3DPrinting@lemmy.worldbySorteKanin@feddit.dk
7 hours

What 3D printer should I buy?

English

I feel conflicted. On the one hand, Prusa seems to be a good and reliable brand. On the other hand, it seems overpriced compared to the competitors. Bambu seems to be a no-go but mostly for ethical open source reasons, not for price or quality reasons. At the same time, I’ve seen this article that says Prusa is even falling back on their open source principles. But not sure how up to date that is any more.

If we look beyond Bambu or Prusa, there’s a variety of smaller brands that I have trouble distinguishing. With these other brands, it’s hard to tell whether they’re worth anything or just cheap knockoffs.

If we do consider Prusa, there’s also the question of MK4S vs Core One. The Core One is much more expensive, to the point where it is ridiculously expensive compared to the competitors. The MK4S is slightly cheaper, but it seems like Prusa is focused on the Core One development going forward, so I’d be slightly worried of being “left behind” with the MK4S.

What do you think? Which printer should you get in 2026? Or perhaps there is some upcoming release or something to wait for?

25
    • Kimjongtooill@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      3 hours

      Look into a Snapmaker U1. Multi toolhead under a grand by a company that is very open source friendly.

    • franzfurdinand@lemmy.worldEnglish
      3 hours

      I love my Qidi XMax 3. I’ve basically only needed to change my z offset a handful of times and it just slams out prints. It’s got a slightly larger build volume and runs Klipper out of the box.

      Could be an option worth considering if you’re looking for a printer that you can set up and run and don’t need anything particularly fancy that just kinda goes.

    • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
      6 hours

      Prusa walked so other manufacturers could run. 15 years ago prusa were the ones who made 3d printing a viable hobby for the rest of us. And all this while keeping their designs and code open source.

      Today I view the extra I pay today for their products as a well deserved reward for their integrity.

      • klangcola@reddthat.comEnglish
        4 hours

        Also I feel confident Prusa will not try a rug-pull enshitification move in 6 months time after buying their printer, unlike certain other manufacturers (Bamboo)

    • Natanox@discuss.tchncs.deEnglish
      7 hours

      Bambu also is a no-go for quality reasons by now, they didn’t care for their printers catching fire for way too long.

      That article, while technically being correct on many things, is also a little bit hyperbolic (that picture with “Who’s copying who now” is just laughable at best and utterly misleading). Prusa is still the best choice in what we call this “open market” (which repeatedly fucked them over), including openness.

      Viable alternatives, including cheaper ones, would be Snapmaker’s U1 and printers from Qidi Tech or Sovol. Mind that Qidi Tech and Sovol are somewhat known for sub-par customer support (they have to save the money somewhere I guess). Qidi Tech is better for “set up and use”, Sovol is a good baseline to tinker with the printer itself as well.

      Keep in mind that Prusa printers absolutely excel in longevity though, and they’re the only ones known to offer upgrade paths. Not to mention data security when using their services… just saying there are good reasons their printers are more expensive. You’ll most likely have more from them for longer. Not the MK4S though, that one is very much last gen by now.

      • squaresinger@lemmy.worldEnglish
        6 hours

        I can second the Snapmaker U1. Amazing machine, rock solid, works every time. I run it in LAN mode with custom firmware. If I need to remote in, I use a VPN on my local pi. No direct internet access/cloud stuff needed for the U1.

    • ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      5 hours

      Prusa is what i would call partly open source these days, the article you link is up to date. But they’re behind the curve at the moment playing catchup with much cheaper printers. This is in part because they insist on their own proprietary firmware instead of working with the massive klipper community which IMO is driving bleeding edge of consumer 3D printing right now, and what almost all their competitors are also using (in some variation).

      • anguo@piefed.caEnglish
        2 minutes

        I wouldn’t call their firmware proprietary, it’s open source and based on marlin.

    • Tim@mastodon.world
      4 hours

      @SorteKanin from my honest expert opinion i would go with a prusa core or a Lulzbot though Lulzbots are easier to clear jams then Prusa cores

    • Iakov Davydov@mstdn.science
      4 hours

      @SorteKanin I briefly had MK4S, then Core one. I think MK4S is a decent machine, if you’re mainly printing PLA and PETG. You can even have MK4S enclosed; though with enclosure it’s usually quite chunky. I don’t think there’s any print quality improvement with Core One. Both machines are nice but require a bit of tinkering from time to time (core one belts/homing is a pain, door handle fell off).

      (1/n)

    • sychthys@lemmy.worldEnglish
      5 hours

      I’ve been fairly happy with my Anycuboic Kobra S1. Decent price for performance and fairly easy to use. Fully enclosed, has the capability of multicolor without requiring it, and handles everything we’ve thrown at it with ease.

