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Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

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Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#121

Post by panzagl »

birdman3131 wrote: post #20
digdugdirk wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 bab…

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 l…

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).

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#122

Post by FloatArtifact »

skhameneh wrote: post #8

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 val…

Svo8 bed is warped on mine, unfortunately.

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#123

Post by naasking »

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.

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#124

Post by abhorrence »

cityofdelusion wrote: post #87

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…

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".

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#125

Post by post_break »

As someone who started with junk printers from the very beginning, and now sell 3D prints, please don't buy a machine you have to assemble. Don't learn how to dial it in. And spend more than $1,000.

Your time and money is worth more than trying to make some open source diy kit printer do what you want. Bambu has body slammed the market with printers that work.

Get a H2S or X1C, run it in lan only mode if you're paranoid, and don't look back. H2S is a better option for your material choices.

My comment will probably get flamed because I'm not saying Prusa makes the best printers and only support open source, but do you want a tool that makes things, or do you want to waste time baby sitting your tool trying to get it to do something others can do out of the box.

I WISH my machine was open source, but the reality is it's not. It's like asking what mill to buy, but rulling out HAAS and Bridgeport because you're ok with trying to machine around crazy slop.

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#126

Post by bdangubic »

skhameneh wrote: post #8

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 val…

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

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#127

Post by deno »

pests wrote: post #98
horsawlarway wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 wh…

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.

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#128

Post by bb88 »

chakintosh wrote: post #76
skhameneh wrote: post #8

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 val…

> 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.

> 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.

Re: Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

#130

Post by _Microft »

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?
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