I’ve had 3 printers.
First was an ender 3 for 200$. second was a Anet a8 clone for 150$, and third is a prusa i3 mk3s for 780$.
The anet is absoulute trash. The enders is still an amazing printer for 200 but be prepaired to tinker. the prusa is a tinker free with all the bells and whistles. I still recommend the ender 3 always. perfect starting out printer that can last beyond your novice years.
The prusa has spoiled me. I’ll never get anything less now 
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The Ender 3 is hands down the best printer under $200. I have over 1700 hours of printing on mine, and aside from basic maintains no issues.
I also have a Prusa MK3, great printer and you really can’t go wrong with either one.
I have around 600 Hours on the MK3.
The only differents I am seeing is, I had to upgrade the ender 3 which cost about $70, while the MK3 just worked.
What I have found is the most important is filament quality.
Do not buy the cheapest filament, I have switch to running prusament only on all of my printer, alot of issues I was having have gone away after the switch.
No matter what printer someone chooses I recommend getting a raspberry pi to run Octoprint. That upgrade has saved me more times than I can count.
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Pretty fond of the Pulse by MatterHackers.
It’s a prusa clone that is made local and has custom options as well.
Runs great out of the box and has some decent features stock.
Had a good experience with Lulzbot Taz5 and Mini.
Open source printers are nice and have ability to mod with ease if you get into all that.
They seem a little pricey for what you get, but they do run well.
Agree with all of neils tips. I’d stay above $500 on a printer, otherwise you’ll spend more time messing/modding with it than printing. You’ll inevitably spend just as much to gain features.
Also, magnetic bed plates are so good if any printer you get has option (Buildtak). Saves lots of time/effort and keeps the bed in good shape.
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I continually use CR10S $500 sell my wares online all of the time and in 2 years never had any serious problems other than maintaining them, and use them everyday non stop over 12 hours a day, the other option smaller bed which I want to buy still as i do not have enough 3d printers is Ender3 Pro…smaller footprint but same company and just as good…
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Thanks, the price has gone up to $610!
Nope on amazon delivered Saturday to me is $429…
Had to jump in here… Just recently jumped into the 3d printing pool.
I just bought a Creality Enders 3 through Banggood.com, was $195 Delivered, took about a week to get here, Assembled it in about 4 hours, with the help of several really helpful YouTube videos (probably could have done it quicker, but was taking my time to do it correctly.). Flawless first print, right out of the gates, still have not had a print failure. Lots of great ideas… files to print available at Thingyverse.com.
Highly recommend it if your thinking about it… I’m sure there are better printers out there, but it s a cheap way to get into the “pool”… I’m sorry I had waited so long to do it, and over thought the whole “which printer to buy”. It’s great printer to learn on. Lots of online community support!
Totally compliments the Shapeoko CNC hobby.
Only downside… I think my Shapeoko XL is starting to get jealous… only so much hobby time… 
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So here’s my personal opinion as quickly after I got the Nomad I found out a 3D printer would be really convenient to make quick prototype before bothering too much with the CAM of the model, it’s also very useful for making addons ie. Minimum Quantity Lubrification components, HEPA+Activated Carbon filtering etc
I had apprehension regarding 3D printers, infact I was trying to avoid them, nowadays you can just make any research on the internet on them and you’ll see - like you said - sponsored titles around all corners with things like “our machine is a real alternative to injection molding machine!”. Yeah, no, I woudn’t be so confident about that.
3D printers are what they are, they are great for prototyping and making a few components here and there, but god damn the time it takes to print anything. While CNCs can always improve and go faster, it isn’t the case with 3D printers, even if you find printers printing at 300mm/s it’s mostly useless when you need details and measurement tolerances.
The reasoning behind is that the law of physics are just the limitation in how fast you can go. The plastic has to melt quickly enough, and of course it has to cool down quickly enough, so that’s a first limitation, and there’s dozens of other things you can’t really do anything about.
I ended up choosing a cheap chinese FDM printer with good reviews on the internet, not free of problems but really it was nothing hard to deal with, and the Facebook page is full of people ready to help.
I had the choice between the CR10S and the Geeetech A30 for their bed size. I ended choosing the A30, on top of being cheaper, the bed is supported by two Y aluminum profile instead of one for the CR10S.
