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!
The issue is Crealty makes price point products. Maybe you get a good one or an OK one, a kind of bad one, or a dumpster fire. And there is no way to know what you are going to get, to get the results any one user is expecting - even if you consult Tarot Cards…And add in the total lack of support it can be more than a little bit of a gamble to buy.
My personal opinion is, if money is that tight that’s the best you can afford, then you can’t really afford cheap - let alone the ongoing costs of 3D printing, (upgrades, repairs, and filament ain’t free). And since it’s very often new users looking to get into the hobby, (which is great), they have no idea just what the learning curve is like when things go wrong. And how fussy it can be to make those failures go away. That shiny new cheap printer that provided that quick dopamine hit when you first unboxed it, can quickly become a point of never ending frustration and a bit of a money sink for a new user.
Overall, buy what you like. I’m certainly not paying for it. But not a lot of people have ever regretted the “Buy once, cry one” approach.
Hmm I know there used to be the issue with the aluminum beds being warped – mine is like that but was resolved with some layers of aluminum foil under the glass to flatten it out. And I do hear occasionally of someone getting a unit with an incorrectly cut rail length, but they’ve always just called Creality and gotten a replacement without any hassle. I haven’t heard of anyone having trouble with their customer service though, so I’m not sure what changed there, but that’s unfortunate that you had trouble with them.
I do agree about the hit-or-miss quality though. My own experience was the first glass bed I got from them was absolutely fantastic, nothing else beats the adhesion I had there. Then after a few years when the coating wore out I ordered a new one from them… and nothing will stick to that bed without using hairspray/glue/etc, so what’s the point? I finally settled on a slab of G10 with a PEI sticker which has worked well, but just the fact that the two glass beds which should have been identical says a lot about their quality control. I would say anyone getting an order from them should not expect a working machine right out of the box, however replacement parts have been easy to obtain for most people. And since you have to assemble these yourself, you definitely need to pay close attention to the online videos (I used the one from Tomb of 3D Horrors) to make sure everything is properly squared up, otherwise you’ll have nothing but trouble if you just slap them together.