Hi all.
My venerable ender 3 has likely printed it’s last benchy. Plus side, the tech has advanced significantly since I bought it. Down side, I’ve not kept track of the newer options.
Can anyone give me a rundown of which are worth looking at, and which to avoid?
I’m mostly concerned with reliability, but a speed boost would definitely be welcome. A heated chamber and/or multi material would also be very nice to have.
I would like to keep the costs closer to £500 ($680) but can stretch that, if there is a machine worth it.
I also have a complete no on bamboo printers. I don’t like what they’ve done regarding abuse of the open source movement.
Thanks all!
Edit to add. I’m not against non open source printers. I just have an issue with companies trying to burn the ladder behind them and lock their customers into a bubble.
Abuse of the open source movement? What did they do?
Not even playing lip service to supporting the open source stuff they built upon. They’ve also recently been trying to lockdown and paywall (or just drop) features. Including legal action against people trying to undo the damage.
The general sniff test is they are trying to lock people in before milking them for all they can.
To be fair though, the reason Bambu Lab printers work so well for most is in large part due to the walled garden approach.
I still disagree with it and will vote with my wallet by avoiding them, but I can see the appeal if you don’t know any better (or just don’t care!).
Prusa kind of tries to navigate both sides of the issue (not everything is open source anymore), so you can still get caught there.
Prusa has at least built up some credit with the community. Bambu came in planning on locking people in.
Agreed, what Bambu did is essentially steal the work of everybody and close it up, and go against anyone trying to reopen it.
In one of their more recent asshat moves:
https://www.tomshardware.com/3d-printing/developer-re-enables-3d-printer-features-that-bambu-lab-disabled-firm-promptly-threatens-legal-action-orcaslicer-bambulab-project-now-shuttered