So the Bambu labs A1 looks like the perfect starting point.

One problem, it uses proprietary firmware and software, I’m a big advocate for owning the things you buy, and not supporting companies that don’t allow you to do that as much as I reasonably can. So yea I can’t buy Bambu.

The Creality SparkX i7 seems nice, it looks like a straight up clone of the A1
https://store.creality.com/eu/products/sparkx-i7-3d-printer

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about Creality though, so unsure. I’m a bit stuck and getting decision fatigue.

My budget is ~500 Euro.

Help.

  • Mike_The_TV
    1·
    11 hours ago

    You can put custom firmware on the x1c and use whatever the hell you want. Make sure you put it somewhere you can vent outside, so not in the living room.

      • Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
        4·
        9 hours ago

        The are also printers that are inspired by the voron project, while not fully being a voron, but more pre-assembled. I think sovol has some, and formbot has the troodon series, including a smaller 250mm version.

        I haven’t used either, but it might be worth looking into. I did but a voron kit by formbot and honestly that was great. Firmware is just klipper, so fully open source, of course.

          • Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
            1·
            2 hours ago

            They aren’t vorons then. There are printers, including some that I listed, that are very closer to this conceptually, but they aren’t allowed to be called vorons (and you won’t get an official serial number for them).

            One core point of a voron is the fact that it’s built, from scratch, by you. A pre-assembled printer can never be a Voron.

            Note that anyone is free to use the parts and designs, that’s the point of them being open-source. The Voron name is intentionally protected so you can’t sell a commercial 3d printer product called Voron.

          • fluxx
            2·
            4 hours ago

            Sovol sv08 is basically a prebuilt voron

      • depressed_lemon@lemmy.ml
        2·
        10 hours ago

        If you don’t want to go down the e.g. “Voron route” nor that I could recommend for the first 3D-Printer, Prusa or partially Sovol Printers would be good. For what I can say Prusa MK4S would be a solid option, although more costly than the Mini.