With the k1, Bambu labs, and prusa xl all coming out I’m really starting to look at my 3 year old SK-GO as “slow”. Do you think it’s worth waiting for awhile and seeing if the competition heats up more or should I just pull the trigger on one of the current high speed machines
If I were starting printing today, I’d probably get an Ender 3 S1. You also can’t go wrong with Prusa printers, but you’ll pay a bit (a lot) more for them.
Really anything from those “best beginner printer” lists will work, as long as it has ABL (auto bed leveling).
Regardless of what anyone else says, you’ll want ABL at some point, so just get it right off the bat. Because adding an ABL sensor afterwards can sometimes be super annoying.
But I wouldn’t recommend anything from Bambulabs. Lots of gear on those printers is proprietary, and you will need to buy parts at some point.
With other printers you can get cheap parts everywhere. With Bambulabs printers though, enjoy waiting months for a $180 part that’s $20 on every other printer.
The dual extruder and auto bed leveling are really appealing, but this seems to limit choices a lot. My budget would probably be $500 give or take $200, does that change your recommendation at all?
Not Really.
I’d get maybe $300 worth of printer, and then save the other couple hundred bucks for filaments and modifications that you’ll want after spending a while with the machine. That’s where the Ender 3 S1 fits right in.
I don’t really recommend spending more as a beginner, because you wont know what you actually need until you start printing stuff.
Though, if you don’t like to fiddle with stuff at all, the Bambulabs P1P ($599) is a thing that makes good parts. I still don’t recommend it, especially for a beginner. But for someone who just wants stuff to work in an Apple sort of way, (expensive, locked down, a bit contrived, but mostly seamless) that might be the best choice.
Yea I mean, I think I have a pretty low appetite for modding and tinkering. I would describe my ideal 3D printer as like, “what if Apple made a 3D printer”. I’d want to load filament and have it “just work” as much as possible.
So in that case, Bambulabs P1P is probably the printer you want, despite it’s proprietary nature.
I probably should have asked what you were looking for in a printer before starting to recommend stuff, but at least we figured it out in the end.
Awesome, cheers! I’ll check it out! Thanks man.