Ask HN: What's a good 3D Printer for sub $1000?

[lucideng]

At least a 256x256x256mm print volume. Needs to be enclosed or enclosable. Need to be able to print with more durable, temperature/chemical resistant materials such as PC/Nylon/ABS or infused materials. I do not need to print multi material models. I would prefer something that doesn't phone home and can work offline. Opensource firmware/software and repairability are important.

I am ok assembling the machine and learning how to dial it in. I can do CAD work and make models by hand; I was a machinist in a past life. But, I am not very familiar with 'slicer' software yet.

[skhameneh]

If you don't care about business practices and general privacy concerns, Bambu.

If you want a large printer that's decent for tinkering, Sovol SV08.

If you want relatively good support and to support a company that has a history of giving back, Prusa.

If you want something cheap with a lot of features that tend to be more high end, Elegoo Centuri Carbon.

If you just want something cheap that's arguably incredible value with an active community, Creality Ender 3 V3 KE.

[chakintosh]

> If you don't care about business practices and general privacy concerns, Bambu.

While I agree, I think it's heavily underselling Bambulab printers in terms of UX and print quality, they are the absolute best in the market and by a mile.

[skhameneh]

Also given what you've said about privacy, that probably eliminates Bambu and possibly the Centuri Carbon (not sure). The SV08 can be ran offline, but it does try to phone home (3rd party) whenever it's online. Prusa might be your best bet of these when it comes to privacy.

Prusa is by far the most "open" probably with the SV08 second because it uses so much from the open source community (it's Voron inspired).

If you have a lot of time to spend, you could build a Voron, but I would not recommend that to anyone new to 3D printing.

[Sohcahtoa82]

I wouldn't recommend a Creality to someone new to 3D printing. They can be a pain to work with. They're CHEAP, and there's plenty of aftermarket support, but that ends up turning the printer into a product for someone who sees the printer itself being a hobby, rather than the printer being merely an appliance that produces things.

Buying a Creality printer is like buying a hobby-grade RC car (ie, Traxxas, Team Associated, etc.). Decent out of the box, but you're likely going to be reaching for buying upgraded parts and it eventually becomes a Ship of Theseus.

I have an Ender 3 Pro, my list of upgrades:

- Replace the crappy flexible mat with PEI-coated flexsteel

- Filament runout detector

- Motherboard replacement (made flashing custom firmware 100x easier, and uses quieter stepper motor drivers)

- Automatic bed leveler

- Dual-gear extruder

- Customized firmware that changes the 3x3 bed leveling matrix to 7x7

- OctoPi

A decent printer will have half of these features already built in.

[timw4mail]

Of these options, I'd recommend the SV08, provided you are okay with some mods essentially being required for consistent, reliable use.

These being:

- Eddy sensor (for faster bed meshing, eddy-ng addon for Klipper adds auto z-offset)

- Mainline Klipper/Kalico (required for eddy functionality)

- Some motherboard fan replacement mod (the default is tiny, noisy, and always-on)

Of the others listed:

- Bambu printers and the Elegoo Centauri Carbon have locked-down firmware (possibly with hidden license violations).

- I think the only Prusa machine with that build volume is the XL, which is out of the price range

- The Creality Ender 3 V3 KE is okay, but the build volume is 220x220x240mm

[sdenton4]

Our makerspace at the office has a few prusa mk4's, and they're really great machines.

[Wololooo]

> I would prefer something that doesn't phone home and can work offline. Opensource firmware/software and repairability are important.

Bambulabs is out.

[windexh8er]

If OP isn't in huge hurry I'd also add the impending Snapmaker U1 [0] to the list. It looks like it's going to be a better machine than Bambu has out in the long run for cheaper and much more in-line with one that you have full control of, unlike Bambu.

[0] https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/snapmaker/snapmaker-u1-...

[amelius]

Bambu is very slow with starting up a print. Even if you just printed something less than a minute ago, it will take at least a few minutes before it can do the next print.

[1024core]

> If you want a large printer that's decent for tinkering, Sovol SV08.

I disagree about Sovol the company though. I have a Sovol SV07 in the garage gathering dust. Its printer head got all clogged up and when I complained to them, they just sent me a random part with no information on what to do with it. I guess I could get into the tinkering mode, but who has the time?

I'd just love to have a sub-$1000 printer which prints whenever I have something to print (which is not too often, I concede), and does a fantastic job of it.

[lloydatkinson]

> If you want relatively good support and to support a company that has a history of giving back, Prusa.

Someone in a HN thread a couple of weeks ago said when you turn one of these on the companies CEO's face is used as the boot screen...

