I am looking to purchase a 3D printer as a hobbyist, not for any commercial use. I have limited options with local 3D printers but that’s good as they’re mostly cheaper low end printers so I can look at them thoroughly.
When I’m comparing the different 3D printers I’m mainly looking at the following: Cost, nozzle diameter, layer height, volume, and viable filaments.
My question is, is there anything else I’m missing? Are there important things I should be considering or avoiding?
Different printers have different resolutions but for my purposes it looks like they’re all highly accurate and way past what I need. Not worried about speed either. They all mention bed and nozzle temperatures but I assume they are all within the necessary range for the filaments they allow right? So does it matter?
Also, any advice for maintenance? How to make it last as long as possible any mistakes I should be wary of. Thanks.
Check whether they mention heated bed. And if they do, check the max temperature. For example PETG prints the best at 85-90°C for the bed. For example the A1 sounds really great with all the specs, but the maximum bed temperature of 100°C immediately disqualifies it for me.
90-100°C is the sweet spot I’d go for a cheap printer. Otherwise you’re basically down to only printing PLA.
Totally agree on making sure it has a heated bed. That’s said in my experience 85-90 is a smoking hot bed for PETG. On my unenclosed i3 clone I would run 75. On my enclosed Voron I run 70.
I’m going off information from Prusa knowledge base:
Source: https://help.prusa3d.com/article/petg_2059
This is fair. I ran into all kinds of quality issues with my bed that hot. The glass temperature of PETG is 85 C.