Cheap 3D Printers?

well said.
and it depends where you are in life- if you're time poor and money rich then $1k is an ezclap- but then if your money poor and time rich- then spending the time sourcing the proper cabling and upgrading stuff and testing and potentially failing along the way and bouncing back- and not to mention the lessons learned along the way might be worth it!

and the skrmini e3 is yeah pretty good i would go the duet route- but is probably fine- I personally wouldent trust the mosfets to power a heatbed- but yeah once again there are ways to get around that like big external mosfets etc etc - which most these new printers are coming out with anyway.

and when a mosfet fails usually it just stays full ball on- and causes fires etc so yeah once again if u dont know what you're doing - Just throw money at that european nutbag that makes those orange hobby printers - and if anything goes wrong yell at his goofy head

if you just need a printer to do the work for you and u want to let it run all day and night and feel safe whilst doing so.... maybe try leaning towards the tried and tested is all im saying ^_^

and hey i haven't seen a _serious_ fire come out of anything but the Anet A8s- maybe a wanhao i3 but they practically sold those at aldi and i dont see people crying about them going up in flames? so its probably all good - and if u wana be safe just keep your printer away from flammable things and make sure ur smoke detectors are working and uve got fire blankets and whatnot nearby and def do your research

 

I put a Relay on the 24V into the Board controlled by a PI so even if mosfets go I'm OK. I also put some small heat sinks on them just incase. (Ender 3 Board had heat sinks so I was a little bit concerned that the SKR did not , Might just be way higher rated so heat is not an issue)

 

Checking out the CRS 10 pro now. If I could get the I3 MK3 landed for 1K the decision would have been made already.

 

ender3/pro has a good community of modders might be a good place to start

ur cr10s pro etc will be far too large and therefore also need alot of power to heat the bed meaning long heat up times but also bigger stress on the cables and connectors etc, just more to worry about

and not to mention your prints will be more like days not hours to utilize that build platform

also the larger build plate you have the slower acceleration you can run because the mass of the moving bed will add lots of ghosting artifacts so starting smaller is often better - you will rarely need to print larger than 20x20x20 anyway - if you do you probably need to learn to mod stuff because 0.4 nozzle is a headache - prob wana volcano 0.6 just to see prints finish this decade on a 40x40x40 platform or whatever the cr10s has - my 30x30x30 zortrax often has 2-3 day prints with the stock 0.4 nozzle

i mean if you're happy with that by all means but the quality of your smaller prints will suffer on a bed-slinger that large the belts will have more flex/backlash and ur tolerances might suffer too u might find urself only using such a large printer for enclosures and cosplay unless it was designed correctly and they didnt cheap on the belts like proper glass fiber Gt2 gates branded belts for a printer that large would be one of my first replacements after microswiss and that trinamic board - i mean if u print with slow enough acceleration its probably not gonna be much of an issue but yeah id start smaller

also its very difficult leveling a bed so large- so u might wana make sure if u get a printer that large it has mesh bed leveling because getting glass that large to be flat is even hard

 

I've surprisingly had good luck with the Creasee CS-10s (Not a typo!). It's a lot cheaper and seems to only have the downside of a shitty bed. An anycubic ultrabase is $17.50 on ebay so that isn't much of a problem.

It's 24V, dual leadscrew, and CR-10 part compatible. It comes with a better 32 bit board (MKS robin lite V1.1), ready for a esp3D module for wifi support. The extruder is marginally better than the Creality one, but I don't think much of that one anyway. I'll be putting a silicone bed, anti-backlash nuts, 2nd z-endstop and a bondtech on it.

Pretty happy with how the banggood gamble payed off on that one.

Also, I don't find the bed hard to level (31cm by 31cm) but I think I overcame that learning curve with my Ender 3.

 

Quite happy with my Anycubic Mega S. Only mod so far is the BLtouch. Will do drivers eventually and anything else is really only cosmetic.

 

So which cheap FDM printer has auto leveling feature?

 

I've installed inductive sensing on my Ender 3, after getting a dodgy 3dTouch (BLtouch clone).

After a bit of experience I think auto bed levelling is a bit pointless. If your bed is not level it may be symptomatic of a bigger issue. It doesn't take much effort to get it dialled in, and once it's there it should stay level unless something is seriously wrong with the machine.

That said I would like to play around with an optical bed sensor for shits and giggles.

 

The larger the bed the more advantageous having a mesh levelling system is.

I wouldn't bother on my Cocoon Create Model Maker (100 x 120 x 100), of which I have little to no problem with, but went with a genuine BLTouch for the Mega S (210 x 210 x 205). I did a quick and basic manual level at the start and the touch does the rest. I have it run each print as I never know how much it might have moved through vibration and my fat fingers bumping things.

