I have found a creality ender 3 pro on facebook marketplace for $75, would this be a good 3d printer at a good price for my first time?
I probably wouldn’t be printing too often, but I have a number of ideas for things that I’d like to try making.
I have found a creality ender 3 pro on facebook marketplace for $75, would this be a good 3d printer at a good price for my first time?
I probably wouldn’t be printing too often, but I have a number of ideas for things that I’d like to try making.
I have a very high budget, but I’d like to stay under $300, I already use Linux, I’m used to spending weeks tinkering with things.
If you can stretch that a tiny bit perhaps the Anycubic Kobra S1 is an idea (I think I saw that machine for 369€). Apparently not much for tinkering, but a cheap “just works” device with probably the cheapest upgrade path for multi-colour printing. Its enclosure also enables you to immediately try out more demanding materials like ASA (for UV resistance), ABS or Nylon. And of course PHA, the only truly compostable material (not yet too common, but f.e. Colorfabb sells those).
I see a lot of people recommending Creality. Be aware that Creality is about to go public. There already are signs of enshittification since they announced that plan (incl. a website for 3D models filled with stolen work and AI trash), so I’d avoid them as much as Bambu.
For filament I’ve had some really bad experiences with cheap stuff as well (tangles, air bubbles, dirt etc.), so I’ll add some recommendations too. Mind that this is just my personal experience.
tl;dr
Cheap printer: Anycubic
High quality printer: Prusa
To avoid!: Bambu, Creality
Cheap filament: TINMORRY, eSUN
High quality filament: extrudr, Prusament, Colorfabb
Recycling filament: Recyclingfabrik (EU), Prusament
To avoid (filament): DasFilament, GEEETech
Can a Bambu printer not be hacked to get full functionality yet?
The older ones can get mostly hacked (not sure about their newest devices), but given Bambu’s increasing reliance on closed source code, custom parts that are not easily replacable and their financial need to lock people into their ecosystem (they’re backed by Venture Capital) it will be a constant fight. And you never know if they’ll lock down something with the next patch. Not to mention that, by using their services, you’re forcing others into soft-dependencies as well (e.g. their model website “MakerWorld” requires everyone who wants to download more than 5 individual parts to register = more data and ads for Bambu).
There’s no reason to buy into something like that.