Two years ago, I grabbed a 3D Printer, one of the cheapest and very stock one, since then I’ve been on a rollercoaster relationship with this hobby!
Back then, there weren’t many options in Brazil to pick, so I got what I concluded to be the best budget machine. It has a nice LCD screen where I can control and configure some stuff, and had a glass bed out of the box, the only problem was that it came 80% disassembled. Just to put it together and well calibrated, it took me the whole night.
I’ve learned that any 3D printer can be modded, and you will do so eventually. Manufacturers built a framework where they can ship different products which is just the same printer with pre installed mods, so if you want to save you can go with the cheapest one and mod it to the highest end setup. Still not worth it, and the price per performance on off-the-shelf printers is a very sweet deal nowadays.
My printer is an Ender 3V2 , it had no automatic bed leveling, no direct drive, not good enough part cooling fan, no magnetic surface to easily remove my finished prints from. It was a very hard printer to calibrate, as all the calibration was manual. And I would take the whole morning tweaking and testing the printer, before I could print something successfully.
These challenges led me to research a lot about 3D printing, and I learned about a few mods to get much better quality of life and ease of use with my printer. So I highly recommend you getting a printer with at least:
- Auto Bed Leveling Probe
- Decent Hotend and part cooling fan
- OctoPrint or equivalent
- Easy to level bed (Z-axis bed most preferably)
Maintenance is a constant
If you print a lot, or if your printer lies on a not so sterile environment, you’ll likely have to service your lrinter every two months. Ideally you’ll service the printer every quarter, I do it twice a year 😅
After spending the whole last week, doing a service overhaul on my printer, I am now getting very good quality prints, the best quality I could ever get. I’m feeling that it was totally worth the effort.
Still not perfect, but if your seeking for perfection you’ll probably have much less fun.
Leave a Reply