Which first 3D printer to buy?

Bewlen

Bewlen

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Looking to get a 3D printer for a student, as a gift. It will be a hobbyist machine. Looking to get away with as little as possible, but don't want to waste money on junk. Any recommendations?
 
Thats a pretty wide open, vague question.

FDM or resin? I am going to assume FDM

You will get varied opinions based on preference and experience.

some will say Bambu labs A1 mini, others will say Creality 3 ender 3v4 or 3v3 or some other variation of these brands. There are of course other brands and models also.

you should probably state budget, technical level of te person and what exactly they might want to use it for, i.e printing parts, minatures, toys etc
 
I bought a Bambu Labs A1 with AMS recently.

Set it up at a friend's house because I don't know shiiit about how these things work. I wanted one for a long time, but I knew it would go to waste by me. My buddy is super into these things, so it's a score for both of us.

That thing doesn't sleep. Was delivered on 11 Oct and has about 200 hours or more on at the moment.

I would say it's a good piece of kit.
 
Bambu labs A1 mini would be a good entry point. It has a small build plate though. What do you think he would want to print?
 
If you're looking for something budget friendly, I'd say look at a Creality Ender KE 3 v 3 as a start. Alternatively, if you have more money to spend maybe go for one of the Bambu printers. I recently upgraded from an Ender KE 3 to a Bambu P2S and couldn't be happier.
 
Ender is a great start if on a budget.

Bambu seems amazing but is more restricted when it comes to 3rd party software for cloud support, not sure about slicers.

You can go checkout the creality printers at some of the Incredible Connection Stores.
 
Steamy Tom said:
Thats a pretty wide open, vague question.

FDM or resin? I am going to assume FDM

You will get varied opinions based on preference and experience.

some will say Bambu labs A1 mini, others will say Creality 3 ender 3v4 or 3v3 or some other variation of these brands. There are of course other brands and models also.

you should probably state budget, technical level of te person and what exactly they might want to use it for, i.e printing parts, minatures, toys etc
Click to expand...
This will be for a uni student who knows his way around dev tools and enjoys researching/project hobbies. Budget is tricky as with all hobbies, I'd like to buy something that lasts and is complete cr*p, but not looking to break the bank. Will check out the Bambu and Creality, thanks!
 
Bewlen said:
This will be for a uni student who knows his way around dev tools and enjoys researching/project hobbies. Budget is tricky as with all hobbies, I'd like to buy something that lasts and is complete cr*p, but not looking to break the bank. Will check out the Bambu and Creality, thanks!
Click to expand...
I would consider whatever supports open source the most so he can have full flexibility and not be restricted to proprietary software and limits.

Of course he can Jailbreak a printer I guess, not sure if it is worth the trouble though.
 
W@P said:
I bought a Bambu Labs A1 with AMS recently.

Set it up at a friend's house because I don't know shiiit about how these things work. I wanted one for a long time, but I knew it would go to waste by me. My buddy is super into these things, so it's a score for both of us.

That thing doesn't sleep. Was delivered on 11 Oct and has about 200 hours or more on at the moment.

I would say it's a good piece of kit.
Click to expand...
When I do have spare cash I will probably also just get a Bambu. I am over fiddling with stuff. I just want something that works. Leave that for the youngsters. It does annoy me though that these companies restrict users because they are greedy.
 
RedViking said:
When I do have spare cash I will probably also just get a Bambu. I am over fiddling with stuff. I just want something that works. Leave that for the youngsters. It does annoy me though that these companies restrict users because they are greedy.
Click to expand...
I must say, the A1 with AMS just works. No fiddling or kak. From what I've seen.

Also, it might be worth waiting and checking Black Friday deals.
 
RedViking said:
I would consider whatever supports open source the most so he can have full flexibility and not be restricted to proprietary software and limits.
Click to expand...

This is the sauce I'm looking for. I'll explore this a bit, as students are always a bit broke so he won't do subscriptions or be able to pay a lot of money for models (?)
 
I think the “locked down” criticism gets exaggerated a bit.

Bambu is definitely more closed than a Klipper type printer, especially around firmware and its cloud services, but you're not locked into Bambu Studio. OrcaSlicer can work with Bambu printers, including locally over LAN, but it requires a bit of a workaround and Bambu even provides a developer mode specifically for third party local software.

What they have restricted is unofficial software accessing and controlling printers through Bambu's own cloud infrastructure. Their stated reasons are security and preventing abuse of their cloud APIs, which seems fairly reasonable.

Anyway the Bambu slicer works well for me and I've never had the need to try anything else. I like that I can print over the cloud form anywhere. Many times I sit at work and send a print job to the printer at home.
 
Tinkerer / Developer = Creality
Just want it to work = Bambu

Decide which type he is.
 
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