: If you were a machinist and can model in CAD (especially constraint based, not mesh based), slicers are trivial. You'll spend a bit learning about materials & how to deal with their inadequacies by fiddling with support structures, but it's really not an obstacle.

If OSS firmware and repairability matter to you, prepare to invest a lot of time fixing and improving your tooling. (But... if you've machined before, you likely know that drill :)

The Sovol SV06 is almost there in terms of build volume - and it clocks in at $350, so it might be a good starting point. The Voron 2.4 is 350 mm^3 and almost $1000, also a decent machine. Elegoo's Neptune 4 straddles the edge of open source - it's a branded klipper build.

All of them are enclosable (i.e. you can buy enclosures, or build one)

From what I hear, the Voron's the most likely fit for your material requirements. (But, worth keeping in mind - an alternate path is a cheapo PLA printer for prototyping, and then shipping of files to a printing service. Depends on what you plan to do)

> Need to be able to print with more durable, temperature/chemical resistant materials such as PC/Nylon/ABS or infused materials.

I would double check what kind of air filtration setup you want. In the voron/sovol space there's the StealthMax filter system kit which is going to add on a couple hundred bucks at least.

As others said, you could consider a sovol sv08.

Another option is a used voron 2.4 or trident to meet your budget. My regret in going down the new printer rabbit hole was not waiting a couple months and checking used listing because theres usually a used printer that comes up, sometimes saving you quite a bit of money and assembly time.

The other factor to consider is you ever plan on having any expansions requiring a better MCU or additional motors. The sovol is a more 'integrated' electronics design so you'd need to possibly replace it if wanting to do certain mods later.

I have a Qidi plus 4, and have had good results with it and engineering materials.

Bambu is nice for the community, it's much more popular, but the specs for the Qidi are bit better for engineering materials and so far I am very happy with it.

That being said, it isn't quite open source, but I do believe it can be run offline.

I do mechatronics for a living. I have (and still have) some “hobby” 3d printers. For my job, I don’t want to screw around with settings, I just need the part to come out well.

My day to day goto is the creality K1 line. I have 3x K1Cs and a K1 Max. The K1 Max is for you. It costs about $800. 300mm cubed build area. Runs every material I throw at it. PLA, PETG, TPU, Nylon, ASA, PC, etc.

It has a cloud option, but I don’t use. They all run on a separate vlan so no phoning home. Doesn’t cause any issues.

They run unlocked klipper firmware, so if you want to mess with it feel free. Also means most slicers work well with them. I typically use OrcaSlicer but the CrealityPrint and Cura work also.

I don’t recommend the K2, it has quite a few annoying bugs. The Enders are hobby machines for sure. Go with K1C or even K1 Max for the bigger bed. You won’t regret it.

The comment section is full of people who aren't reading the requirements.

Bamboo Labs shouldn't be recommended as OP doesn't want a printer that phones home and is open source.

Then there's cheap printers that are either too small or aren't enclosed, again not suitable for OP.

DIY kits fit OP's requirements better IMO.

Printable PC/Nylon/ABS are not the same as the injection molded equivalents, you may want to research this more if that is an issue. I've printed every material under the sun trying to chase various material properties, and I usually just come back to printing in PLA due to it's excellent mechanical properties (up to a certain temp), excellent layer adhesion, and near 100% success rate. When you stray from from PLA, you will start running into warping, shrink, layer adhesion, and other issues. If you need parts in PC/Nylon/ABS, get the design dialed in in PLA (I as almost all others recommend bambulab), and then send the part to FirstCut/Protolabs to have it machined out of whatever you want.

I would not print PC/Nylon/ABS at home. It’s really hard to make it work especially during colder months. Work with PLA to get the shape and order it online when you’re ready for advanced materials. I would also recommend HP MJF for nylons.

Why? He said he was going to enclose. Is this a fumes thing?

It’s not just safety. It’s also the costs. You have to print them in climate controlled environment which can get expensive. Print them looking “fine” is not the same as printing them to specification of these materials. And you print ABS/PC/Nylon for functional needs.

