1w ago

First 3d Printer Recommendations

Basically title, but I can provide some information.

I'm looking to spend no more than $300 or so. I'm not well versed in different filaments (I'll be honest, I know nothing) or really anything about 3d printing, but I want to be able to print cup holders for someone I know whose vehicle has none, I imagine heat resistance and strength would be important there. I also do robotics now and would like to be able to make my own small robot chassis and parts. I'm also a Linux user and like FOSS, which I believe is fairly compatible with 3d printing, so I would like to find a printer that doesn't make me use proprietary software and that I can use with Fedora Linux without too much hassle. I know I'm new to this, and I know I'm in other hobbies where people post things like: "I want to spend no more than 6 dollars to get artificial superintelligence running on an Arduino Nano," so I hope this isn't that, and sorry if it is. Thanks in advance.

21 comments

https://youtu.be/RUnH_VKx1bs
TL;DW: Get a Bambulab A1. It's just hard to beat for almost every reason.
- or the A1 mini if 18x18x(?)cm^3 is large enough.
  For the material: Go with PETG for the coasters.

I would get a Bambu A1. You can use Bambu Lab or Orca Slicer for Linux.

If you are new and don't know much I highly recommend staying away from the Ender and similar cheap printers as they require much more tweaking and are less reliable.
Bambu is the best choice in the price range but the printers themselves aren't very open. No problem running on Linux though, Bambu Studio is available as a Flatpak and Orca Slicer can be compiled.
If you want the reliable, open option in that price range I'd recommend a used Prusa, you should be able to get a MK3S era machine in that price range.

**Get a Bambu printer. Do not get an ender. **
I own quite a few 3d printers and got into it in the late 2000s with MakerBot. I have learned a lot, and have tried to drag friends into the hobby, and most of them have been highly frustrated until Bambu came along.
Please, just get a Bambu printer, right now nothing else compares. Bambu isn't fully FOSS (firmware isn't) but people are working on open source firmware. Their slicer software is open source.
For printing anything for a car, don't use PLA, I'd suggest PETG, ABS, ASA, or Nylon if you get a printer that can handle that (prob more than $300). PLA will warp in a car from heat/sunlight.
A Bambu A1 is $340 without the AMS lite. If you get that and like it, I'd recommend getting the AMS lite so you can do multi color and multi material prints. It can handle PLA and PETG which should meet most hobby needs. If you want to get into actually doing robotics stuff with it more seriously, sell the A1 and get a P1P.

I can't speak to the Linux piece, but for that price point ender 3 pro is hard to beat. Or the Bambu mini but im unsure if you need to use their software or if you can use any slicer. I'd imagine any slicer to be honest
- I highly recommend Orca Slicer, it's forked from bamboo slicer (which is in turn forked from Prusa), so has their modern UI/ layout and natively, as well as natively support bamboo printers. If Bamboo's not your jam, it also plays very nicely with Klipper. As an added bonus, it regularly gets new features added or ported from the other slicers.
- Bambu has their printer software available for all major platform. For Linux I think it was in the Arch extras or aur. I have used it from Linux and it has generally been a good experience.
  If someone is an fdm newbie. The A1 series is hard to go wrong. Creality is great too. But it takes a lot more tweaking to get it where the bambu is out of the box. BIL got an ender last year and not had a good experience. I got an A1 this year and it's been a blast from the start. These are all anecdotes. But personal experience to consider.
- The Ender 3 Pro looks good, but I am a bit worried about the DIY aspect of it. I normally like DIY stuff, but since I am new to 3d printing, I want to isolate the number of things I have to learn. Is it too hard to set up, and does everything you need (apart from filament) come in the box or will I need to get other things?
  
  The Ender and creality are good systems. But as you said they do require a lot of tinkering. My very technically inclined brother-in-law got an Ender last year. And had a very bad time with it because of all the faffing about you had to do. Conversely this year I got an a1. And it's more or less been point and click. There's plenty of other technical stuff to get into with it. Such as filament types feeds and speeds and heats. Supports and infills. Which it also helps out quite a bit with. But there's more than enough to learn just picking it up
  
  I have an Ender 3 Pro and spend more time with maintenance than actually using it. I’ve stopped using it because it isn’t worth my time. I just bought a Bambu A1 and am hoping for an easier time. It just came today so I haven’t set it up yet.

