Would be so kind as to suggest a printer for me? I have no experience at all with 3D printers or 3D modeling. But I am super interested and have electronics and coding knowledge. I would like to print things like brackets, enclosures for custom circuit boards, organizers, keyboard plates, etc. Ideally I would like to spend around $300USD, but I am open to going as high as $500USD if it would save me headaches and make the experience more enjoyable and streamlined.
Please suggest something for me and let me know if I didn’t provide enough information. One final note, I live in range of a microcenter if that is a factor.
As other people have mentioned, Prusa and Bambu make the most reliable printers on the market. The plus side to Bambu is the price. They are definitely cheaper than prusa printers.
However, I would make sure to be aware of the controversies surrounding Bambu. This is not a deal breaker for many people, but it wouldn’t be right not to at least take a glance at them. Especially considering you are on Lemmy.
This is where Prusa shines. They have not had nearly the same amount of controversies. Their hardware, firmware, and software are all open source. They also have amazing customer support. As others said, a used Prusa can be found within your price range.
This is just something to know of. I know a lot of people who are happy with both brands, and you can’t really go wrong either way. I just think this is another thing to consider.
What is the controversy? I’m probably as open source supporting as the next lemming.
I’m not fully in the loop, but I believe Bambu is pretty blatant about taking everything from the open source community and never giving back. And Josef Prusa even claims that Bambu Labs intentionally uploaded stolen models to Prusa’s site, Printables, in order to see how Prusa handles it - so Bambu can reverse engineer Prusa’s internal processes and clone them to Bambu’s new website, MakerWorld
Reddit comment link from Josef Prusa
In addition
They have filed some controversial/anti-innovative patents.
Their printers phone home with encrypted information. Last I checked, there were speculated security and privacy issues with it, though someone should correct me if this was resolved.
They only open source their slicer because of the GPL licence, but they don’t open source anything else (firmware, hardware, etc).
Again, I just recommend people look into these things before they buy a printer. Do your own research and come to your own conclusions :)
Bambu firmware is closed source. I’m 100% happy with my Bambu, but that being said, Prusa makes amazing printers. However, like everything else, it comes with a price. Buying used is an option, just note you’ll ideally want to see it in person and printing before plunking down cash. As good as their printers are, you could still be buying someone else’s problem.