Prusa mini+. It wasn’t the cheapest and isn’t the fastest or most expensive but it’s crazy reliable and is just always there and ready when I need it.
this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2023
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its an ender 3 in the same way that a dune buggy is a vw beetle. the only stock bits that remain are the frame and some of the steppers. it's gone direct drive, all metal, glass bed, klipper firmware on a btt mini e3v2 all running off of a mac mini with octoprint.
I fell for the marketing, paid reviews and fake review sites so I ended up with an Ender 3 v2. Spent a lot of time trying to level and calibrate it but never managed to get rid of the gantry sag entirely. Eventually discovered that the x axis tensioner didn't quite fit on the aluminium extrusion and had been bent from overtightening at the factory, which was causing the belt to wander, but it was pretty easy to fix by jamming a thin metal spacer in there after I found it. Have spent a bit over €350 on upgrading the printer to get it to a state where I'm (mostly) happy with it.
Was hoping to build an Annex K2 some time, but the component costs have gone up so it's even more expensive now..
That's what I started on (well, a knock off clone) and I still say it's a great printer if you want to learn 3D printing.
Now, if you want to actually print right after buying, no no no. Not a good fit.
It's basically a set of parts that can be cheaply replaced, but measured properly (mostly) and lets you avoid putting together a BOM. Plus, there are tons of them out there, so lots of community support and many cheap, occasionally working, 3rd party upgrades.
I feel like it taught me the mindset of FDM troubleshooting and how the parts/variables interacted with each other. It was $150 a few years ago, so it's great for screwing up and figuring out what you want in your first real printer. It also has a lot of potential and folks that have modded them to actually run well, so it helped me figure out where I fell on the "It just works" to "Let's test these 200 different hotend fan duct designs" spectrum and which features were most important to me.
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Ender 6 but swapped out most hardware and running Klipper.
- 7 inch capacitive touch screen
- BTT Manta E3EZ + CB1
- EZ2209 drivers
- Micro Swiss NG direct
- Magnetic PEI bed
ender 5 pro mostly stock with bltouch and cardboard bolted to the side as side panels. im saving up for a p1p currently. while i like the idea of the machine im done with creality. if im using the official firmware from their website i shouldnt have to rewire my stepper motor to extrude correctly. its small things like that i cant trust them with. sure there might be issues with bambulabs in the future but the base machine is still a good starting point. hopefully i can go full print farm and then have it as a side job.
Ratrig v-core 3.1 that I've heavily modified from "stock" configuration and still tinkering. Thinking of picking up a vzbot 235 kit to replace my old ultimaker 2+ at some point. I like the ultimaker, but it is pretty dated by todays standards.
MK3s+ and a heavily modified KP3S Klipper WIP.
I use a Prusa MK3 (not MK3S/+) that I got in 2018. Later this year I hope to get an MK4 to join it, and maybe a Voron 2.4 for big prints. My first printer was a SeeMeCNC Rostock MAX from 2013. Its controller board died for the second time just before I got the MK3, and I never fixed it.
Voron 0.2 - down for upgrade from 0.1 to 0.2
Voron Switchwire w/ ERCF
Voron Trident - down because one of the CANBUS boards died
Voron 2.4r2
Voron crew! Granted, you're much further along than I am. Currently working on wiring my first Voron - a 2.2r2. Before that I've had a monoprice maker select plus (a rebranded wanhao) for > 5 years.
Is there a dedicated voron space in the fediverse?
Prusa Mk3S+ with something like 1600 hours and a new orange pi octoprint server.
Next year I may get a MK4 or a X1 Carbon
I run an ender 3 pro with a sprite extruder, silent board, and gulfcoast robotics bed and gantry. The only one of those that was really necessary was the gulfcoast robotics one cause the 3 point leveling solved a lot of my leveling issues.
Flexible couplers for the z rod was also a great little quality of life upgrade.
Ender 5, currently adapting an E3D toolchanging system to run on that printer.
Really good piece of kit once you replaced the mainboard, extruder, hotend and beefed up the bed mount to not wobble multiple mm up and down while printing.
Would not recommend for anyone who just wants to print.
