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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: July 9th, 2023

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  • I own the Sovol SV06, it was my first printer but it was also the cheapest option for me ($169 IIRC). The Sovol has given me two problems in the entire time I used it:

    1. When it came in, the extruder was jammed. Wouldn’t print or extrude any filament for some reason. Followed a 2 minute video on Sovol’s Amazon page to resolve it (although it did involve disassembling the hotend).

    2. The extruder decided to encase itself in plastic one day when I printed something on it. That was a bitch and a half to clean, had to take a heat gun to it to soften the plastic then scrape it off without burning myself. My best guess is it was caused by me forgetting to run bed leveling after moving the printer a bit, hasn’t happened again.

    Other than those two times it just works every time I need it. It was sitting dormant for ~3 months and I just kicked off a print yesterday, no problems. Fired right up and everything printed perfectly.

    With that said, is it €239 of “Just works”? Probably not. I immediately couldn’t do some prints I planned because of the build volume (although all three of your options have the same build volume). So I’m already considering upgrading to an SV06 Plus. So check some of what you want to print that it’ll fit in 220x220x250.

    I did some research on your other options and as far as I can tell, the main difference between them and the Sovol is the all metal hotend and print speed.

    Sovol SV06 has an all-metal hotend so you can print high temperature filaments (PETG/TPE/CFN/etc) without worry (does require a harder nozzle most likely though). The other two seem to have some metal but are not fully metal, so if you want to hop into the more exotic materials you’ll have to upgrade those.

    Second is speed, my SV06 prints at 80 mm/s. It is slow. Smallest prints take around 2-3 hours. My current print will be done after 24 hours. This is fine for me as most of my prints need complex geometry, so I’d rather it take longer and be accurate than run it too fast. The others claim a max speed of 250mm/s which would be a bit over 3x faster than the Sovol. If they can actually print at that speed without looking awful, that’s a pretty big upgrade time-wise.

    If you need exotic filaments and don’t want to upgrade the hotend yourself for it then consider the Sovol. Other than that, the price in your region makes it not an option in my opinion. The Sovol just is a budget printer, only makes sense at budget prices. The Kobra and Ended you mentioned look very similar other than that, they both have auto bed leveling (a must have), same build size, very similar designs. Personally I’d lean towards the Ender, just for the community support. But do some research and see how many community member posts you see online resolved with the two. They seem to be functionally identical to me otherwise (just looking at a spec sheet, I do not have irl experience with either of these printers)


  • Not discounted currently (I’m not convinced BF/CM aren’t all fake), but I recently got a Sovol SV06 for ~$209 from Amazon and had seen it at that price for several months, so it’ll probably come back down again.

    I had one minor issue but the troubleshooting video on the Amazon page showed me how to fix it, and it’s been printing like a champ with no issues so far. FDM printer (i.e., not resin) with an all metal hotend so it can handle more exotic/stronger filament types. The auto bed leveling is also super great, most Enders don’t come with that and from what I’ve heard bed leveling is a bitch.

    Also it’s been my only 3D printer ever so I don’t have much of a reference point except the ones we had in university that were almost always broken. (Or at the least unlevel)


  • Owning a ghost gun is a crime, right?

    (Ignoring the fact that “ghost gun” is a meaningless and intentionally emotionally charged term)

    In New York, yes. In the vast majority of the US, no. It’s illegal to file the serial number off an existing firearm, but 100% legal in most states to manufacture your own unserialized firearms for personal use. Just cannot be sold/transferred.

    I’d note the article you linked says nothing about how many of those are actually 3D printed, it is infinitely easier to deface the serial number on an existing firearm than it is to 3D print one.


  • And no way can GM beat Apple or Android at a car interface.

    Poor marketing from GM, Google, and most automakers. A lot of the interfaces are still gonna be Android-based, they’re dropping Android Auto not Android Automotive. Android Automotive being the actual OS that most car infotainment displays come with these days, and is made by Google. Android Auto is just the ability to connect your phone and project it to the display.

    Still a shit move, but GM has nowhere near the capability to actually build a good infotainment OS from the ground up.


  • I can’t speak for the licensing costs of Android Auto or Apple CarPlay, I have no idea what they are.

    But I do work in the automotive industry as an engineer. The sentiment is very much that it’s about getting customer subscriptions and customer data, to build recurring revenue streams that wouldn’t be possible if people are able to just use their phone and its apps on their infotainment display.

    GM at least I know is sticking to Android Automotive, which is built by Google and they pay for anyway. Android Auto and Carplay are just additional functionality built on top of Android Automotive (the naming is bad - Android Automotive is the Google Android-based OS for car displays, Android Auto is the projection tech/api), they’re quite literally removing existing features on a product they’re already paying for.

    I highly doubt Google is giving them a huge discount to cut those features, and if they are getting any it’s dwarfed by how much they want to make through subscription services to use your car.


  • Integrating Android Auto into Android Automotive is even easier than CarPlay, and GM is dropping it as well. It’s quite literally a built-in feature of Android Automotive that has to be actively removed.

    (Just to keep the distinction clear: Android Automotive == A Google Android-based interface for car infotainment, Android Auto == An API for projecting your phone screen and relevant apps to an infotainment display)

    It’s 100% about extracting revenue from customers by forcing them to use the manufacturer’s infotainment ecosystem and charge for recurring subscriptions to things your phone will do for free (and in an actually upgradeable manner).