Cheers for the detailed reply. Sort of makes me think the Ender 3 might be a good idea to cut my teeth on. Still a little way off getting my workspace sorted, so will keep reading/learning.
I'd possibly go for the ender 5, good improvements over the ender 3 for not much price difference, and it will give agood consistent print with a bit of research.
Actually ordered a Prusa Mk3s and cancelled it in favor of the Artillery. Setting up a Artillery Genius (~$470) right now, which is a smaller Sidewinder ($620). I don't expect to need the larger print volume and appreciate the more compact size. It's also much cheaper than the Prusa Mk3s, which came in around the ~$1400 mark, after shipping, GST and customs. Started with a Flashforge Dreamer NX, and found the enclosed design hard to run maintenance on, and I no longer have any plans to use filaments that require a heated enclosure. It's also pretty noisy, even after adding shock absorbing mounts to the steppers. Flashprint, the slicing software that comes with it is pretty good, though I think Simplify 3d (pricey!) is the only other slicer that will work with it. Print quality is pretty good and more importantly, reliable - I can hit print and walk away after making sure I haven't forgetten anything important e.g. putting down the spring steel PEI sheet on the heated bed. Main requirements for the Flashforge replacement were quiet stepper motors and drivers, ability to use most slicers, and ease of modification. Artillery print quality out of the box apparently ranges between pretty close to the Prusa, or complete rubbish, depending on how lucky you get. So far, I've seen stripped screws (replaced with screws next gauge up and longer), untightened set screws on the z axis lead screw and stepper coupling, an untensioned x axis belt, and a linear rail guide wheel which had a touch of slop. Quiet stepper motors drivers are a huge quality of life improvement. Had flooding, then a 4 day power outage just after the printer arrived , looking forward to powering it up when I get home in a couple of days. No idea what to do with the Flashforge, and all the spares for it in the meantime, they're all different to the Artillery. It's unlikely I'm going to need to run both at the same time.
https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Crealit...147862?hash=item522102c4d6:g:gD8AAOSwjvxdTS~n Would this be any good for a beginner?
Looks like a good package. Not sure that the upgrades over an Ender 3 Pro justify the additional cost, most of it is just the Bltouch and those are only about $50...mechanically it looks like it's exactly the same printer?
its not a bad option!- the upgraded mean well power supply is a good step up from the ender3, just keep in mind not all the mods for the ender3 will fit the cr20s- so you might need to learn CAD to make your own mods. It might be loud unless it has the upgraded stepper mainboard too. but keep in mind these printers are made to a price- there are things they cut coners in so you will be tinkering to maintain stuff like the teflon lined hotend- also if you have birds in the house might not wana print above 200c teflon can offgass - or swap to allmetal hotend asap
As a beginner who’s just like to start at a good level and not need to tinker too much straight off the bat having most of the mod improvements from the ended 3 already done is appealing. Plan to anyway - I got all sorts of little things I want to make. I’m happy with knowing there will be maintenance and tinkering involved. What price point do you start not needing to do that kind of thing so much? Would anyone have concerns buying from that specific eBay store?
Pretty much any 3D printer. Maintenance is something all printers will need. How often depends on how much you use it. (Stuff like lubing the bearings, checking all connectors are still secure etc (Particularly the heated bed) (Connectors can come loose on 3D printers due to the vibrations) I have an Original Prusa Mk3 + MMU2. My Mk3 kit set me back about $1000AU but due to the australian dollar going down thats more these days and also has gone over the threshold that customs will get it on the way through so fee for them and for the GST. Unfortunately they end up as about $1400AU now. (Just due to currency / customs as the printers price hasn't changed). The MMU2 was obviously more but love the ability it gives me to print things in multicolours / materials. Theres a really big Facebook Community for the original prusa that was great when I was getting started. My Mk3 is at a level that you don't need to tinker and gives good quality out of the box. I have tinkered a bit though. (Particularly on the MMU2 side of things to make that more reliable)
Anyone have or seen one of the flexible extruder drives? i.e. Flex3drive or Nimble? Looking to install a direct drive on my Ender 5. I have a Bondtech clone on the way and a pancake stepper but saw this on Teaching Tech and it looked interesting.
Ah thats all easy enough stuff. No worries needing to do that. I did look at them. They look super nice but nearly 3x the cost of the Creality printers... I am trying to decide now between Ender 5 Pro and CR-20 Pro. I just can't work out why sometimes the CR-20 Pro is referred to as CR-20s Pro and not others. CR-20 Pro seems to exist on Creality website but not the S.
It's good for the money. The upgrades would be quiet drivers which makes it pleasant to be in the same room with, and a direct driver extruder which is easier to dial in, and works better with flexible filaments.
Cool, thanks - I do keep coming back to this one. The price is pretty decent - Ender 3 plus doing all the mods might be slightly cheaper but this will be a bit less hassle. Only thing stopping me from pulling the trigger is trying to work out CR-20 Pro vs CR-20S Pro that ebay listing is for.
I can't find any reference to a CR-20S outside of the listings of Australian websites... kinda feels like the distributor made a typo?
It certainly seems like that could be the case... There's a CR-10S xxx so perhaps there's been some confusion there at some point. I'm thinking I'll pull the trigger on that CR-20'S' Pro from ebay and assume it'll show up with CR-20 Pro on the box lol. Edit: Well I joined the Creality official facebook group and asked what was going on with the S vs Non S and almost immediately an admin replied with the S models having a filament run out sensor.
yea i ran a mk3s for a while id say that or the wanhao duplicator 6 plus (with allmetal and abl) , any of the up! printers if ur ok with closed source have been the least maintained printers ive used
Creality CR-20S Pro and some 3D Fillie PLA+ just arrived at home today!! cant wait to get home and try to set up!
Got the CR-20 Pro up and running on the weekend. Pretty good result I think. Benchie looked okay. Not perfect but I just downloaded the STL, set std quality and let it rip. Rando PLA the thing came with. Designed and printed a replacement part for an X-ray cassette bracket for work. Fit perfectly. Then I gave this thing a crack. Not perfect, I think my temps were a bit low for the 3DFillies PLA+ but it functions pretty well. Some obvious print flaws though. Much more fiddling required.
Hey guys! So I grabbed an Ender 3 Pro on sale last week, and managed to get it together last night! I'm loving it! I'm waiting for my material to show up. Just have the stuff that originally came with the printer itself. So far I've printed 3 D&D terrain tiles and used all the material I want to be able to design my own tiles, as so far, they've got a solid shell but only 10% infill which is good. But i don't need a solid base on them... Just solid sides and top. What program is the best to make these changes? What's the best program to make my own from scratch? Any advice is appreciated!