Option on a 3D Printer on a $500 budget

Hi,

I am new to 3D printing. I have built a CNC router from a kit (1 zillion easy to assemble pieces, and X-Carve from Inventables), so I'm a little familiar with the fun of squaring up parts, tensioning belts, and the like.

I have about 500 bucks to spend on a 3d printer. I'd prefer one that doesn't require a *ton* of tinkering but can still be upgraded over time. I'd like to at least be able to get started and do some things before I start playing with upgrades and such. I'll be honest that after spending several hours reading articles and looking at video reviews I am at a loss to pick from all the options out there, so looking for a bit of guidance. I understand that every printer has its fans, and none are perfect.

So far, I've been considering printers like...

Creality Ender 5
Creality CR-10 V2 or V3
Tronxy X5SA

Not in that particular order and those brands only because I see them listed so often. So, happy to hear about other providers as well.

I've read that if you want to print ABS, you need to have an enclosed printer in order to control temperature. Is that true? Not that ABS is required, just keeping my options open.
I've read that a self-leveling bed is a good thing. True? do they actually work?
Same idea with heated beds. Same idea with restarting print jobs.
I've heard that some use older firmware versions?

I get that some of the pricing is based on the volume that can be printed.

While I've done a bit of programming with my CNC router, I admit that I mostly look for pre-written code I can use for my own projects with minor modifications.

Maybe I'm asking way too much here, and if so, I apologize. I'm more than happy to do the homework if someone can point me in the right direction, but it'd also be really helpful to have some "I have this one and have good experience with it", or "everyone alive thinks this one sucks". Basically is there any consensus on which ones are good ones to work with that don't require a degree in electrical engineering (well, okay, I actually have a degree in electrical engineering, but that was a long time ago; I was more a software guy, I'm retired now but I've got a soldering iron and know how to use it :-)) to start working with.

Thanks for any guidance you might be able to provide.

Ron

First I will point out that I currently have 6 fdm 3d printers that cover all the popular forms of FDM printing:
cartesian, I3. delta and corexy.

The corexy is the newest and - quite frankly - blows all the tohers out of the park for speed, quality, build quality, noise (it's virtually silent) build volume and just about anything else you can think of except (lol) manufacturer support. Which with your budget you should not expect anyway :-)

So I will make the case for a twotrees sapphire pro 2 corexy. Runs at around $330.
It will work perfectly fine as it comes.
I printed three things and converted mine to a direct drive extruder, changed the firmware - a case of putting files on an sdcard and powering p. And I added a microsd to standard sd adaptor. I just find the microsd cards too damn fiddly and I have a lot of small old sd cards around.

In the last month I have thrown prints at it that none of the other printers can print reliably and it's just chuckled and said: is that all you got ?'

It's got a great motherboard, good power supply and an absolute beast of a solid frame., plus good linear rails and silent stepper drivers.

For the money it's a phenomenal bit of kit.

They also make a larger machine the sapphire plus at around $500, that has a larger build volume and probably a more stable bed setup.
Though as I can knock out a fully working iris box at 150mm/s - I don't think is a necessity.

There is NOTHING out there for the money - or indeed a lot more money, that even comes close.

It does have a very nice touch screen and should you want to you can add a wifi module if you want to. But a raspberry pi and octoprint tends to be a better option.

It's not fancy - but it just does the job stupidly fast and with amazing precision.

And you have the added advantage of being able to pm me with endless queries :-)
I've spent about $15 on a pei sheet and sd card adaptor and desinged a few mods. And I don't foresee ever having to do anything else to it - ever again :-)
But if you want to piss about - there are no end of people on the facebook group who spend their time coating gold bricks with lead and then complaining when the totally unnecessary 'upgrade' doesn't work as well as the original part :-)

So that's what I'm pushing this season: twotrees sapphire pro 2.

As far as abs goes - it's not worth bothering with. But there's nothing stopping you putting the machine in a large box lined with polystyrene sheets.
Pla and Pet-g is better on almost all accounts and the sapphire prints pet-g like a total champ :-)

My thread:
https://3dprintboard.com/showthread....corexy-printer

Thanks so much for the response. Much appreciated.

I'm going to read this a couple more times to digest it a bit, take a look at the printer you recommend, and might take you up on your offer of asking a couple of more questions. :-)

Thanks again.