[bmitc]

> If you don't care about business practices and general privacy concerns

What are the actual concerns here? What has Bambu done that other 3D printer companies haven't?

[Dork1234]

Creality K1 SE is only $50 more over the Ender 3 SE right now. Much better deal.

[motbus3]

Can I use custom slicer or other firmware/software with a BL?

[bdangubic]

Big thumbs up for “ Creality Ender 3 V3 KE.”

[FloatArtifact]

Svo8 bed is warped on mine, unfortunately.

[RickS]

Bambu P1S, no question. Enclosed with filter for ABS fumes etc. Personally I've only used their A1, but it's the best printer I've ever used by far, and it's the first one that you can treat like a paper printer: plop it down, ignore it til you need to print, hit print and assume it works with no supervision. An absolute joy. It's also FAST compared to last gen printers.

They do have a bunch of cloud service BS and phoning home that runs afoul of the HN spirit, but there's a LAN mode that allows you to send prints from LAN without opening up to the wider internet. If that's still too restrictive, you can always do direct SD card transfers via sneakernet.

Software might be too closed for you, IDK if there are jailbreaks. Repairability is possible but fiddly – akin to current gen car engines, rather than 70s types. They're very popular printers, I've only needed to open the head once, and there were plenty of YT teardown videos to help.

The Bambu slicer is good. They've got niceties for basic operations like snapping to bed or scaling up/down by a few percent. I believe it's based on cura slicer, which is also excellent.

P1S is at the midpoint of your budget. Their next model up is $1200, depending on your flexibility. Might have some value if you're doing more obscure materials. Didn't realize how cheap the enclosed ones had gotten. I've got half a mind to upgrade myself now....

[cityofdelusion]

You are sadly getting a lot of answers completely ignoring your requirements.

A Voron or RatRig are right up your alley. They are highly customizable, buy a kit as a base, then upgrade components as needed to do more complex printing. They are completely open source and repairable with no phoning home or any other shenanigans, the GNU/Linux of 3d printers. If you have CAD and machining experience it should be fairly straight forward.

My Vorons are both extremely reliable, I just hit print for 99% of my stuff and it just works with either auto leveling or static fixed offsets (depends on the Voron chosen). If something doesn’t work out, there is an enormous community with many swappable components and the machines are upgradable year after year, or can be kept in a specific older configuration.

[abhorrence]

As someone who owns both a couple Vorons and a couple of Bambu's printers, I do think for a lot of people the difference between the two can be "3d printers are my hobby" vs "3d printers are a tool". It's not that Vorons can't be reliable, in fact a lot of the reason why say the X1C is so reliable is because its design essentially started life as a Voron. But because you have to assemble them, they just aren't as "plug and play".

[starkparker]

> I am not very familiar with 'slicer' software yet.

and

> durable, temperature/chemical resistant materials such as PC/Nylon/ABS or infused materials.

are a little cart-before-horse. This is like asking what ink-and-paper printer to buy for making complex, multi-format printed books to specific criteria, while admitting that you've not used any form of publishing software or understand any of the non-software processes involved in making a book.

The slicer is by far your most important tool for _effective_ 3D printing with a variety of materials, moreso than CAD or 3D modeling. Get a cheaper, more plug-and-play printer that doesn't meet all of your criteria, and focus on learning how to effectively use its slicer.

Print basic things, experiment, and force and make hands-on mistakes with it on relatively forgiving PLA/PETG. Do these _before_ jumping up to a pricier, fully enclosed machine _and also_ before printing harder-to-use materials, each of which will add new difficulties. You don't want your first hotend blob to happen on a decent machine that you actually like while using a material that's difficult or dangerous to deal with.

A Sovol SV06 or SV08 meets most of your criteria at about 1/3 to 1/2 of your budget; I haven't had the best experiences with their reliability but they fit many of your criteria. Used Creality Enders might be even cheaper depending on where you are, and while also fussy are hackable and repairable to the point of often being used as platforms for entirely different printers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kmMW6_7lrlQ

[digdugdirk]

I agree in principle with the above comment, but for some additional context - slicer software has gotten really, really good these days. Especially (sadly) if you don't need open source software.

To make a CNC machining metaphor - Slicer software is basically just your interface to the dials and knobs on the CNC settings for speeds and feeds. There's more settings, because 3d printing is more like if a CNC had a baby with a welder and an injection molding press, only it's injecting and simultaneously welding up a blob of plastic. You're balancing the toolpaths, the temps, the adhesion, and the overall speed all at the same time, all for whatever material you're using.

