Which 3D Printer to begin ?

[eugene]

I know this thread is getting old, but I thought I'd add my experience. Clearly the Bambu Labs printers are the hot ticket right now. I've used them at work so I understand why; they are amazing.

For home use I picked up an Elegoo Centauri Carbon (V1) on sale for $250 and don't feel like I'm missing much over the Bambu printers. It's fully enclosed so I can print ABS/ASA, which is important to me. It worked great right out of the box and is crazy fast. I think it's a good lower cost alternative if you're having trouble justifying a Bambu.

[Randy222]

Hello!
I'm interested in 3D Printing but I don't know where to begin. I have a budget of $500 and I would like a 3D Printer model easy to use.
Thanks!

Did you buy anything?

I started with a Ender3 Max Neo. added some struts to stiffen the uprights, and then I 3D printed some wheels and such to deliver filament from above (the side location was no good for me). I upgraded the manual leveling wheels, and some of the roller wheels. As of today one of the steppers makes a groan when it moves fast, but this only happens when homing the unit, I probably need to upgrade the steppers. The PSU that came with is fairly noisy, I have a replacement with auto-fan waiting to be installed.

The auto leveling matrix routine was a key feature for me. The included glass plate works well, no issues with parts sticking or popping off. Heating of bed and nozzle are fast. For PLA I am 60C bed and 210C nozzle. There's plenty of function in the controller, which I flashed once. The only "pitfalls", the tf card slot is a PITA, I have an extension, but the controller doesnt always recognize card if its inserted after the unit boots. And, no native wifi, but that can be an add-on.

Parts will just "pop" off the glass when it cools down to ambient, but to make that go faster I have two small clip-on fans that I run after printing stops to cool the bed down fast.

I paid way less than $500 for it years ago.

There's the obvious caveats, like if my CAD says 0.100" the printer gets very close, but not dead on. I have my cheat-sheet card for the printer, which I suspect most do for every 3D printer they use.

It's definitely an entry level system for newbies coming to 3D printing, but for me it works very well with no issues.

Also noted, the printer is #3 in a set of three things needed. The other two are also important. #1 CAD, and #2 the slicer. I use various CAD, but been using CURA slicer for many years now.

[Thomas Ballantine]

What's the current reasonable pick for a heated chamber? Looking at the Voron V0.2 kits currently