Apart from that, they seems to be completely identical.
I’m quite happy with the results I’ve been able to get, but there’s no secret, the slower you print, the better quality of details you’ll get. Most of my print are at 50-60 mm/s, the tolerance are great, I’d need to make a few adjustements to get it perfect but for now it’s alright for me.
If you wish to go for it or just take a quick look, go on alibaba and search for a30 3d printer, they got it on sale for cheaper than their own website there.
A quick remark about SLA printer, I found the cheap one rather unimpressive when it comes to details unless you spend at least $5k, and it seems to stink a lot while it’s printing, and it’s printing slower than an FDM printer, unless you print micro tiny gears every day for your coffee I woudn’t go for it.
To me, 3D printers are awesome for making prototypes, but nothing more than that.
Don’t spend an arm on it. The things you get for spending more are gadget, things such as auto-bed leveling, bed heating up faster, machine being quieter, enclosure with particules filtering ventilation system, etc you can just do-it-yourself all those things with just a little bit of tinkering and it’s fun, cheap and rewarding.
I’d rather spend my money on tools I just can’t do myself for the CNC.
PS: I’d advise not to have too much expectations about a 3D printer being trouble-free, even for the costly one. Tinkering is the heart of anything related to mechanical engineering, you just can’t avoid it so you better like it.
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I’m about to pull the trigger on a 3D printer and after consideration of all the comments here and some reviews of the most recommended, not to mention a look at my pocketbook, I am planning to buy the Creality Enders 3 Pro. It has good reviews and a reasonable price for the capabilities and while the volume is a bit smaller than my initial requirement, I think it will be able to make 90% of the stuff I want at this time.
I see several sellers on Amazon plus AliExpress and Banggood where the printer appears a bit cheaper. I’ve never ordered from the latter two, how long is delivery, is it worth it? Are all the 3D printer sellers the same on Amazon?
I want to order supplies at the same time and I would like to know what type(s) I should get to start (PLA, PETG, ABS) and what quantity so it lasts me a while.
I already have all the other accessories recommended in the list provided by @WillAdams.
Thanks.
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I have this machine. Bought it via amazon (I don’t recall the particular seller, but it was a “fulfilled by amazon”). I have been satisfied. Decent dimensional results, and after two rounds of bed leveling, I have not needed to adjust (second round was in December’18)
For my use, I primarily use PLA, because it suits my needs, but also use HIPS when I need better mechanical properties. PLA has got much better over the last 10 years or so (consistency of properties). Note that is really isn’t recycleable in practice, any more than other plastics in these applications. The primary advantages for me are lower temperature and solvent resistance, relative to ABS and HIPS (and others). Lower temp means faster print times and less distortion. I got the magnetic bed mat (only use with PLA. Despite the documentation, I tried it with HIPS and found out why they say not to…) and it is the cats meow with PLA.
I would suggest starting with PLA, as it is MUCH easier to get satisfactory results (for the reasons above) than most other filaments. I have not tried Nylon with this machine, but may need to soon for some gears.
How much filament to buy really depends on how much you will use the machine. I am not a high volume user, but still run through 1Kg in about 2 months. I can’t speak to brand, since the environment I work in is maintained at 30 to 40%RH (and my power bills show it), so moisture pickup isn’t a major issue for me at home, and I have found that all of the PLA I have used over the last several years has been similar. Maybe I have been lucky. I store HIPS in a dry box (desiccant controlled) and will store Nylon with it, as even 30%RH will be a problem, given the long storage times. This is a pelican case with a large desiccant sack (color indicator type). Inexpensive and pretty much air/moisture tight.
At work (job 1), we might run through 1Kg in a few days (machine is a LulzBot mini. Too rich for my wallet for home use, and, honestly, the results are not really much better then the Ender) on each machine. Students can burn through a LOT of consumable. Storage after opening isn’t an issue, even with poor RH control.
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Order placed with 2kg of PLA!
I’m back in the shop after 2 weeks away, I received my Enders 3 Pro but I’m having problems using it.