So it's complex, but these companies have a ton of data and experience in order to make sure their preset settings are damn good out of the box. And these days, they get it right more often than they get it wrong!

Long story short - you should probably just get a Bambu. You'll learn what you need to learn from it, while having good quality output the whole time. If you find out it's not suitable for what you're looking to do, then you can sell it used with decent resale and get the best printer for your specific application.

[metal_am]

I've been very happy with my Qidi Q1 Pro. I paid about $350 pre-tax off Amazon almost a year ago (Black Friday). For me, it was the most machine for the lowest cost I could find. It almost fits your desired print volume (245 x 245 x 240), but it is fully enclosed and has a dedicated chamber heater. I have almost exclusively printed ABS at a 60 deg. C chamber temp. It runs open source Klipper firmware, but I'd imagine repairability wouldn't be the best. Best of all, I have not needed any calibration. It seems pretty spot on out of the box.

My Voron is hands down a better printer but also required significantly more investments in components and especially time.

[nico]

Qidi Q1 pro is amazing, especially for the price

And the Q2 came out recently, looks even better, with multi-material feed support (similar to Bambu’s AMS)

[rutierut]

The first part of your post sounds almost like an ad for the Bambu Lab P1S. The second part sounds more like the Prusa CORE One kit (build volume is not a perfect match).

I really wouldn't bother buying anything else as a beginner. Pick between these two.

It's a weird thing in 3D printing right now that if you don't have the open source stuff as a requirement you get better print quality and reliability for half the price with Bambu Lab.

[justtocomment]

While I can't directly compare with BambuLab print results, the prints I get out of my Prusa Core One with current Firmware and Slicer are stellar and surpass even the prints of my MK4S (that being a benchmark in Quality in my bubble of the Internet).

[shocks]

> I am ok assembling the machine and learning how to dial it in.

Get a Prusa Core One kit, or build a Voron.

Bambulab should be off the table for their bait and switch behaviour. AMS is not particularly impressive and very wasteful. Get a Bondtech INDX down the road if you want true multi material printing.

[7thpower]

This is a great choice if you want to learn how to be a technician for your 3D printer. It will probably save you on filament cost as well.

[kzalesak]

I am surprised nobody mentioned the Qidi printers. They are the perfect balance between tinkerability and reliability (but see below - QA varies), and have open firmware. They are the only ones that currently compete with Bambu in high-temperature materials. These will outperform PC/Nylon and can also print advanced stuff as PPS, especially on the new Q2.

Now, for their QA - it is not on par with Prusa or Bambu, however, there are a few tips to avoid the pitfalls. 1. If buying the Plus 4, buy the US version of possible. The EU models are older units with a faulty part. 2. Buy from places that offer returns. If the printer is faulty, you can always return it 3. If something breaks, document and send to support. Expect free replacement parts shipped within a week.

By following the above, you will get an extremely capable printer at a fraction of a cost of a Bambu, with offline modes, open source FW a great community and hotend capabilities that are virtually unparalleled and venture into engineering grade machines.

Happy printing :)

[mirchibajji]

Another vote for Qidi from me. I have Qidi Plus4, which is amazing. I selected the UK version (where I live), and don't have any issues. I believe the faulty part issue you were referring has been resolved long since as mine doesn't have this, based on the part numbers.

I was against getting a Bambu mainly for the proprietary software.

[johnwalkr]

I second qidi. I have a Q1 pro and have had great success with higher temperature/exotic materials. I live in EU, and I also appreciate that they stock everything in Europe and I always get delivery of consumables and materials within a few days.

[thanhhaimai]

> I would prefer something that doesn't phone home and can work offline. Opensource firmware/software and repairability are important.

I built myself a Voron, and it's an amazing learning experience. I learn how things work, and the trade offs. I get to pick and replace the exact parts I want. I design my functional parts knowing exactly the printer's capability. There is something very fascinating about it. You can look at a print, and can tell different issues at a glance because you have seen (and fixed) them while you built and tuned the printer. The majority of 3D Printing quality issue are due to Hardware constructions / trade offs, and not Software (slicer settings..). Without building a printer from scratch, it's hard to tell the root cause.

https://vorondesign.com/voron2.4

- Fully open sourced

- Repairability and updatability. Lots of fun mods.

- No phone home / privacy issue like Bambu

I think before going down the rabbit hole, it's best to make sure you have a clear answer for this question: Do you care about the learning / tinkering / optimizing part, or do you care more about "it just works" printing?

- Many recommendations in this thread is for the "it just works" printing case. The top candidates are Bambu, Creality, and Eiegoo. The quality is good for most cases.

