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Which 3D printer?

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AdeV:
The time has come, I think, to finally bite the bullet and buy a 3D printer. Naturally, there's a few choices.... so I figured I'd ask here to see what people recommend. This post was triggered by a couple of emails I got this morning....

So.. first possibility, a Creality "Ender 3". Seems to be available for as little as about £140 (I assume that's without any filament), as a partial-self-assembly kit. Having put a CNC3016 Pro together, this holds no fear for me. It comes with a heated bed, 0.4mm nozzle, decent sized build area, and I believe they're very upgradable.

Second option would be the same machine in "Pro" form, available for around £190. I'm not totally sure what the upgrade is between the normal and the "pro" versions - any thoughts gratefully received.


The other option, according to an e-mail I received this morning, why not by an "industrial grade 3d printer, without the price tag"? Sounds great! I don't mind paying a bit more for a proper industrial machine. Apparently it's faster than a hobby machine too....  Well, I finally found the price tag: £10,999.  :lol: Yeah, I think I'll pass on that... It's a Stratasys F120, in case anyone has very deep pockets and wants to know more...


So.... returning to the Creality (and similar) offerings - any advice would be appreciated. As usual, I'm happy to jump straight in at the deep end...

Peter Cordell:
I have a tronxy p802ma been ok for pla after i added mosfets for the hot end and headed bed, motherboard could not handle the headed bed,  wish i had gone for the tronxy x5s now, I think boxing any of these in would help hold the heat to get better prints

Country Bubba:
I have a Tronxy X%S-400 and found it to be a typical far east "Kit". While I like the large build volume and over all design of the machine, I have found it absolutely necessary to practically rebuild the machine.
First off, the wire for the heated bed is to small and when I tried it, the wire became extremely warm to touch so that was the first replacement.
We read the mosfet on the main board was marginal for application so an outboard mosfet was added to control the heated bed.
In order to achieve any bed temp above about 50°C it was necessary to insulate the bottom of the bed and we also added a 24V power supply to have adequate power for the higher temps.

The original design of using washers for guides on the idler pulley's sucks so tires were printed to make them fully functional pulley's.  While we were at this up grade, all the bearings were replaced as many of them felt like they had sand in them. Pure junk bearings. We also had to correct some of the belt alignment when replacing the bearings/idlers as it was not proper from the factory assembly.  A few 5mm flat washers took care of that.

The wheels on the X axis carriage wore out within about 4 rolls of filament.  We were able to replace the top two with polycarbonate ones, but at the time didn't want to tear the whole carriage apart to get to the bottom one. That helped for a roll or so, but it was obvious the bottom one was wearing even faster. So we have just finished a mod to install a linear rail on the X axis. (haven't had a chance to try it yet)

When working right, it is a fantastic large volume printer. But realize it is a "kit" and you will have to do a lot of rebuild to make it acceptable in the long run.  :hammer:

As stated to begin with, I like the overall design, but the implementation is not that great of quality.  It must also be noted the instructions for the build were to my mind excellent and it went together quite easily.  If you don't mind modding the machine, I would recommend it to you. If you want an out of the box put it together and never worry about it machine, I would not recommend it to you. But as your on the MadModder board, I would imagine you like to tinker like me :proj:

   

Jonfb64:
I have an Ender 3 which i am very happy with.
I suggest you checkout "Teaching Tech"  on YouTube as he has lots of reviews and upgrade suggestions.
By all accounts  its seemed to be the best value for money when i purchased mine in in January (£190) the pro version was still £250 then.
The hardest part is getting to grips with Fusion 360 so i have mainly printed other peoples stuff.

Jon

awemawson:
My Cetus 3D has been superb and worked out of the box, and has been accurate. I bought the taller version and fitted the 'anti drop' Z carriage balancer

There is a thread on the forum about it here:

https://madmodder.net/index.php/topic,12104.0.html

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