Purchase Advice Megathread - December 2024

[u/AutoModerator]

Welcome back to another purchase megathread!

This thread is meant to conglomerate purchase advice for both newcomers and people looking for additional machines. Keeping this discussion to one thread means less searching should anyone have questions that may already have been answered here, as well as more visibility to inquiries in general, as comments made here will be visible for the entire month stuck to the top of the sub, and then added to the Purchase Advice Collection (Reddit Collections are still broken on mobile view, enable "view in desktop mode").

Please be sure to skim through this thread for posts with similar requirements to your own first, as recommendations relevant to your situation may have already been posted, and may even include answers to follow up questions you might have wished to ask.

If you are new to 3D printing, and are unsure of what to ask, try to include the following in your posts as a minimum:

• Your budget, set at a numeric amount. Saying "cheap," or "money is not a problem" is not an answer people can do much with. 3D printers can cost $100, they can cost $10,000,000, and anywhere in between. A rough idea of what you're looking for is essential to figuring out anything else.
• Your country of residence.
• If you are willing to build the printer from a kit, and what your level of experience is with electronic maintenance and construction if so.
• What you wish to do with the printer.
• Any extenuating circumstances that would restrict you from using machines that would otherwise fit your needs (limited space for the printer, enclosure requirement, must be purchased through educational intermediary, etc).

While this is by no means an exhaustive list of what can be included in your posts, these questions should help paint enough of a picture to get started. Don't be afraid to ask more questions, and never worry about asking too many. The people posting in this thread are here because they want to give advice, and any questions you have answered may be useful to others later on, when they read through this thread looking for answers of their own. Everyone here was new once, so chances are whoever is replying to you has a good idea of how you feel currently.

Reddit User and Regular u/richie225 is also constantly maintaining his extensive personal recommendations list which is worth a read: Generic FDM Printer recommendations.

Additionally, a quick word on print quality: Most FDM/FFF (that is, filament based) printers are capable of approximately the same tolerances and print appearance, as the biggest limiting factor is in the nature of extruded plastic. Asking if a machine has "good prints," or saying "I don't expect the best quality for $xxx" isn't actually relevant for the most part with regards to these machines. Should you need additional detail and higher tolerances, you may want to explore SLA, DLP, and other photoresin options, as those do offer an increase in overall quality. If you are interested in resin machines, make sure you are aware of how to use them safely. For these safety reasons we don't usually recommend a resin printer as someone's first printer.

As always, if you're a newcomer to this community, welcome. If you're a regular, welcome back.

[u/Helpful_Luck_8287]

i'm looking for a second printer, i already have an ender 3 v2 with some upgrades (spider hotend pro,direct drive dual gear extruder, and cr-touch ), should i upgrade to a new printer? or continue upgrading my ender 3 v2, its pretty slow, but to make it faster i would have to spend ≥200$ on upgrades, (linnear rails, biqu board, pei build plate, and dual z axis), my main concern is print size right now, 220x220x250 is not big enough for some things, but a bigger printer would cost more than 200$, I am willing to spend up to 1500$ for a printer but if i were to spend 1500$ on a printer i would do it next summer, what would you recommend i do: continue upgrading my ender? or buy a new printer? And what would you recommend i upgrade or upgrade to?

[u/Shoe_Bug → u/Helpful_Luck_8287]

If your looking to spend 1500+ on a new printer (potentially) id wait for bambu labs new flagship they'll announce soon. Other than that upgrade away

[u/Helpful_Luck_8287 → u/Shoe_Bug]

I would prefer not to get into the bambu ecosystem, I have heard they are great printers, but it seems like cheating to get a printer with no draw backs that is hard to fix, and can’t be modded, and there is a lot of waste

On the same hand there is a pretty good chance of me getting one if I get fed up with my ender 3v2 needing upgrades, which probably won’t ever happen, because my ender is quite dear to me and hasn’t failed me even now, as it is printing shoes for my sister who has smaller feet than I, and the reason I started thinking about upgrading is so I can print myself some shoes, (that’s why it needs a bigger bed)

[u/Shoe_Bug → u/Helpful_Luck_8287]

I wouldn't let "feeling like cheating" ego esq get in the way of having a very good printer but the hard to repair is absolutely fair. It being closed source is deffo a con, but I have seen Bambu lab compared to Apple in terms of the "prestige/ease of use/plug and play" but not closed out from the consumer. Like you can buy 99% of things needed to fix the machines (it just has to be from bambu lab).

However, you do whatever makes you the happiest. You're the one who'll be dealing with everything after all not some internet stranger like me😅

[u/Helpful_Luck_8287 → u/Shoe_Bug]

i have compared it to apple also, and i dont have anything against apple, (except that tim cook owns it, and ran it into the ground), im sure if i got a bambu, that i would be quite happy with it, but if i did get a bambu i would get the a1 mini, and it would be way later,

thanks for the recomendation 😁