Ron

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

And you have the added advantage of being able to pm me with endless queries :-)

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I might take you up on that :)Thanks for that advice, it does look very good, for a Chinese build.I will trust you on the mobo as well.

no worries, pm ahead :-)

I haven't got round to uploading my stls for the filament holder and direct drive adaptor yet - but I can send them to you, no problem.
Likewise the simplify3d profiles i use.

They are pretty much all you need. I did print a couple simple belt tensioners - but have yet not bothered to fit them.

The firmware I'm using has a few little niggles. It won't save any settings between power cycles - probably the most annoying - but it takes me about 10 seconds to change the default pre-heat temps.
And I find that if you use the pre-heat from the printer contrl panel I get both bed and printhead to temp in under 2 minutes.

And I have yet to work out how to make it accept any changes made to the confiduration file. But I think that's just the standard bollocks you get with ALL marlin setups. It really is my least favourite firmware.
But it works and it works well - so it is what it is :-)

I generally set the pre-heat off just before I tell it what model to print. The quickest way to do it.

I also drop the printbed 100mm after each print. This insures I can easily get at the print but also the time it takes to re-home the printbed is long enogh so that the PID crap has finished see-sawing the printhead temperature and is ready to print.

I second the nomination for the Two Trees Sapphire Pro. Here is what I did to modify it to get some really nice ABS printswith all of these additions I'm about $ 450.00 in.Changed out the hot end to a E3D V6 all metal changed out the firmware to MarlinAdded BL Touch sensorAdded glass plate to compensated for the concave aluminum plateAdded corrugated plastic sheeting to all sidesI drilled a hole in the top left hand corner to route the cables through.this helps to get a good seal on the back coverWhat needs to be done but there is no hurrychange out the noisy power supply fan

Hi,So, after some adventures, I've almost got the Sapphire Plus assembled. But, I've still got a couple of questions.The printer came with 2 z-axis limit switches, as well as a component labeled "3D Touch". The interesting thing about the 3D Touch is that it's not on the list of components in the inventory for the assembly instructions and the cable that is supposed to attach it to the motherboard is, well, really really wrong, ie, too short, wrong connectors. It's also not included in the instructions. And, it doesn't actually fit where it's supposed to be mounted on the extruder, which required some finagling as well. I managed to fabricate a cable that will work, but Two Trees tech support is telling me that it uses the same slot as the plugs for the z-axis limit switches, so it appears that you have to pick one or the other. Do you guys know if the 3D Touch is supposed to be superior, or just different? I'll try to add a couple of picture so you can see what I'm talking about.There's a part in the inventory called "material detection" which is supposed to determine when you've hit the end of the filament spool, but there's no instructions for using it, and no bracket for attaching it to the printer. From what I've seen online, people have used their 3d printer to manufacture a bracket that they used. From looking at youtube videos, I've kinda figured out where it goes, but right now I've just got it attached with a zip tie. The instructions for the 2 timing belts are kind of sketchy, but I've been able to find enough info on youtube to I think get them installed. Next, while the printer did come with some semi-useful assembly instructions, there are no operating instructions at all. I can see the power switch and a place to plug in a flash drive. it came with the flash drive that is supposed to have some examples to print. I can see how the filmanet needs to feed, but not sure if there are any tricks to loading it. Are the operating instructions based on the firmware and are those documented anywhere? I'm happy to do the homework, just need a place to start. I did find a video that describes how to use the print head and a piece of paper to get the printing platform set up, so that's something. (That's a process similar to what I do with my milling machine to get it set up). Whew! Anyway, the plan at this point is to the put the 3DTouch aside for right now, attach the timing belts, and see if it'll fire up (well, not literally). Any guidance would be really appreciated. Thanks for your time and reading my sad story. :-)Ron

Thanks. I too am looking for my first printer. Now you just threw out another option to confuse the issue more. I enjoy researching my options. It helps me decide how I want my printer configured and future upgrades.

Hi,There's another thread about this printer of mine in the "tips" section. Basically, debugging little challenges that have popped up along the way. They're supposed to be sending me a replacement part for a component that seems to not be working. The folks from Two Trees in China are being as helpful as then can be, so it's mostly a matter of working through the time change and language differences. The printer itself is really solidly built as far as I can tell.