I am very interested in 3D printing and I want to get into it. What would be a good printer for a beginner that is also of reasonable quality.
I don’t want to make anything huge but I don’t want to limit myself to any size that’s unreasonably small.
Edit: Wow, you guys were all so helpful. While I haven’t made my decision I have a lot more to go off of, I’m gonna do a bit more research into it based on what you have all said.
It’s a bit dated, but I had an excellent beginner 3D printing experience on my Flashforge Creator Pro. The OG.
It’s a bit slow, but very consistent out of the box. It was also pre-built, which was nice.
It was heaps easier to get going compared to my Anet A8. But I learned a lot on the A8 by putting it together.
I started with a Flashforge Dreamer - which is relatively close to the Creator Pro. Bed leveling was annoying from the beginning - though after adding some locking nuts at least stayed leveled for a while.
With PLA I was getting good prints without much effort - though quicky ran into limitations with flashprint, build volume size, other materials. I did some PETG printing, which was a pain - extruder slipping on the material, so compensating with overextrusion which somewhat worked, but gave nad tolerances.
It is now my experimentation printer -rebuilt with microswiss hotend and extruder and flashed with marlin.
That was probably one of those most succinct cons list about the Creator Pro / Dreamer I’ve heard. My experience mirrors yours.
What was your second printer?
Prusa mk3s+ with mmu2s and a mini.
Mini pretty much immediately upgraded with the Bondtech IFS extruder - great extruder, but won’t buy Bondtech kits again as their documentation is horrible. Mainly had the mini for flex and abrasive initially, as I didn’t want to mess with nozzle changes on the less accessible mk3s, and didn’t want to mess with flexible with the MMU. Upgraded it earlier this year to Revo hotend - had a bit trouble due to another delay with their hardened nozzles, but figured out you can get Revo nozzles from China with pretty much the same tolerances for 5 EUR each, so was just running through them until I finally got my obxidian nozzles.
Mk3s ran stock with MMU for a while, printed the TZB extruder in PC-CF earlier this year, switched to TZB-firmware, and also moved it to Revo - didn’t have much issues with MMU before that, but things are very noticeably faster now, plus even very flexible flex just works.
Not sure if I’ll upgrade it to the MK4 - the load cell setup is intriguing, but I don’t want to give up the Revo setup, so I’ll probably wait and see if mods will come up allowing me to use both.
Thank you!
After my recent PETG jam on the Creator Pro, due to extruder slipping and a consequential jam, I’ve been looking at options for another machine.
Maybe the MK4 is in my future.
This MicroSwiss kit should deal with the slipping - it’s relatively easy to install.
You rock. But don’t think you’re talking me out of an MK4, either. ;-)
Edit: For anyone finding this, and considering the MicroSwiss lever kit for their Creator Pro: STOP.
It’s /NOT/ a good solution based on many reviews (b/c single screw is used for tension and pivot mechanism, and the top plate is too tall / obstructs filament).
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Dang, you give me hope that I can rescue my own Dreamer. Are you still using the original main board? Sadly mine are fried, and Flashforge hasn’t had them in stock for a while. Ran into the same problems you did, but damn is that machine a trooper.
Still the same board, just with the wifi module removed, and instead a voltage converter and a raspberry pi ziptied into the empty space next to the board.
The alternative firmwere is here: https://github.com/moonglow/FlashForge_Marlin
Currently it’s mainly waiting on me finding time to do proper profiles for prusaslicer - though I did manage a few basic test prints.