 

I use a 235mm x 235mm bed and a 310mm x 310mm.
I honestly don't think they're much value at all, unless you're using a warped bed. In that case it's probably more important to address that issue first.

 

Warped beds can be caused by a multitude of issues. These issues may be easy or complex depending on what they are. Some are not simple fixes. Even glass isn't always 100% flat and you only need 0.1mm of change to cause dramas with the first layer adhesion.

Not to mention the dimensional changes with heated beds.

Some see little to no value, I see the many benefits. Some people have no issues, others will have many.

 

I like my BLtouch clone (Accuracy is not the best) just because I can change the bed surface without having to mess with the End stops or raising / lowering the bed but otherwise I would agree, as long as you level your bed correctly its not really needed an should result in better prints.

 

+1 for anycubic ultra base if u can wait for the bed to cool off it leaves nice surface finish on your parts

also if u wana spend about a grand u can get a duplicator 6 v2? which is practically fully enclosed has ABL its not half bad
but not as tinker friendly- and may have z-wobble out the box unless u mod it (remove the top bearing block to let the screw wobble freely, nowhere near as quality parts as the zortrax m200- i saw some m200s used for about 1.4k? but you're kinda stuck printing ABS and using z-suite so maybe avoid that one

the benefit of the d6 is that the electronics are literally enclosed in metal so ur kinda safe if something burns up (kinda) downside is your limited to 20x20x20 and its a grand. granted i spend more on my Gpus so its not much considering the creative freedom a 3d printer gives you i mean add four hundred bucks more and u got ur self a nice i3mk3s kit and u get more build area and quality e3d hotend and stuff out the box - magnetic removable build platform auto bed leveling quiet printing etc etc etc haha

I've heard nothing but good things about the anycubic mega's just make sure its got thermal runaway protection ^_^

i seriously hate to sound like a broken record but they always turn the runaway protection off because some people live in very cold windy environments and their printers cant get to temp and trigger the protection... also because the power supplies and mosfets arn't rated to heat up the hotend/bed fast to save costs too

so instead of insulating the printer properly they just turn the printer into a fire hazard its just silly- always make sure u've got runaway protection working

and be warned a lot of printers will tell u that the hotend is EXPERIENCING runaway but not even turn off the mosfet -_-

 

+1 to this. Generally it's not super hard to roll your own marlin for the cheap chinese machines. Doing so gives you the ability to customize it for your own needs, and to make sure the thing is safe.

 

i'll give a vote for the Ender 3, love mine. really good results, I got it on sale on ebay for $240 shipped + $25 i think for the glass bed. I dont like/trust auto leveling but there is a .gcode file you can download that you run as a "print" and it performs a bed test. but imo best method is the old piece of paper going to opposite corners/sides.

i just recently made a print of a Spyro the Dragon controller stand using AnyCubic Trans-Violet. came out real nice, used MesghMixer to split it to make sure it all came out clean. But this particular AnyCubic roll of filament was a fucking nightmare. Tangles/knots galore, so much so I had to monitor the print about 70% of the time and manually roll out long lengths as it went on to make sure it kept feeding. For a total print time of like 28hrs across 3 pieces, wasnt the best experience.

so yeah, can't speak for their printers but AnyCubic filament is real nice quality filament and colour, but was spooled really shit. this is the result, running a 210c nozzle temp with the bed @ 70c. the transparent PLA seems to cool way quicker so needed to keep things warm
https://i.imgur.com/zI7aoIx.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/65A2D01.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/oGRB7od.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/ErOx6bM.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/GtRMi9m.jpg

 

So, cheeped out and got an ender 3 Pro with magnetic base. Capricorn tube upgrade and that's it.

Printing non stop for the past 3 weeks for a uni project.

I had the Cocoon create some years ago. The ender 3 in comparison is very impressive particularity for the price.

 

Yep, it's a good machine. You should do a re-compile of marlin though. Gotta have that thermal runaway protection

 

Nice

Another bit of advice, look into stainless steel nozzles. Much better. I personally found the copper ones it comes with tend to wear out fairly quickly, especially if you forget to level the bed and drag it few times

I got mine on ebay, think was like $14 for 2 or something? 0.4mm stainless steel nozzles

 

Prusa just released a mini version which brings the price down to $349

https://blog.prusaprinters.org/original-prusa-mini-is-here-smart-and-compact-3d-printer/

 

Also of note, they talk about an upcoming release of a CoreXY 400mm^3 printer. I'll be keeping my eyes peeled for that one.