Very close to buying my first printer

[Bob E]

I'm now interested, now that I see these people are addressing distortion of ABS parts :https ://qidi3d.com/products/r-qidi-technology-i-fast-3d-printer-industrial-grade This is something of value to me. Anyone else using this system?

 

[Mike1974]

Not familiar, but $2100 for first printer seems risky to me. To my knowledge, each machine has it's own firmware. I have 2 printers (hobby grade) and even using same slicing software they print different, temps, speed, etc so it takes some time to dial them in. And for the record, the cheaper one prints better, but has about half the volume of my other one. I have made simple functional parts using PLA, working hinges and such, but obviously not very strong.

 

[Strostkovy]

I spent $3500 on my Raise3d E2 as my first printer and love it. You don't need to spend that much though.
In my opinion ABS is pretty much obsolete PETG is much easier to print, basically the same strength, and has better UV resistance. ABS has marginally higher temperature resistance, though I think high temperature PETG is available.
One underrated filament I'm messing with now is high durometer TPU. The impact resistance is great, cost isn't bad, UV resistance is great though certain colors will yellow, and supposedly it's one of the least flammable filaments but I haven't tested that. It should be more heat resistant than ABS, though I haven't tested that either.
PLA prints with a nice matte finish but I have no reason to use it since I get PETG cheaper and get equal quality, but glossy prints. I plan to order some matte PETG to try.
I don't really bother with carbon fiber reinforcement since I just don't need it. If I need strength I can just design the parts I make to use more material in that area. I do often print in 100% infill, which cheaper printers can have issues with. I also like to print at the max flow of my extruder. I have an RFQ in for a typhoon extruder to make parts much faster, but that's over $3k for the extruder alone.
I can list brands that I like for filament but I am omitting them as I want this to be general information on this particular post

 

[GiroDyno]

I have had a number of "economical" printers over the years. There's a bit of a learning curve with each brand and model, but I think once you spend less than $500 you'll hate it and never use it, if you spend more than $1000 on a printer you're mostly just tuning for materials rather than compensating for lousy hardware.

My $250 Anycubic was constantly having all kinds of issues to the point I scrapped it.
I then got a $500 Ender which was (mostly) reliable but I had a few bad solder/plug gremlins. I put $500 into it to make it capable of printing reinforced filament (NylonX) and upgraded the board while I was at it which seemed to fix most problems.
We use a $1500 PulseXE at the day job and we had to warranty the entire printer it after about a month, the replacement then needed a completely new hotend after another month, but the upshot is they were responsive and it was all free aside from the time lost.
Most recently I got an iFast and so far it has been great. I had some setup questions and their support got back to me in a few hours which was very surprising. It certainly "feels" a level above my first two printers, but once your settings are dialed I don't think its faster or makes "nicer" parts than my ender did. There are some quality of life improvements like wi-fi printing, integral LEDs, camera, and the vented/heated build chamber that I really like.
Just get quality filament, and take your time getting settings dialed in and you'll be fine.

And get a dryer if you're running hygroscopic materials!

 

[LOTT]

For normal FDM printers Prusa is tough to beat. They are more then the budget printers, but half the cost of that one you mentioned and are dead reliable.

 

[lazz]

As mine makes parts right now I wonder about what a good 3d printer is. I went with a Creality CR-10 V2 thinking its only a few hundred bucks.. I have wasted more than that on stuff that was a complete waste of money.
This printer is 3 or 4 years old and every problem I have had with it was of my own making.

I noticed your comment about printing ABS. FYI when printing ABS you need to maintain a high temp in the whole area. If the bed is hot and the rest cool it will curl your print.

This printer I have has made everything I needed and done a decent job. 3d prints do not come out as nice as injected.



I use it maybe once every couple months.. and it fires up with a flick of a switch.
If you are using a 3d printer OctoPrint is a great way to monitor your progress.

As always without pictures it couldnt have happened.

 

[PastThePoint]

Clough42 did a review of one not too far back. Check his YT channel. He seemed pretty happy with it, although the new Bambu Lab X1 series looks like it may be a contender as well.

 

[PastThePoint]

For normal FDM printers Prusa is tough to beat. They are more then the budget printers, but half the cost of that one you mentioned and are dead reliable.

As an owner of a MK3SMMU2S and a Prusa Mini, I agree. To a point. Newer printers and firmwares are based on 32 but boards now. The mini has a 32bit controller, but the MK3S is still stuck with a board that has pretty much been "maxed out". I don't think there is much room left on the old 8 bit boards, so all of the newer features that are being developed everyday won't be able to be ported over. Newer features like input shaping (the patent just recently expired within the last few years) are pretty amazing.

I am in no way saying the Prusa's are bad printers. I just thought you should be aware of this stuff when considering your first printer.

 

[701309CAM]

For normal FDM printers Prusa is tough to beat. They are more then the budget printers, but half the cost of that one you mentioned and are dead reliable.

I worked in a lab with 20+ Prusa printers and can confirm that they truly are workhorses. Easy to maintain and are as reliable as you could hope for.

