Hello there,

after a few years of being out of the hobby I am starting to get interested again after seeing that a lot of budget printers now are having all the features that my old one were missing. Direct extruder, auto bed leveling, dual z axis, stuff like that. So which one of the budget printers around 300€ would you guys suggest one should get to get started again? Elegoo Neptune 4? Creality Ender 3 V3? Anycubic Kobra 2? Sovol S06? There are so many good looking options that I am interested in your experiences and opinions. Thanks!

  • CalcProgrammer1English
    3·
    9 months ago

    I’m happy with my Ender 3 Pro. I paid $200 but you can get it cheaper. I think there is a coupon sometimes for $100 at Micro Center. It’s common enough that replacement parts and upgrades (both printed and purchased) are readily available. Runs open source Marlin firmware and the design itself is also open source. Print quality is good for the price. For the price I’m OK with it not having direct extruder or dual Z axis, and adding auto bed leveling is easy enough with a BLTouch or CRTouch.

    • ikidd@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      If you told me you could buy a passable 3D printer for $200 when I started building my printers 15 years ago, I’d have laughed in your face.

      • CalcProgrammer1English
        1·
        9 months ago

        Same. I put together a knock off Prusa i3 kit in 2014 that cost me like $600 and most of the parts were themselves 3D printed. Not a bad thing but they were really rough prints. It printed OK for the time but was an endless source of annoyance. In comparison, the Ender 3 Pro just basically worked out of the box with minor bed leveling tweaks and everything else has just been minor quality of life improvements. It’s great.