Anyone into 3D printing?

[STAG]

Eastwood has a $200 3D printer on sale from I don't know .... a lot more.
Is it worth it If I want to jump in or should I save my pennies

For that money

 

[Gravy]

Looks almost identical to me.

Eastwood Genesis FDM 3D Printer

Affordable Quality 3D Printer To Make Parts at Home

www.eastwood.com

 

[1969honda]

From my limited experience working with my kids' printer, I would take @STAG's advice and get the Ender. There's a massive online support community for every issue you may run into.

 

[glockman]

My ender was around $175. It's printed several spools of pla and a spool of petg without a single hiccup. Id buy another one tomorrow if mine vanished.

 

[ebryson]

On an Ender 3 you can even print yourself parts and upgrades for it. Like @1969honda said massive online support for it.

 

[frieed]

Wow, what an intricate kit. 6lbs of screws, nuts, and bolts, 7 stepper motors, 4 fans. I bought printed parts with enough pieces to get the printer to run, but no embellishments. It is assembled, to the degree I have parts, wired, and initial smoke test (negative for smoke). I had preloaded the SD card on the Raspberry Pi and it's pretty cool to watch Linux boot in tiny little letters on the display (albeit upside down, for now). Tomorrow I'll work on getting MainSail and Klipper installed. Who knows, maybe even I'll be able to squirt some plastic.

If you squint really hard you can almost see the LED's glowing.
Bed heater is 120V 750W and is controlled by the solid state switch in the bottom left.

Top right is the raspberry pi (version 4b),
below that is the BigTreeTech Octopus 1.1,
bottom right is a breakout board for the cable to the print head and limit switches.
You can see 2 of the 4 Z-axis stepper motors to the top left and right.



The entire frame, upside down.

 

[STAG]

Breaking my own record 😂

 

[frieed]

first print is running



More parts for the printer



and done

 

[frieed]

second round, 9hr 37 min

 

[frieed]

I got the first layer dialed in now.. I am really amazed that a setting change of .005mm actually made a big difference.
Ignore the scratch I made in the process...




pretty happy with the results




and I like the large printer space

 

[glockman]

I have printer envy.

 

[TRD270]

I’m to dumb to keep my paper printer working properly…. Can’t even imagine how I’d screw this up 😂

 

[Stephen]

I’m to dumb to keep my paper printer working properly…. Can’t even imagine how I’d screw this up 😂

Why I Believe Printers Were Sent From Hell To Make Us Miserable - The Oatmeal

Behold, the printer hate machine.

theoatmeal.com

 

[N-Smooth]

I’m to dumb to keep my paper printer working properly…. Can’t even imagine how I’d screw this up 😂

Dude, same!

 

[Spork]

Get a brother laser printer and 95% of your printer problems will go away. I used to fight my old inkjet every time the kids needed to print something, I bought a brother printer 6 years ago and the only thing I've done since is add paper and replaced the toner cartridge every couple of years.

 

[glockman]

I've been an electronics tech for 25 years. Printers (the paper type) are definitely manufactured in hell as per Stephen's link. 3D printers are actually much easier to operate and maintain.

 

[Stephen]

I've been an electronics tech for 25 years. Printers (the paper type) are definitely manufactured in hell as per Stephen's link. 3D printers are actually much easier to operate and maintain.

Printers are the bane of any IT support tech. I'm sooooooo happy I don't deal with them anymore.

 

[RockChucker]

Been redoing the air supply for my lockers. Got a smokin deal on an arb twin about 6 months ago. Decided to change up and simplify. Solenoids are going away and moving to Humphrey poppet valves. Designed and printed up a mount for the valves and switches out of ASA.

 

[N-Smooth]

The manual valves are nice

 

[Corban_White]

So I'm looking at getting a 3d printer, but I'm a total noob and googling gives me lots of results. For a $200-$500 budget what's your recommendation? The ender 3 had several recommendations above, is that the way to go or is there a better option if I spend a little more?