 

[aceofs]

I'm now interested, now that I see these people are addressing distortion of ABS parts :https ://qidi3d.com/products/r-qidi-technology-i-fast-3d-printer-industrial-grade https://cbdshop.club This is something of value to me. Anyone else using this system?

i would recomend you find something a bit less expansive( well depends on ur budget), but recently u can get very good stuff for half the price of this one or even less. sinceits ur first printer..

 

[burdickjp]

I want to echo that there is nearly nothing about ABS which makes it a worthwhile printing material. If you really want to use it, the higher quality ABS you get the better it will print. I used to use exclusively MakerBot ABS. I now use colorFabb PA neat for parts I would have previously used ABS for, and colorFabb PA-CF when I need more. Their nGen is a good CPE, as well. BASF has a nice PA with glass fill as well. For other things I print a glass-filled resin, or high temp resin on my resin printer.

And I'm glad to see the recommendations for Prusas. If you want a bit more than that, Ultimaker is fantastic, and you can buy them used. They're easy to maintain. A disadvantage is that they use the older 2.85 mm material diameter, but that is still easy enough to find in high quality materials. I'm actually selling an Ultimaker 3 Extended if you're interested.

 

[dgfoster]

I love my Prusa MK3. Printing PETG with it is dead simple and produces very durable parts. Prusa has purchased PrintedSolid and distribuites their filaments and some of their accessories here in the US through that store front. Though Prusa is located in Czech Republic they are immediately responsive to support questions and shipping from CZ through them is 3 days and no more expensive than a lot of places here in the US. I rely on them to supply top-notch printers, accessories, and supplies and have not been disappointed.

I use Onshape to draw parts and find it also to be an excellent software package.

I print something almost every day from casting patterns and riser patterns to a new cap this morning for for Dust Off which (fits, BTW) bypasses the extremely crappy and fragile dispenser caps they supply and delivers a stronger stream to boot.

So handy to be able to make plastic parts of all sorts.

Denis

 

[Mike Henry]

The recently released Prusa Mk4 has some nice features, especially if printing stuff is more important to you than fiddling with stuff and 3rd party add-ons.

 

[burdickjp]

The recently released Prusa Mk4 has some nice features, especially if printing stuff is more important to you than fiddling with stuff and 3rd party add-ons.

It checks all of the boxes, and in all of the right ways.

 

[Mike Henry]

It checks all of the boxes, and in all of the right ways.

I agree and am about to order one to replace my Prusa Mk3s which has been a reliable printer for me for the most part. I have a Prusa XL on pre-order and may upgrade that to the 5-tool version, depending on how the reviews go. The multi-tool versions of the XL are still at least a few months out and will be quite a bit more than the Mk4.

 

[thunderskunk]

We got a Creality ender 5 S1 because it was at the top of the page and I figured it must be OK. The internet said to get the sonic pad so it runs faster... not impressed. Has had firmware issues, connectivity issues, print quality issues, etc. I'm not making sculptures, just blocks for fixtures and such. It was cheap, but there was a reason.

 

[dgfoster]

I recently bought a textured plate from Prusa for my Mk3s. I have found I like printing PETG for most of the functional things I make for foundry patterns. The textured plate requires no glue stick to allow PETG to release as is needed with the stock plate. PETG parts just pop off the plate pretty much by themselves as the plate cools and contracts after printing. I spent the extra coin for the Prusa plate rather than cheaper generic textured plates as my printing guru mentor had poor results with the generics. He said Prusa spent several years tweaking theirs. I’ll take his word for it. But I can say for sure their plate works great and makes me smile every time I slide a perfect print off effortlessly.

Here is half a pattern printed to cast an angle plate
I got fed up with the spray assembly on Dust Off cans and drew up and printed a much more functional cap

Here is a sweet riser used on a straight edge casting. It is about 3” high And rapidly printed with a .8 mm nozzle.

And here are some foot pads and custom terminal covers that threaded right onto 5/16-18 bolts with no thread chasing.

The printer is an amazing tool that gets almost daily use.

Denis

 

[Infraviolet]

Textured build plates are good. I've got one on a creality machine, makes first layers a lot easier. The other thing good for print beds is a flexible magnetic one. Whenever a part is stuck down too hard at the end of a print you can just peel the whole magnetic textured layer away from the heated plate below and then bend it the other way so as to easily release the printed part.

 

[Strostkovy]

I powdercoated my flexible build plate with Cardinal BK01. I have to print at higher bed temperatures (65C for PLA and 80C for PETG) but I no longer have any lifting problems and when the bed cools the part is completely detached from the build plate.

Seems like a prime candidate for automated production, where you can just drop the bed temperature 20-30C, use the extruder to bump the print off, and warm back up and resume.

 

[dgfoster]

I powdercoated my flexible build plate with Cardinal BK01. I have to print at higher bed temperatures (65C for PLA and 80C for PETG) but I no longer have any lifting problems and when the bed cools the part is completely detached from the build plate.

Seems like a prime candidate for automated production, where you can just drop the bed temperature 20-30C, use the extruder to bump the print off, and warm back up and resume.

I was thinking along the same continuous production lines. You could use the print head to clear the build plate or use a purpose-made arm to sweep the finished part off the build plate. Even a well positioned compressed air blast could both quickly cool the plate and push the part off once the plate cooled enough to cause separation.

Denis