Get a bambu, dont put it online, use the SD card or lan for transfer... yes they're Chinese and have run roughshod over their contemporaries with respect to IP, yet it's the most die hard printer you'll ever buy. I own 5.

Whatever you do, you're going to have to dry your filament if you don't use it within a month of opening it.

I used to like the tweaking, but once I got a Bambu P1S, I've gotten spoiled just being able to hit print and let it go.

this isn't always true. i live somewhere so dry PLA is fine left open for several months w no water uptake

OP specifically mentioned "PC/Nylon/ABS".

same applies for those, i was using PLA as an example as its more hygroscopic.

not that it's hard to store a spool of filament in a plastic bin

What do you intend to make?

Is your goal to earn or learn?

How much time do you have to spend on 3d printing?

I do repair and modernizing of cars/motorcycles/dirtbike/ATVs, that kind of stuff. Fuel injection conversions are something I specialize in. That is why I would like durable/resistant materials as an option. I won't be trying to earn with it intentionally, unless I stumble upon a niche. There are already more than a couple 3d printing services around here, no need to compete there.

I can do what I need to do in CAD, design my own parts, etc. Other than the above, I'll use it for gifts, stuff around the home, rasPi and ESP32 electronic projects with home assistant, misc. enclosures, etc. I have a broad set of use cases but running production 24/7/365 isn't something I see myself doing unless I stumble upon a niche as I mentioned.

> Fuel injection conversions are something I specialize in.

What kind of temperatures/pressures/chemical exposure are you expecting for your prints? You should probably start there, check for 3d printing materials that can actually handle those requirements, and then filter for printing technologies that fit the bill. I would imagine that would already break it down a lot.

see my response to another reply: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45280742

How many parts are we talking? I sounds to me like you are the perfect candidate for send-cut-send or one of the many many other services that take your CAD and build parts. You get to choose from materials your printer couldn't do (not matter what you have something cannot be done)

Low volume stuff, single digits of parts, unless I find that niche, and i might outsource then. I'll keep the send-cut-send type stuff in mind. There are variations to certain parts that I'd like to iterate on, for example, intake runner lengths, diameters and shapes, various adapters/converters, panels/covers, etc. Plus, it's fun to do things yourself and learn along the way. It's not just about the end result.

Using a service would be better for a final part in a better material for the sake of longevity, not just 3d printed either, but cnc'd aluminum for example. Plastics can only go so far, but for short durations in some stressful situations, like intake manifolds, they can give you information. Having a printer in house will let me prototype to verify functionality of some engine parts, and being able to print in resistant materials will let me make final parts of less stressed parts in areas exposed to fuels, oils, etc.

When you have a printer, cycle times can be much shorter…and a few fast cycles with a job shop will pay for a printer.

Small jobs from small customers are not a high priority for job shops. Neither are cheap jobs.

Having a printer means you are able to work on projects at 2am Sunday.

those are the tradeoffs. It sounds to me like 3d priting isn't even a good fit for what the guy wants to do.

if youre interested in repair and solid part design, you may also want to consider SLA design printers. 4k panels are super cheap and its easier to work with strong resins (but messy) than eg, ABS heated bed and fume enclosures

I have both a resin and FDM printer. The FDM is hands down easier to work with than dealing with resin. FDM ABS is also a far better material than ABS-like resin. (Disclosure: I've never tried a proper industrial resin from LOCTITE or something.)

none of the printers mentioned going to meet any of your requirements.

Prusa isn't fully opensource, but has the worst enclosed chamber printer imo.

Bambu isn't open source in the slightest (beside the slicer).

You are never going to print PC on a bambu either way, at least not Pure PC. Blends, sure, you need at least 100c chambers for pure PC.

diy kits are the way to go, but it is going take you a LONG time. a voron, ratrig, or annex k3 are your best bets with the requirements you want. each kit has their weaknesses, and most of them, are going to require upgrades from their BOM.

(The printers mentioned may fulfill some of the requirements, but not all.)