I assembled the printer, leveled the bed I can home and control the printer, jog to any position however, when I try to select a print test file, the screen freezes. first I tried to reset by turning the machine off then on to no avail. I finally was able to kill the job and start another. At times, the controller seems to have a problem seeing/reading the SD card and I need to retry a few times. I can read the SD card on my computer with no complaints from the OS.
Finally, I was able to start another test file, the bed and nozzle get to temperature, the carriage homes then nothing happens. Progress is at O% a bit of filament comes out but the carriage stays in place as if the GCode was stopped.
I googled the issue but did not get any good hits so far. Any ideas what the problem is?
What slicer?
Can you share the gcode?
Post your problem here with as much information as you can.
- Printer make
- Printer model
- SD card make and size
- Firmware version (if known)
- Video is also very helpful
Maybe even post a link to the Gcode so others can try it and see if it is the code or your printer.
EDIT: There is an Ender 3 subreddit as well.
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I used the test GCode files from Creality so I did not use a slicer yet. I suspect since this is test code from the company it would be working on my machine. Test_normal_dog.gcode.zip (2.8 MB)
Thanks, I think I found similar problems and I need to do a bit more testing to confirm.
Do you have an auto bed leveler installed?
No, just the standard setup. I leveled the bed manually. After looking at the Reddit message board,it seems a few people have had similar problem, one was traced to the SD card reader ( I also had issues with it today where it would not always see/read the card). The solution was to use the USB connection with Printrun. I tried this and while it connected, the carriage was not responding to the commands.
Here is what I get from the console:
Connecting…
start
Printer is now online.
echo: External Reset
Marlin 1.1.6
echo: Last Updated: 2018-11-28 | Author: (Ender-3 Pro)
echo:Compiled: Jan 27 2019
echo: Free Memory: 9994 PlannerBufferBytes: 1232
echo:TF init fail
echo:TF init fail
SENDING:G0 X100.0 Y100.0 F3000
echo:busy: processing
SENDING:M84
SENDING:M84
[ERROR] Can’t read from printer (disconnected?) (SerialException): call to ClearCommError failed
[ERROR] Can’t write to printer (disconnected?) (SerialException): WriteFile failed (WindowsError(5, ‘Access is denied.’))
[ERROR] Can’t write to printer (disconnected?) (SerialException): WriteFile failed (WindowsError(5, ‘Access is denied.’))
[ERROR] Can’t write to printer (disconnected?) (SerialException): WriteFile failed (WindowsError(5, ‘Access is denied.’))
Loading file: \Mac\Home\Documents\3D Printing\Enders3 Pro SD Card\Sq_bed_level_test.gcode
Loaded \Mac\Home\Documents\3D Printing\Enders3 Pro SD Card\Sq_bed_level_test.gcode, 2740 lines
1009.54mm of filament used in this print
The print goes:
- from 0.10 mm to 192.30 mm in X and is 192.20 mm wide
- from 20.00 mm to 200.00 mm in Y and is 180.00 mm deep
- from 0.00 mm to 1.80 mm in Z and is 1.80 mm high
Estimated duration: 10 layers, 0:27:15
[ERROR] Can’t write to printer (disconnected?) (SerialException): WriteFile failed (WindowsError(5, ‘Access is denied.’))
Print started at: 17:41:32
[ERROR] Disconnecting after 4 failed writes.
Disconnected.
Print ended at: 17:41:33 and took 0:00:00
The reason I asked is that your gcode contains a G29 which initiates auto bed leveling.
As far as the communication via usb. Disconnect everything, restart everything, only open your control software (what are you using?), and try again.
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Neil:
Thank you, I turned everything off, disconnected everything I then tried to use the Printrun/pronterface for the Mac but failed,it would not see the USB connection, just the Bluetooth devices. Since I have Parallel with Windows 10, I tried the Windows version and I was able to see the USB and connect to the printer. I opened the test file and sent the print. The printer finally woke up and started printing.
After over 3hrs,
I now have a useless dog figurine but it was successful. The SD Card reader is still defective and I should probably consider getting a Raspberry PI with Octoprint to drive the printer as I don’t want to use my design computer to run print jobs in the long run.
I will also have to do a bit more testing to familiarize myself with the printer and the workflow.
3 Likes