Hello, I’m a total beginner in 3d printing and I want to get into 3d printing for the sake of building small engineering projects. Considering this I probably won’t need a printer with alot of fine detail like for example small sized textures (I think). So would it make sense for me to just go for the cheapest one that somehow prints ok (I thought of an ender 3 or something like that) or should I spend some more money on a Presa mini (+) or a somewhat similar model. What experiences do you have with low budget printers (250€-400€) for my specific although not very unique use case? I’m very thankful for every answer I get.
I’m not massively experienced with 3D printing so take this with a grain of salt.
That said though, I would personally consider what you would be doing in the future: If you’re just going to use it occasionally for small projects then it probably isn’t worth spending more than about 300€, but if you’re likely to use it a lot and eventually start to print more complex / intricate things and/or more often then getting a slightly nicer one would end up being worth it in my opinion!
Personally I have an Anet A8 (about 200€), it’s very basic and needs a lot of manual fiddling. Fortunately though, with a bit of tweaking in a slicer, it can produce quite nice prints in a reasonable time which is just fine for me as I only print infrequently and mostly things that don’t need to be too precise. There might be something better for that price point but if you’re just looking for something cheap that gets the job done then it’d probably serve you well!
My Anet A8 lacked the aluminum bracket to which the extruder is mounted. Luckily I got refunded in total, got a friend to print me an E3dv6 carriage and went with bowden setup. I haven’t had but problems with that printer, I spent more time fixing it rather than using it in the past two/three years. There is always something not working, something about to break, something to be repaired. The board and the heated bed are an heat hazard, I’ve personally seen a friend’s a8 coming with an extruder which would clog every couple minutes. The frame is not stiff and vibrates a lot, the stock carriage is barely held up by the two z axis motors, weighs a ton and often unalligns itself during the print. Different extruders would randomly clog even with esteps and flow calibrated and no heat creep.
I got mine for 100€ and got refunded in total because a crucial piece was missing, but for 200€ you’re better off waiting for a nice offer on a ender 3. I wouldn’t recommended thatprinter to my worst enemy.
Also nice that my first lemmy comment is me crapping on my anet a8.
Disclaimer: Don’t buy an Anet A8 as a beginner!
Once the Anet A8 is fixed it’s a respectable machine. I am always surprised to see their print quality (800mm^2/s acceleration). What made a major difference for me was bolting the A8 down to wood.
Fair enough, i guess being that cheap it’s like many things - a roulette wheel of quality. Probably one of those things where I haven’t used anything else so don’t know what’s good and what isn’t!
Glad i recommended taking my judgement with a pinch of salt.