And yes, I think you're absolutely right. DIY kits are the way to go with OP's requirements.

Depends how much tinkering you want to do. Out of the box, Prusa and Bambu are king for a higher price point. More of a closed ecosystem though, the remaining options are more open.

If you want to assemble your own premium machine, Voron for which there are kits. Still a premium price though.

For more budget options that still have a good out of the box experience, I've heard good things about the Qidi 4 and Creality K1 series.

If you want a mostly pre-built Voron lite of sorts, Sovol SV08, but expect more tinkering.

I'll second the call for checking out smaller companies with Ender clones and similar like Sovol and Qidi; you can find refurbed models like Creality K1's for $200+ off if you're not averse.

Regarding slicer software, Ultimaker Cura is great for beginners, Orca Slicer has a slightly steeper learning curve but they both have their pros and cons such as different support generation algorithms, having an alternative when something doesn't seem to print right with one.

I picked up an Ultimaker 2+ with 15,000 hours on it at an ewaste junk shop for $100. Really was expecting it to need some TLC, but I plugged it in, leveled the bed, and it spit out an absolutely passable benchy in a couple hours. Cura (Ultimaker's slicer) isn't open source, but it is free, fairly unobtrusive, and works fine. The printer itself isn't connected to anything but mains power, and loads gcode from an SD card.

> Cura (Ultimaker's slicer) isn't open source

Isn't it? https://github.com/Ultimaker/Cura

Color me corrected!

I love my Voron Trident. It might not be under $1000. I have about $1300 in it, I start with the Voron Tap tool head which added a bit plus other stuff.

I've been resisting the desire to go down this rabbit hole because I think it will be the final straw for my girlfriend. Good luck on your quest!

I got a Bambu P1S two years ago for Christmas as a gift. It's been fantastic. 98% of my prints have been successful.

They aren't the free open source dream machine, but it also works quite well and needs little messing with.

I've played with 3d printers back to the RepRap and Makerbots - but those always required so much work to get a successful print.

I haven't seen something clearly better in the price range.

If you've got a budget of $1000 for that, have you considered getting a used 3D printer first? Some models are sold used for like 50€ (e.g. Ender 3 V2) on classified ads which hardly makes a dent in your overall budget. This will force you to actually familiarize yourself with the processes and will allow you to make more informed decisions later?

I bought the Anycubic Kobra S1 Combo recently, and it's really good, especially looking at the price

Same. New to printing but haven't had a single failed print yet (only used PLA and PETG so far though), and the print quality is generally excellent. That said, it does not meet all the requirements of the OP.

Bambulab A1 user here.

It's nice for simple stuff, but wouldn't recommend for anything needing precision. In the beginning it was laying out perfect layers, but after 6 months just lost it. Been doing every possible maintenance stuff and it just doesn't go back.

I have a 5 toolhead prusa XL, meets every one of your criteria except for not being $4K.

Bambu Labs P1S, X1C or H2D if you want something that just works.

For printing ABS and ASA, insulate the enclosure with XPS and heat the chamber to above 55C for good results.

Printing Nylon is difficult. You have to control not just the temperature but also humidity.

The Ender 3 V2 is very solid and repeatable, but loud. I spent more money making mine quiet than I did buying it. You can literally get Enders free or for very little in classifieds. Bambu has a very good marketing department.

I have an Ender 3 v2. I assembled it, and my first print just worked. Apparently this isn't very common. It wasn't difficult, but I can see places people would run into issues.

It was about a month later the problems started. Plastic extruder broke like they all do, and the extruder gear was done.

A bed leveling probe is a game changer. A PEI bed plate is great. Those tubing couplers are super fragile. Klipper is nice.

Now it just works and I expect it to for a long time.

The trouble is that people don't want to spend the time and effort to get there. Me? I like that any replacement part is going to be 20 bucks or less. Everything wears eventually.

If you want good prints and only care about the prints, get Bambu P1S. If you want to tinker with the machine and have a lot of free time on your hands then Prusa. although Prsusa starting to close up it's walls like Bambu.