Need help choosing a 3d printer

hello everyone, im not to sure where to ask this but im hoping someone on here could help me
so im very new to 3d printing never used one before, however i have started to get into cosplay prop/weapon replica design and i was looking for a good 3d printer for doing weapon replicas from movies and games etc
someone told me i should get a CR10s Pro because of the large print space and the automatic bed level but the reviews seemed to be very mixed, i am hoping to a find a printer that i dont hve to spend weeks fixing or sorting issues on, just something that is reliable i have a budget of $600

I will be watching this carefully because that was my goal about a year ago and spent more than double that. I did achieve the goal but would like to know what is now available as rock solid at a low price.

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Originally Posted by airscapes

I will be watching this carefully because that was my goal about a year ago and spent more than double that. I did achieve the goal but would like to know what is now available as rock solid at a low price.

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the CR10s Pro seems fantastic but because im a newbie at this i have no idea how trust worthy the company is as its a chinese brand, there seems to be lots of good reviews and what not but i've also seen lots of people saying they had to spend months and $100s sorting issues out, problem i have is i dont know which side to belive

I was looking for the same help then I found this article https://10unbiased.com/best-3d-printers-reviews/ It helped me get to know how to buy a 3D printers and what are the latest printers out there.

Hi,

I have just pulled the trigger and am waiting for the delivery of my #1 3d printer. fwiw i opted for the creality ender 3.

I will admit to allowing utubes probably sponsored content, sway my decision. but the factors i considered prime were/are:

Cost (?160 delivered via gearbest germany - no vat risk till the end of the month..)
Expected speed/time to get the machine into functional production.
(Involving a lot of learning, and 3d printing of printer additions/fixes of which the ender 3 seems to 'Need' only a few)
Cost of expected near future upgrades.
Motor drivers for quieting down, main board for enabling driver upgrade and expanding features
self levelling bed upgrade

In short i wanted a cheap as possible introduction to 3d printing with a machine that should get me up and running as quickly as possible with a full basic feature set and ability to print small useful components mainly enclosures etc for home automation solutions based on esp dev boards and Pi-0 servers.

If i made a good decision or not ? well time will tell, and my post count in here may soon become an indicator of how much trouble i have..

well that was probably a huge mistake fil.
ender 3's are the single most problematical printer around at the moment.
it doesn't help that they use the worst i3 design out there.
It seems like every day we have someone else on here, who's been suckered in by the 3 people in the world who have working ender 3's and make youtube videos.

the cr10s pro - has the same crappy bed design, single central rail, mounted on sideways wheels. basically the bed will never ever be completely level.
However because it uses aluminium extrusion, you can probably mount a couple of side rod and bearing supports. I'd do that.
Actually I'd never buy an i3 with that design in the first place :-)

If you are going to buy an i3 - basically an open framed printer where the bed moves in the x dimension and the printhead in the y & z(or the other way round). Then make sure the bed has rods and bearings on both edges to keep it stable.
One reason I bought the ctc i3 pro b - cheapest printer in the uk, But fundamentally based on a good design.
I bought it to mod and keep the overall cost under ?100. And it's nearly ready for work. I certainly didn't expect it to work as it came. to be fair, it actually did - but once I've finished the mods and sorted the gcode out, it's going to be a really useful workhorse.
But I would never buy an i3 with just the central support for the bed. The larger the print volume, the more hassle you're going to have with it.
I've played with horizontal wheel mounts and they seem stable. but bear in mind that even a 0.1mm wobble - which won't be discernible to the human senses - out at the edges of the bed, can bugger your print up.
And it doesn't matter whether you have auto bed levelling or not, it's going to wobble - so the auto levelling is practically irrelevant.

Back to printing large items for cosplay:- Invest more money.
A good cosplay prop will sell for hundreds of dollars, so look on the printer as a serious investment.
Once you get good at making items for yourself - sell them to other people, you'll recoup your printer cost pretty quickly.
realistically you need a printer with dual printheads. Soluble supports will be your very bestest friend.
The near perfect machine is a formbot t-rex2 - not cheap, but huge build volume, independant dual extruders and a whole host of cool features.
https://www.formbot3d.com/formbot-la...ize_p0018.html

The other thing it's worth looking at - which is Tevo little monster: https://tevo3dprinterstore.com/produ...3d-printer-kit
Very good price, not dual extruders, but large volume and delta print speeds.
tevo's i3's are all based on the central wheel rail design, so I'd avoid them.

Cheers curious_aardvark, probably not the last newbie error i make, hopefully small and centrally located prints will mitigate the design flaw. apologies to the OP for the minor thread hijack..

good luck :-)

there is a lot of great 3d printers out there it all depends on the style you want to go for a good beginner machine would be fdm Cartesian cr10s is a good option and filament start of with pla

I also want to know how to choose a 3d printer and thanks to discus this topic

well with luck I'll be getting a sovol direct drive i3 for reviewing soon. It has the central rail design - the only thing it shares with the ender 3 design, so I'll be able to do a direct compare and contrast.
There are an awful of printers around with the same bed design - it can't be as bad as I believe, we'll see :-)
My ctc is now work ready.
Couple of gcode tweaks still needed, but I've been printing at delta speeds with it. It's had about ?10 worth of mods (okay I might have cheated slightly - not everybody has access to free aluminium slabs ;-). All electronics, hardware etc is original. The tensionless/springless extruder is surprisingly good. Even that's original.
Going to be interesting comparing the world's cheapest i3 printer with a wooden frame against a midrange i3 with aluminium extrusion frame.

just don't get an ender 3. Almost every other printer on the market will give you fewer problems.

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Originally Posted by Lawsyst

I also want to know how to choose a 3d printer and thanks to discus this topic

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You should choose your printer by the frame. Plain and simple. Aluminum extrusion seems to be the best of the day. And while a lot of printers are using the 2020 extrusion, my Tevo Black Widow uses thick 4020 extrusion and it does make the frame rigid. The beauty of aluminum extrusion is it is so strong and so easy to add stuff to and work with in general. You might want to make sure your printer has the build size you like. This is actually a part of the frame selection. Because everything else is just parts. And the printers come with the cheapest parts on them. All of them do. And as time progresses with our printers and we try to make them print better we will change some, most, or all parts to include stepper motors, control boards, extruders, power supplies, heatbeds, screens, belts, fans, etc. These are all cheap items that can be upgraded easily and doing so makes for great first projects for our new hobby.

I will be watching this carefully because that was my goal about a year ago and spent more than double that.