Driving to the makerspace to pick up parts is a bit of a hassle, so I’m looking at printers. Buying direct from prusa comes with a pretty steep shipping cost. Is there a USA based reseller?
Alternatively, are there any used Prusas out there? I’ve thought about an ender but I love how fuss free Apollo and Hermes are. The two friends I know that have Enders are often quite frustrated with them.
If you mod the ender. It is a very capable printer. I have a parts list I like if you are interested.
-Pei spring steel bed
-bl touch
-dual z axis kit
-get rid of the springs. go with solid standoffs after installing bltouch
-board upgrade
You could check printedsolid but I don’t think they are stocking Prusa’s stateside yet. In my personal opinion I say spend the cash and buy a Bambu Lab X1C or X1. My second place would be a Prusa MK3s or Mini, then go for ender series.
I can teach a 1:1 building an ender, configuring the firmware, additional mods and calibration tips. We would go over what you want to do, your budget for mods and the user experience. We have used/returned unbuilt Enders at the space that are included with this class for this purpose.
I have an Ender Pro. Works great for making shop jigs and tool holders. That said, I had to do some modifications as Joe suggests and Randall helped me a ton tuning and diagnosing issues. I’m into it for under $200, however in retrospect I would have been better off spending the extra $ on a Prusa when my time is factored in. My understanding is the Prusa and Ender are similar capability wise, however the Prusa is much more plug and play. The Bambu would be a significant upgrade. Just depends on your budget, what you want to make, and how high you need the print quality to be.
I’ve never regretted my choice of an Ender 3. It costs me $99 from microcenter, took about 40 minutes to put together, and has been printing flawlessly since with the exception of a clogged nozzle (not the printer’s fault). I also have a used CR10 S with an auto bed leveling system ($150) for larger prints and while it works very well it’s quite finicky and usually takes about 10 minutes to get started when trying to get the first layer tuned in. After that it prints beautifully. I just have a hard time seeing myself justify a printer that costs 8x - 10x as much.
I agree with the Ender 3 assessment. If you’re printing ALL the time, then it might be worth it spend $800 or $1000 to have one that just works, every time. But with my print frequency, which comes in bursts and spurts but usually isn’t more than a few times a week, or a few times a month really, it’s perfect. I’ve almost never had issues with the printer itself, 99% of the time it’s just bed level issues which I could fix with a BLTouch. The upgrades do of course increase the price, but it’s still much cheaper than others. My upgrade list is as follows:
I feel that glass bed is a regression more than an upgrade at this point compared to a pei plate. A good PEI means no tape,glue hairspray for most materials and treatment is only needed for more difficult materials like PP, Nylon, Etc.
Also using silicon spacers over springs means you aren’t adjusting every few prints if you are using an ABL.
You’re probably right about that, I got the glass bed a couple of years ago and didn’t know about those PEI plates. The glass bed is nice because it’s much flatter than the stock ender3 bed; before I’d level the corners and the center would still be off by a lot. Perhaps I could use a PEI plate on top of the glass. And good point, need to add ABL sometime in my future.
To fix this problem I just shim the magnetic bed with some post it notes. A flexible bed is absolutely non-negotiable for me and I’ll never go back to scraping
I made aluminum spacer for my bed springs. I made the bl touch mesh map and use active leveling and haven’t look back. My printer is very reliable and in a high use environment.
The Ender 3 S1 is a no fuss Creality option w/ ABL stock. The friend I know that has one loves it.
I am very happy with my Ender 5 but it’s more mod than Creality at this point. (Mutant v2 w/ Hemera, E3D v6 0.8mm, or Micro Swiss hot end; Bltouch; Wham Bam PEI coated bed; linear rails; Meanwell PSU, BTT main board)
If I had Prusa money I would make a Voron, Rat Rig, or Hypercube evolution. If you are going to print a lot Klipper and a CoreXY seem like the way to go.
For me, time is my biggest constraint so having something just work out of the box with no tweaks is very appealing to me. I’ve look at the X1 but it’s price has been a bit of a deterrent.
I’ll look into the Ender S1 and some of the other options mentioned here
