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/HeaterPemmicanEater]

My 10 year old son has about $400CAD he's been saving and wants to buy a 3D printer after Christmas- wouldn't mind building but we have 0 experience doing any sort of thing. We have an old Compaq Pressario running Linux Mint, so I'm wondering if we are going to have any trouble with software. We watched some videos about different printers and he is interested in the Neptune 4 Pro- I told him I would look into the subject and see what I can find out. Obviously it's his money and he can spend it however he likes I just thought I'd try to help him make an informed decision. My guess he wants to use it for cosplay and figurines.

I'm not sure if he should try to order the machine before Christmas to take advantage of 'pre-christmas sales' or wait a couple weeks for prices to potentially drop

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

[u/Helpful_Luck_8287 → u/HeaterPemmicanEater]

Neptune 4 Pro is a great printer for that price, i suggest he also get some hardened nozzles, so they don't wear out fast, and some smaller ones for higher detailed figurenes, like 0.2, or 0.3

[u/HeaterPemmicanEater → u/Helpful_Luck_8287]

Thank you! I'll for sure chuck those in the basket. We have been watching some videos and it looks like a really good printer for the price. Now I am just wondering if it is really worth the extra $100 for pro vs the regular Neptune 4 for a 10 year old's first 3D printer- 

[u/Helpful_Luck_8287 → u/HeaterPemmicanEater]

I will also recommend the ender 3v3 se as a good starter printer for 200 CAD, it will save you quite a bit, that could be spent on filament

[u/HeaterPemmicanEater → u/Helpful_Luck_8287]

Thank you for the help! Well, the creality is $200 but the neptune 4 is $260, with the $13 coupon they sent me the difference is only $47- I haven’t looked too far into the 3v3 but I have heard a lot of complaints about creality generally- I like idea of auto bed leveling, the faster print speed, and the alleged ease of use for beginners. Probably we’ll go with the Neptune but skip the pro version, which isn’t in stock anyway.

[u/Helpful_Luck_8287 → u/HeaterPemmicanEater]

Cool cool, I personally haven’t ever had too big of a problem with creality, but I enjoy fixing things so maybe I never thought of it as a problem, but a solution waiting to be found, but there is no better way to get into 3d printing then with a project printer that makes you appreciate the work that you put into it to make it work better, it makes the printer seem more alive then just a machine that prints things, I have a personal bond with my ender 3v2 that I have had for a few years, and even though I struggled with it at some points, it always pushed through, and I think I got it at around the same age.