- If you're an engineer and into tinkering like me, you would be much happier with a Voron v2. Depending on your effort, you can match Bambu's quality, or _greatly_ exceed it.

Regarding Slicer, don't worry much about it. You can learn one very fast. The top ones are Cura and Orca Slicer. I use them both, and they have pros / cons. Personally on my Voron, a well tuned Cura profile yield better result. But Cura is missing one important feature: it can't limit the speed based on Flow Rate.

Another quick tip:

- Take the advertised number with a grant of salt. For example, many printers advertised 600 mm/s print speed. The mechanical frame may be able to handle 600 mm/s, but the Hot End is the limit of the build (e.g. it can't melt material fast enough, friction, the ability of extruder motor to quickly change speed, etc).

Hope you have a great time!

[foobarkey]

After having owned many 3D printers I can recommend Bambu Lab X1C with AMS. It will be a bit over budget but does not matter, you will spend time just printing and not messing with settings or bed leveling, it’s a workhorse and just prints what you tell it to reliably, no tuning or tweaking required. When using official filaments it will automatically recognize them, switch them during print etc.

After maybe 10 years of printing this is what I initially imagined it would be, now its finally there for consumer - I want this part in plastic let’s go

Oh and it’s also fast.

Hmm, I wonder if bambu gives me a cut for the sales pitch, but if not it is also ok - i just have to give credit to good engineering when I see it

PS: no prusa or clones, no creality, dont mess with that nonsense

[OJFord]

> I do not need to print multi material models. I would prefer something that doesn't phone home and can work offline. Opensource firmware/software and repairability are important.

And your suggestion is Bambu with AMS?

[Aurornis]

In this case the P1S without AMS is a better starting point.

Add an AMS later if valuable.

The step up from P1S to X1C isn't worth it for someone with a budget who doesn't need the incremental improvements of the X1C.

[alach11]

I'm going to make an unpopular suggestion. Have you considered using a service that will print and ship to you, like CraftCloud?

Depending on volume, your total cost would likely be lower. I know you mentioned privacy concerns so this may not be an option. But it significantly simplifies your work, letting you focus on the parts themselves.

[jopsen]

A counter argument is that the short turn around time with local 3D printing is absolutely a feature.

I've printed small stuff just to get the fitting right, before I finished the part with fillets, etc.

Also there is lots of small fun stuff, small fixes you'd never do with a 3d printer if you had to order prints online.

Example, I designed a printed a M8 nut cap with room for the 3mm sharp rod sticking out. I could probably have gotten a metal file to mill down the sharp edge, but it was hard to get at, and this gave a nice finish.

[andrewmcwatters]

I, too, once looked into this, but for anything trivial you immediately exceed the cost of just buying a Bambu Lab A1 mini.

So you might as well buy that and have a lower-spec iteration, because you're going to run into all sorts of design problems before you get to finer constraints.

[bluGill]

Even if you buy a printer you should be aware of all the services. It might be more expensive but it opens up a lot more options too. Want a SLS print instead - they have it. Want to mill it from steel and then bend it - they can do that for you. Want to make something out of solid wood, no problem. Need a lot of parts fast - they have many printers and overnight shipping (at extra charge).

Sure it costs more, but if you will only do it once that is still cheap. And some of the things they can do for you are not safe to do at home.

[jkestner]

This is the way. Multijet fusion has ruined me for anything else and it’s cheap from print shops. I just need to find one in town and I’ll get the quick turnaround time that’s the only reason to have my own printer.

[noja]

CraftCloud is good. The postage is often half my print cost but they’ll get it printed and you don’t have to deal with failures.

[dan_can_code]

Voron would be my recommendation. It ticks all the boxes of what you need it to do. The only caveat is you need to build it, screw by screw (unless you buy a pre-assembled one such as siboor). It also requires printed parts which can be ordered via Vorons PIF program (high quality, printer-verified parts).

Depending on how easy you find it, it will take at least 10 hours to build. But that is part of the fun.

Software and repairability are there. Spares are cheap and klipper is open source. It can work offline but it works better paired with tailscale. You can upload sliced models OTA.

Slicing models will be the easiest part. I'd recommend the basic orcaSlicer set up for the printer of choice and go from there.

Good luck and have fun. 3D printing has become the most addictive hobby I have ever taken up. Be careful with your time!

