I want to buy a 3D printer for about 200-250€ but I’m unsure which one to get. There are printers that a lot of people recommend but others say they’re a piece of garbage.
The ones I found so far are these:
- Creality Ender 3 V3 SE - 182,94€
- Anycubic Kobra 2 Neo - 199,00€
- Sovol SV06 - 239,00€
There’s also the open source firmware Klipper, which a lot people recommend but from what I understand, you need a Raspberry Pi for that. I do have a Pi 4 that I was planning to sell that I could use for that instead.
Would be great if some of you who know more than me could help me decide what to get.
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Ender 3v2 as starter here, doubled the price with a lot of upgrades/modifications. Got it running rock solid with Klipper and a microswiss direct drive.
Grabbed the piggy bank and am now really satisfied with my voron 2.4.
But very pleased with the fact I started with the Ender and got to learn then basics.
As far as I can suggest anything; start with something with a large installed base, so it will be easy to find answers or (hardware) solutions to your problems. I can tell you, the installed base for Ender is large, but the quality of the hardware, is what you pay. And they are cheap…
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:
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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).
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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)
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I had the Ender 3 v2. Enjoyed it but never was able to get it dialed in and something would often go wrong. Taught me many things about 3d printing. There were many upgrades available, but ended up using that money to save for a Bambu Lab X1c.
I got an elegoo neptune 3 pro on black Friday deal for $189 and ive been happy with it. It has auto leveling and the ability to put klipper (I haven’t done it yet but I’m 99% you can). Its my first 3d printer and fairly beginner friendly but still a little learning curve. Its not perfect but for around $200 I’m happy with it and I’ll be saving money to get a better printer at some point probably but have no real rush to as this one is decent.
If I had to recommend anything it would be to not get an ender. Aside from literally not changing a single thing about them for the past decade, they’re so cheap you’re going to struggle to accomplish anything with them. Spend a little more money and worry less. Look for printers on sale.
How did you manage to get an ender 3 10 years ago while they were launch around 2018 😂. Wild guess is that you didn’t mount it with care, which often end up with countless issues and blaming printer part is easy. If it was such a bad printer, you would not encounter printers farm using it.
It was definitely not a plug and play printer (they were not any at that time), but you could/can achieve same quality print as a thousand €/$ printer, the worst thing on it was his plastic extruder (10€ and 10 minutes to replace it), and the best thing on it is that you can customise it to your wish unlike any other printer and this was due to the vast amount of people who loved it. I still have an old 3 pro and it is rock solid, I sometimes don’t use it for a whole year but each time I plug it back, i only clean and level the bed and it is good to go. (as I have a cr6-se which is also awesome by the way)
That being said, I can’t tell how the most recent ender 3 versions does as I have only tried ender 3, 3 pro and 3V2.
I’ve never owned an ender 3, so you claiming “you didn’t mount it with care” is pretty obvious owner blaming. I spent inordinate amounts of time on forums helping people with their shitty Enders and yes, they are shitty. When it takes the same amount of money in parts to fix the machine, then it’s a bad machine. Maker’s muse has a fantastic video on a lot of the problems with Enders that literally haven’t ever been fixed in all the years of production. https://youtu.be/k4Cc_3G4mpc
You can easily see that Enders aren’t good just by looking at posts of successful good builds. Take note of how many of them are modified and how many are stock. There’s vanishingly few stock Enders that are able to print decently out of the box.
A s maker’s muse said “it’s not a good 3d printer, and it’s certainly not a fast 3d printer”.
My bad, misread as I understood that you spend last decade fixing each part. As I said ender 3 from something around 2018-2019 were very great for the price but maybe quality has decreased since. Might be better choice today
Here is an alternative Piped link(s):
https://piped.video/k4Cc_3G4mpc
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source; check me out at GitHub.
I’m not trying to bash any of these — just trying to expand your options. Have you looked at any used models of other printers?
Used might be a bad idea if they’re new to printing. Few things are as frustrating as a printer on the fritz
Good point.
I used to have an Ender. It was great, very few problems. Ended up needing to sell it while I traveled for residency, then ended up getting a soval. I like it even more. Set up was super easy, prints are great. Only issue I’ve had was needing to replace the hot end because I boogered it up and completely encased it in plastic. On the plus side, changing the hot end was fast and easy.
Seconding this. I had a rock solid Ender 3 since 2018 that got a few upgrades (btt 32 bit silent board, geared extruder, abl, couple of printed add ons) but never really needed any maintenance, recently upgraded to a Sovol SV07 Plus (big SV07, mechanically similar to the SV06) and hot damn! It’s a beast. Not only it goes stupid fast, can reach higher temperatures, heats faster… but it’s great out of the box and it prints TPU like nothing. Really, I tested it without changing anything and it worked fine. Downsides are that I got used to Octoprint and it can’t be used here, but Klipper is a decent replacement. Now, the ugly bit about that: it’s running on a really cheap board and an oddly customized os. You don’t notice any of that normally so that’s a plus, HOWEVER if like me you have a Spaghetti Detective/Obico account things change. There’s some copy paste to do via ssh, then the webcam struggles to hit 15 fps and whatever you do DON’T push any update button! Those wrecked everything. Not a fun few hours when I tried to figure out how to fix it.
Anyway the SV06 mentioned by OP is with Marlin rather than Klipper so none of the warnings apply :D
Ender 3 Pro used with large wheel upgrade as a starter. Upgraded the hot end and extruder. Prints beautifully. Looking to add a CR Touch soon. But I learned manual bed leveling and can do it fairly quickly. You can get great prints from Enders you just need to understand what causes what and there are a bazillion videos that go over that. It’s like learning to drive a manual car first then drive automatics. Great starter printer.
BambuLab A1 mini without AMS. The A1M-NY-10 code might still work (would be 280€).
From the list provided the Creality Ender 3 V3 SE is the best option.
I’d avoid all the anycubics except for the basic Kobra 2. All the new Kobra 2 models seem to be locked down with proprietary firmware and locked to their own platform, but the basic Kobra 2 is completely open as can be easily flashed with e.g. Klipper.
I have the Kobra 2 with klipper running instead of anycubics firmware, and it’s OK. Its obviously a cheap printer, so don’t expect excellence, but I’m satisfied with it as my first printer.
Check out Elegoo as well. I’ve had better luck with elegoo than anycubic.
I have the Sovol SV07, and it came with Klipper, but it also stopped extruding, so I don’t know if that’s a good recommendation.
I’m really happy with my FLSUN Q5 printer, it’s a small easy to use machine with auto bed leveling. It’s not for sale anymore, but you can pick up some of their newer machines for around 200€ pre-owned, or if you have the time, wait for one of their frequent sales to come around to pick up a new machine.
Check out what voxelab has.
You can check in your area for the price of second hand MK3S.
In my area they are around 300-350€ but you might get lucky and find one in your budget.
