Hi all.
My venerable ender 3 has likely printed it’s last benchy. Plus side, the tech has advanced significantly since I bought it. Down side, I’ve not kept track of the newer options.
Can anyone give me a rundown of which are worth looking at, and which to avoid?
I’m mostly concerned with reliability, but a speed boost would definitely be welcome. A heated chamber and/or multi material would also be very nice to have.
I would like to keep the costs closer to £500 ($680) but can stretch that, if there is a machine worth it.
I also have a complete no on bamboo printers. I don’t like what they’ve done regarding abuse of the open source movement.
Thanks all!
Edit to add. I’m not against non open source printers. I just have an issue with companies trying to burn the ladder behind them and lock their customers into a bubble.
Double edit: The snapmaker U1 seems like my best option. Ticks all the boxes, while remaining well in budget.
None of the manufacturers have been great with open source, other than Prusa, to my knowledge.
You can get a heck of a lot more capable printer than an ender3 at that price point, even with multi material. If you want to keep waste down though you would need at least a dual head machine, or a toolhead switching machine which I think goes above your price range.
If you don’t need a big printer, and can pass on multilateral (unless you want to get a small INDX system for it later… for a bunch more money), at that price I’d spring for a Voron v0. Doesn’t get more open source than that.
Sovol have been pretty good with open source afaik
That’s good to know. I have only seen the SV 08 mentioned, which I wasn’t sure of the value vs some of the 2.4 kits.
I see there is a Soval Zero as well, that looks more compelling.
I’m not sure of the value in terms of parts/capability. But since it comes as essentially a pre built or mostly built 2.4 and they donate to the voron team I can see why people would like it. That being said I’ve not tried one, so no clue how good it is.