[gangtao]

Bambu Lab A1 Mini ($299-399)

Excellent print quality out of the box Automatic bed leveling and calibration Very user-friendly with great software Compact size, perfect for beginners

Creality K1 Max (~$599)

300x300x300mm build volume Fast printing speeds (up to 600mm/s) Auto-leveling and enclosed design Good balance of features and price

Prusa MINI+ (~$429 kit, $529 assembled)

Exceptional reliability and support Magnetic flexible bed Excellent community and documentation Great for learning and consistent results

[nerdtalker]

Elegoo Centauri Carbon. I am blown away at the quality which rivals or exceeds my X1C and it's like $300. It was on sale $49 off earlier this week which was insane. Subsidized by CCP but keep it offline and you're good to go.

[johnboiles]

I have a Bambu X1C and a Prusa MK3.9S (mostly upgraded MK3S).

The Bambu is incredible at PLA. It is so fast and consistently perfect. The 0.2mm nozzle makes unreal detail small parts. But I struggle to do other materials with it like TPU, PETG, ABS.

The Prusa takes generally whatever material I throw at it and does a great job just using the PrusaSlicer built in profiles. It's also the minimum viable printer -- it's 80% as good as the Bambu but a fraction of the complexity. I am 100% confident I could keep it running indefinitely where the Bambu is mostly proprietary parts and software.

[jacquesm]

I hate to say this. Bambu A1. I'm operating a farm of mixed plumage: 20 Prusa's, 12 Creality K1s and 24 Bambus. Of all of those the Bambus are by far the least troublesome and I would definitely recommend those to a beginner. That said, Bambu is a crap company and they can't be trusted not to do a rugpull sooner or later. We don't have them connected to wifi for that reason alone and tbh it doesn't really add anything to the experience. I like the fact that they're all stand-alone and as long as the power is up the printers are printing. In the last year we've processed about 3000 Kg total with these. In some more detail:

- The Prusa's are real workhorses. They are not the fastest, but they're expensive and they break. But you can always fix them and the degree to which you can tinker with them (especially while they're running) is much higher than the others. I've made a couple of custom ones (one 1x1 meter x 25 cm build volume, five more that are the regular width and length but 60 cm height), with adopted firmware. It's an insanely flexible platform. If you can think of it, handle a hex key and do some minor firmware hacking you can probably make it.

- The K1s... well. Initially we were very impressed. Got a couple to test with, decided they work and ordered 10 more. After a few days the first extruder broke. Gears just snapped their teeth right off. Turns out the extruder gears are plastic. So, ordered upgraded extruders. Next, one after the other, power supplies dying. After that print fans, Then cpu fans. They also had many screws loose right from the factory, we had a whole inspection list made just to structurally address all of the shitty stuff that would be wrong. For $10 more in parts and better QA it could have been a winner.

- The Bambus. We plugged them in. They work. They still do.

People in this thread are mentioning the SOVOL, if you have the money, that's probably the best printer. But I'd get a couple of Bambus instead and get that many more kilos pushed through. At 200 bucks for the mini and 350 or so for the big A1 it's insane value for money.

Does that help? Feel free to ask more questions.

[yardie]

Bambu X1C: I can recommend the Bambu X1C. It would be my printer of choice. In addition to bed-leveling it has flow calibration and AI detection. With the H2S release prices on the X1C are coming down quickly.

Elegoo Centauri Carbon: I know lots of people will recommend the P1S but this printer has 95% of the features at half the cost. Also extruder temp goes higher (320C), for more exotic materials.

[thereisnospork]

Buy a bambu P1s, a 0.4mm hardened nozzle for CF filaments, and maybe a filament dryer. You'll have a tool to spit parts out instead of a hobby in and of itself[0]. Bambu isn't the least evil company, but it's honestly just that good.

Can work offline, but you'll probably need to block it at the firewall level if you care enough about privacy.

[0]Unless that's what your looking for.

[busterarm]

At that build volume I think you need to expand your budget slightly. The Prusa MK4S is on a deep discount right now but is just short of those numbers you listed.

Even the Core One just barely misses.

Prusa XL hits your target but is twice your budget.

Also honestly build volume can be a little overrated unless you're printing helmets. You can make things in smaller parts. More build volume brings with it more print issues you have to deal with. But also yeah look at a Voron maybe or the SV08.

If you're new to printing, start smaller anyway. If you've done machining you know there's a materials learning curve and the same thing applies here to the nth degree. Print material, volume, orientation, density, first-layer adhesion, temperature, etc all are things you will have to account for and will affect your print quality/strength. You want to learn about these things in smaller prints that waste less time and material rather than more/larger.

E.g., get the MK4S Kit.

[jacobmarble]

I bought my first 3D printer six months ago, it feels as high quality as an HP printer, couldn't be happier.

Flashforge Adventurer 5M https://www.flashforge.com/products/adventurer-5m-3d-printer