Sidewinder X2 that I've modified quite a bit.
I'm using a genuine BL Touch, aluminum bed with magnetic build plates, removed filament spool from the top of the printer, Klipper/MainsailOS, Pi camera, silicon bed spacers, bi-metal heat break, larger part cooling fan and duct, and more.
I have probably 600-800 hours on it so far (about 500 since installing Klipper and about a year of use before that), but it's working well so far with all the upgrades.
Started with an Ender5. Mostly stock, but got a cheap direct drive bracket, and put a metal throat in the heatbreak to make it an all metal hotend.
Then I got a Sainsmart coreception because I liked the frame of the ender5, but the concept of Corexy just seemed better, and looking back, it definitely is.
Then I got 3 more Creativity Elf printers, which are basically the same as the Coreception.
Then I got a Voron. I want a bigger bed. I really wanted to go with RatRig as they have a kit with 500mm. But I just didn't feel comfortable with how much smaller the community behind it was and the documentation just didn't seem as good as the Voron. This kit was from Formbot. The wiring sucked. After 1000 hours, wires literally just came apart inside the cable chains. One after another. I could print for more than a few days without another wire breaking. All in different places too. I moved all the wires out the chains, and it's been solid since.
And just this last week or 2, I got another Voron. This time from Magic Phoenix. And I am documenting the process on my blog.
I just finished it up a couple days ago. It has been awesome. The details are there in my blog post, but I'm definitely going to be buying from them again. This project(when including all the stuff I add to my printers like cameras and stuff) cost $350 less than the formbot kit. And it has a LOT of quality of life improvements over a standard Voron kit. Tap, StealthBurner and CANBUS are a few. Highly recommended.
Paper: Standard 80gsm copy paper on a HP LaserJet 4 Plastic: Fillamentive rPLA on an Ender 2
Just got started with the hobby, bought a stock Ender 3 v2 Neo. Happy with it so far!
Started with an ender 3 which taught me the fundamentals. Heavily modified it. Picked up a sidewinder x1 for larger prints. Dabbled into resin printing with the creality LD-002H, didn’t really love it too much prep and clean up. Did the kickstarter for the ankermake which is a great printer but not worth the price in my opinion.
Using a self-sourced 350mm^3^ Voron 2.4r1 as my primary,and have been very happy with it. Also have an Ender3 kicking around somewhere and may or may not end up converting it into an Enderwire eventually.
Ender 3 S1 Pro.
Very happy with MK3S+, ordered upgrade kit last month for MK4. Trying to get a Prusa XL for my office but availability is shit.
A Voron 0.1 with a 0.2 gantry and a Voron 2.4 with a 2.4r2 gantry (currently being upgraded to canbus and stealthburner).
Started printing with an Elegoo Mars 2 Pro. Upgraded to Elegoo Saturn 8k and bought a Neptune 3 Plus recently. After getting the Neptune I haven't touched the rest yet. But still missing working with them.
Anycubic i3 Mega-S, bought in 2019 as my first printer and modified quite a lot since then (replaced all fans except part cooling, stepper drivers, Z couplers, silicone bed spacers), and it works fine, but I still don't fully trust it to be left unattended for more than 2-3 hours. And since it's lacking most of the newer "convenience" features like ABL (and is rather slow) I'm really considering to replace it with a newer/better printer. Hottest contenders are currently either a Prusa XL or a Voron 2.4.
Voron 2.4 300mm
Upgraded to Voron TAP with the stealthburner. Amazing prints!!
A heavily customized Ender 5 Pro. I'm running Klipper with an Octoprint server on a Raspberry Pi. I have the BL touch, Micro Swiss direct drive kit, a custom printed heat shrowd and a 20mm fan, silicone spacers, and a spring steel bed. It prints amazingly well and I don't see myself replacing it any time soon.
I'm printing with a heavily modified Ender 3, a heavily modified CR-10 V3, and a Anycubic Mono 4k.
I usually refer to the Ender 3 and CR-10 V3 as, "The printers formally known as Ender 3 and CR-10 V3," due to the amount of modifications to them both.
All of them do a fine job for stuff in their wheelhouse and I dig them all.