      I’ll never recommend or buy Elegoo again after they provided the single worst customer service experience in my life. A total of three bad mainboards, six months of stalling, lies, and no resolution. If you care about after sale support, avoid them.

    • polakkenak@feddit.dkEnglish
      7 hours

      Wife and I bought a Prusa core one late last year (on sale) as an upgrade to our entry-level cobra neo, which we had rapidly outgrown.

      We disqualified Bambu for largely the same reasons you did. We had a look at many different brands, but settled on Prusa because it’s the brand that we can reasonably expect to be supported the longest. Both on the software, but also availability of spare parts.

      Many of the shipped parts are 3d printed, and there’s no shortage of spare parts on their own website. I’m fairly certain I will still be able to figure out replacement parts 10 years from now if something breaks, either through Prusa directly or by ordering a printed part from a domestic print-shop.

      From my understanding, you have the option of starting with the MK4S (or earlier) and upgrading to the core one later. Not sure I’d recommend it given how long assembly takes, but having this level of repairability and reduction in waste appealed to me: I don’t want to throw out perfectly good hardware.

      Prusa wasn’t an easy choice (pricing, open source pull-back), but we felt it was the most reasonable choice since we could afford the premium.

      • Dennis@social.lol
        6 hours

        @polakkenak @SorteKanin While you *can* “upgrade” the MK4S to a Core One, it’s more like a complete rebuild with very little parts carryover. It takes a lot of time and doesn’t really make any financial sense.

        The MK4S is competent at being what it is, which is an un-enclosed bed slinger. It inherently isn’t going to be as fast as the Core One, it will struggle more with materials that want a stable printing environment, and it’s less suited for printing tall things.

        For the time being it uses the same technology the Core One does, though it almost certainly will not support INDX ever. If you really want to do multi-material/color stuff, the MK4S probably isn’t the right choice.

        As far as the open source stuff, IMO it’s only a step backwards if one wants to be an absolutist about such things. I’m not here to say whether that is right or wrong, but in practical terms I don’t think there’s much of a difference with the new licensing, if one is not trying to sell knock-off printers.

    • squaresinger@lemmy.worldEnglish
      7 hours

      It’s seriously difficult right now. A while ago I would have clearly recommended Bambu, especially the A1/A1 mini. Super cheap, perfect prints every time. But their current behaviour makes them unrecommendable.

      If you are going for a higher budget printer, I can recommend the Snapmaker U1. That’s a beautiful device. I got myself that one, and it’s purely amazing. Custom firmware is available, which fixes some problems in the stock firmware. Perfect 4-color prints every time with very low waste.

      The filament changer is even quite useful for single-filament prints, because you can just keep multiple filaments loaded and don’t have to manually swap filaments.

      • SorteKanin@feddit.dkEnglish
        2 hours

        Snapmaker U1 looks really good, but then again it is another Chinese brand in the sea of other chinese brands. But multi-color printing included in the price… It’s a really good deal.

      • JustEnoughDucks@feddit.nlEnglish
        2 hours

        Snapmaker seems to be Bambu from a few years ago, promises, good hardware, but all proprietary and as locked down as possible hatdware-wise. I am fairly confident they will follow a similar path even though they have made some software source - available.

        • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1 hour

          but all proprietary and as locked down as possible hatdware-wise.

          There’s no DRM in the hardware. It isn’t locked down at all. There are 3rd party hotends already. Not even Prusa has open source hardware now.

          I am fairly confident they will follow a similar path even though they have made some software source - available.

          They have released all firmware source code. So it doesn’t matter what they do in the future. You have control over your hardware for forever.

    • haai5dezw@lemmy.worldEnglish
      6 hours

      I started with Creality K1C and I am generally happy - prints all the fancy filaments like PA6CF with no issues. It’s an enclosed coreXY printer with an extraction fan so I can vent all the fumes through the window. Runs open source firmware that can be modified by user. If I wasn’t limited by space, I would get a K1 Max. It needed some upgrades - most of them you can 3D print.

      If I had more money to spend, I would definitely go with Prusa Core - for the ideological reasons mostly.

    • SaveTheTuaHawk@lemmy.caEnglish
      5 hours

      I would wait to see what the New Creality printers coming in Q3 look like in good reviews.

      https://youtu.be/Jx5lRca5OoA

      That is just an ad, from the company famous for overpromising, but they have multiple tool heads, CMYK color mixing, dual nozzle sizes and TPU push pull filament feeding. Nice to see someone taking TPU seriously, unlike Bambu.

      The consumer industry is now headed to multiple tool heads at every price level, AMS waste is unacceptable. I would consider two proper toolheads essential.

    • esc@piefed.socialEnglish
      6 hours

      It depends, what do you want to print?

      I would buy another Elegoo CC or Sovol unless there is a multicolor requirement.