tl;dr: What is the best quality consumer 3D printer available (NOT bambu labs)?
Hello,
I’m relatively new to 3D printing (<6 months exp) and am in need of advice.
Background: I purchased a used Prusa MK3S+ as my first printer (got a good deal from a neighbor, not a print farm). I had great experiences with it for a few months. However, recently several components keep breaking one after another. I’ve spent ~$100 over the last month replacing parts, and now it seems the power supply and/or mainboard needs replacing. (I promise I’ve followed every guide and been very careful. I think I’m just unlucky.) I’m sick of fixing my printer. I just want a printer that works. I’ve decided it’s time for me to just upgrade.
- What is currently the best consumer level printer available? I do NOT want a Bambu Labs printer. Otherwise, I would just get the X1C. Here are some things that are important to me:
- Open source software available (even if rooting is necessary)
- Very high quality prints
- Enclosure would be nice
- The bigger the better
- Reliable
- Ideally can be made quiet for overnight prints, even if I need to turn down the speed.
Currently I’m looking at the Qidi X-Max 3 and the Creality K1C. I’m hesitant though because both are new and both brands have had QA issues on other products. I’m also looking at the Rat Rig V-Core 3.1, but I’m scared it’ll be a mess of tinkering like my Prusa was.
Any input or recommendations from more experienced people would be greatly appreciated.
- What should I do with my Prusa MK3S+? I don’t want to throw it out, but I’m not sure its worth anybody’s time or money if the mainboard and power supply are dead. I definitely don’t wanna put any more time or money into fixing it myself.
Sorry for the long post, but I felt adding context would help specify what I’m looking for.
Thanks in advances for any replies!
Voron! They’re 100% open source, to the point that there is no “official” printer (or kit) you can buy. There are a bunch of companies that will sell you a BOM in a box, there are a few companies that offer a comfortable BOM, and you can always self source all the components (or some of the components and buy things like the hardware as a kit). Dig through my post history for some actual prints. There are multiple designs in multiple footprints, up to 350mm^3. You can push Z higher fairly easy, but that’s the max for x/y. They’re designed to be enclosed (but it’s easy to have magnetic panels so you can pop them off as needed), the components are as high quality as you want, there are tons of user mods available, etc.
If you want bigger, Rat Rig will get you to 500mm^3. Can’t vouch for or against their printers.
Vorons are really cool! While the build process is intimidating, I’m willing to do it if the end product is worth it. Maybe you can address my concerns though.
As I said in my post, I’m sick of continually replacing parts in my Prusa. The nice thing about a high-end prebuilt is that it should mostly just work. I’m worried that even after assembly, I’m gonna be dealing with constantly tinkering, adjusting, and fixing things. Am I mistaken?
I would say the end product is worth it, but I also haven’t personally experienced anything else high end first hand. Print quality is solid, even with the fairly minimal tuning I’ve done. I’ve done the easy basics like e-steps, a temperature tower, and pressure advance - all of which are pretty set it and forget it if you don’t change the type of filament you print much. I have not have not tuned the input shaper or agonized over fine tuning things like retraction, the finding perfect temperature (5 degree increments are fine to me), the perfect speed/acceleration/whatever.
Most of my misadventures with my build are on lemmy if you dig through my post history, along with some a/b comparisons to my old Wanhao i3 Plus. I’m currently at 653 hours of total print time, with a number of > 12 hour prints, and 3,687.4 m of filament used (about 9 kg). In that time, I’ve tightened my a/b belts once, changed the carbon in my filter once, and fixed two wire breaks. The first wire break was a fluke that was probably caused by a wire getting pinched in the cable chain. The second was from me using the ABS insulated harness that came with my extruder stepper motor instead of buying or making a PTFE insulated one. In other words, my second wire break was avoidable. If you want to avoid cable breaks, you could go straight to a CAN bus toolhead and an umbilical. Or just use PTFE coated wires and double check that you haven’t pinched any wires inadvertently (the wires should move freely inside the chains).
I’ve spent some time tinkering with printer mods (magnetic panel holders, 270 degree door hinges, and the filter for example), but none of this was really needed. I also reprinted my stealth burner because my i3 clone printed parts were a bit poor fitting. Print quality improved a little as a result, but I’ve found my first layer squish to be a lot more consistent between prints.
It’s also worth saying that many photos and videos of 3D prints on the interwebs set up unrealistic expectations. That’s not to say that you can’t achieve near perfect prints in the real world, it’s just going to take a lot of effort.
You’re also going to inevitably need to tinker with print settings some as you change material types and fight against hart to manage part geometries. This is true for any printer.