Kingroon KP3S here. Totally stock. No issues with it, always had good quality from it out of the box. I want to add a touch sensor and klipper to it but haven't had the time to figure it out
I backed a kickstarter for Mingda magician X, it’s been working just fine as first cheap printer. I’m looking at prusa new model for my next
I got a ender 3 S1 to start with. Which I upgraded pretty soon after getting it, full copper hotend with a mellow V6 pro extender and cht clone, 0y bltouch bracket and klipper.
It has since printed a self designed 150x150mm corexy build and a VzBot 235 upscaled to 330 with a kinematic 3z.
Planning on getting rid of the S1 as soon as both builds are up and running.
In the order of acquisition:
- Ender 3 (Converted to an Ender Extender 400xl). Dragon hotend and EZR struder.
- Ender 3 Pro with dragon hotend, EZR struder (currently being fitted with a Sherpa Mini DD). Running Klipper.
- Ender 5 with Biqu H2 v2s Revo (recently got all the parts to convert this one to a Zero G Mercury one.1).
- Sovol sv04 (With Copperhead heatbteaks).
- Ender 2 Pro with E3D Revo Hotend and MicroSwiss Bowden extruder. Running Klipper.
- Voron V2.4r2 350mm.
Currently all are operational except the Ender 3 pro, due to the Biqu H2 v1 blowing up on me last weekend and forcing an upfra to the dragon+Sherpa_mini+HeroMe toolhead.
Ender 5 with the following upgrades:
- BigTreeTech skr mini v2
- MicroSwiss hot end
- Orbiter extruder
- BLTouch
- OctoPrint
I'm quite happy with it, print quality is mostly decent although it requires a lot of tweaking to get to good quality.
Prusa Mini here! I only swapped the nozzle for a larger one to print “faster”. All stock stuff so I can spend more time learning and printing stuff I design myself with CAD!
Your experience with the Ender 3 mirrors my own lol. I also gave mine away after never getting it to work properly.
Makerbot replicator 2. Old as hell but still gets the job done for my limited purposes.
Heavily modified Geeetech A10M - no longer prints in two colours but it's using better quality parts than stock
MP Mini Delta V1 - I will be going down the rabbit hole of calibration and mods for this printer at some point, it isn't great due to the areas where monoprice/malyan had cheaped out on
Ender 5 Pro with a few upgrades. 3DTouch sensor was the first upgrade I bought. Currently running a Hero Me Gen 7 toolhead with dual 5015 blower fans and a 4020 hotend cooling fan that I'm running at a lower voltage to reduce noise. Got an Orbiter 2.0 extruder mounted in direct drive which I love, great little extruder. V6 Clone All-Metal Hotend with a standard 0.4mm nozzle for now, but looking to get a CHT soon. I also recently got a spring steel textured PEI build plate, massive improvement over the stock floppy surface, I should have upgraded sooner. In my quest for less noisy printing, I've replaced the PSU and mainboard fans with two 120mm PC fans, works great so far.
The motion system is really the bottleneck now, it seems the limit is around 150mm/s with 1250mm/s^2 acceleration which is lower than Ender 5 Pro's I've seen on the internet, any higher than that and I get layer shifts. I'm looking to do the ZeroG Mercury conversion in the future.
Ender 3 pro. Never had any issues with it really. I replaced the motherboard with a skr mini pretty early on, and changed it to direct drive. Running klipper on a pi 3. Sure it's not the fastest, but it works very well for me.
AnkerMake M5
MK3s with an MK4 ordered. My wife also recently got an Anycubic Photon D2
Ender3 v2 running Klipper with a BLTouch and a Micro Swiss NG extruder.
Started with an Ender 3 V2, which I tried modding with BLtouch because I hated the lack of auto bed leveling. Eventually I just got so frustrated that I got a Prusa i3 MK3S+ and I love it to death. It was just a quantum leap over the Ender and well worth the price bump. I’ve lately been selling prints for profit and have been eyeing the Bambulab X1 Carbon for its speed and the AMS.
I have an Ender 3 V2 that I barely ever print on any more because I have a RatRig V-Minion now. I love this little monster, it's so fast.
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