Hi. If you would be willing to spend around 400$ I would recommend the Qidi Q1 Pro. I have printed on this printer since October pretty daily and it's solid. Thanks to core-xy kinematics it's fast and print quality is amazing, my older bedslinger is collecting dust in the basement. Printer is running open source klipper, I'm on fedora, using orca slicer with default profiles from Qidi and my experience was flawless. Technologically it was a big step up from my previous 3d printer which required very much tinkering to achieve decent quality, so I'm very happy with Q1 because now I just print. So far I've printed with PLA, PETG, PCTG filaments.
enclosed and heated chamber,
hotend going up to 350 degrees Celsius,
Wifi, chamber camera,

These days you can't really go wrong with any bedslinger for a "first printer" since they are all Ender 3s anyway. That said, I think Teaching Tech just did a video where he talks about his suggested "first printer". Get a bedslinger, use it for a few years, and then learn what you actually want out of a printer and go from there.
In terms of proprietary software: Many printers use some form of Klipper or Marlin (or can be reflashed to them) as firmware. In terms of a Slicer (what you use to go from model to instructions for your printer), Orcaslicer. Decide if those are FOSS enough for you.
The real issue is creating those models themselves. People will suggest FreeCAD. FreeCAD is great as a second or third modeling tool once you know the basics. But it is HORRIBLE for learning because so many terms and defaults are "different" than every other CAD program out there and the online resources are much more limited and are often referring to five or six major releases ago. The best of the best for a hobbyist is Fusion 360 but that explicitly does not work in Linux. I use OnShape which is web browser based (and all the pitfalls of that) and apparently has a legacy UX-wise going back to a tool I learned in high school.

It is my time to shine! I've had 3 3D printers thus far: I started with an Ender 3 Pro that I modified extensively, converting it to direct drive, 3D printed belt tensioners, cable chains, fan ducts, upgraded board with quiet drivers, and a Raspberry Pi running Klipper. All of the modifications led to a decrease in quality over time.
I also had a Qidi for a while, and it was....fine. Not great, but serviceable. Not super repairable or upgradeable, and I had to use their version of the Cura slicer, which they did not do a good job of keeping up to date.
When the Ender 3 Pro started to become unreliable, I switched to the Elegoo Neptune 4 Pro, which is basically the final form of what I was trying to turn the Ender into, plus a bit extra. From the factory, it has direct drive, linear rails, runs klipper, has automatic bed leveling, filament runout detection, etc. It does NOT have wifi, but does have an ethernet port, which I prefer.
Using Fluidd is much better than Octoprint, and I've finally switched away from using Cura and am a convert to OrcaSlicer, which is EXCELLENT. It can send prints directly to the printer as well. It's a great combination that I'm having a lot of fun with.
Full disclosure: I recently discovered that the version of Klipper this printer uses is out of date (2022) and does not fully comply with the klipper license, which I am NOT a fan of, but there is a very well documented way to "upgrade" to a "de-Elegood", fully operational Klipper.

If I were to buy a budget 3d printer right now, I'd probably buy the Sovol SV06 Ace. I dont have any firsthand experience though, I've only ever worked with Prusas at work.

If you are lucky enough to have a microcenter near you, go in and talk to the person working in the maker section.
I picked up an ender 3 v2 dirt cheap as the new versions were rolling out, and I have no regrets.
Someone else said these are not good beginner printers because they're sold in kits you need to build, but that was a great way for me to learn about the machine. Yeah I had some crappy prints in the beginning, but that was part of the process.

I'm currently running an Elegoo Neptune 3 Pro (Currently $159.99 as of writing this). Elegoo is a generally good brand, they're copies of the Ender series basically. Since you're already used to Linux, look into Klipper which is custom firmware for 3D printers. You install the firmware onto the printer, then do all the heavy lifting on a separate computer (A Raspberry Pi in my case).
The Bamboo printers are basically closed source from what I understand, but I think I've seen some open source mods recently for them.
For filaments, PLA is very strong but brittle and will degrade in the sunlight. PETG would be a step up. Strong with some flex so it doesn't shatter, and holds up better in the heat than PLA. ASA would probably be recommended as well, but I've yet to mess with that.

@HumanPerson This might give some useful context: https://parsingphase.dev/3dPrinting/ - my own reflections on my first machine.

If you like tinkering and fussing with settings, get something like a VoxelLab Aquila, or an Ender. If you don't want to futz and just want to print or model, go bambu or maybe prusa if you can find a deal

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