Trying to move on, but how?

Hi everyone!
I'm totally new to this forum, just registered althought I have been 3D-printing and (What I call)"CAD-ing" for probably 3 years now. I have always been going with a Flashforge Finder (New-price ~5000 SEK(Swedish Krona ~ 9-11€), today maybe 3000 SEK) and it has always worked absolutey fine. Some problems but nothing I wasn't able to solve easily. Over the years though I have got to know new parts of the 3D-printing branch such as dual extrusion, larger and heated bed and new typed of plastic that requires their own special handling.

My dad and I came to the conclusion to sell my well done FF Finder to go on to something more advanced. I know I want a couple of things, more exactly a

• Fully enclosed environment for printing with ABS etc. that needs that little extra care
• Dual extrusion that can handle different types of plastic as well as different colours (of course)
• Larger printing bed horizontally(and hopefully vertically too)
• More or less intelligent system that's easy to manuevre and let's me have pretty much controll over the machine
• Preferably a touchscreen.

This is a lot different from the Finder, I know.

I've found a few printers, among others the:

• Flashforge Dreamer (The same brand that I have today that I trust, and this printer with just about the requirements I need) for a resonable price.
• Monoprice Inventor I that's only finable in Europe (A totally unknown brand for me, but it does have all i want plus a few extra good-to-have funtions. The only bad I've found is the printing speed at only 60mm/s instead of FF's 1100m/s).

Now I know there's a complete shitload of printers out there, but I want a concrete box, not a steel frame and I want a quite good-looking design. Not the Makerbot level (Or actually yes, but I can't afford :) ), but not the Creality level either (Creality is pretty good for the price, I know, but I don't have a good experience of open-source and DIY).

The price I'm looking for is a maximum of 1000€, but the mentioned printers is already at less.
So, my friends, what do you think would be something for me to look up? It'll take me a month or two to get the full amount of money, and when I've bought it I'll be totally bankrupt, so you can think of upcoming printer too.

I really hope this wasn't too much text and that I made a good first expression, and if I totally failed I'm sorry.

Thank you,

Ric

well creality are cheap and can be problematic, makerbot are massively overpriced and in recent years have been hampered by lots and lots of problems with their extruders. Also making machines without heated platforms.
Makerbot are pretty much just trading on old reputation.


qidi are where you need to be looking. Good company, quality machines and an excellent support dept.
the starting point would be the latest x-pro: https://www.amazon.co.uk/QIDI-TECHNO...9441391&sr=8-3
Does everything you want.
Not the largest build volume - but bigger than the finder.
But it does hit the spot on all other parameters :-)

Larger print volume dual extruders, are either going to be more expensive - or using something like mosaic or the prusa mmus, involve a fair bit of tinkering on your part.
https://www.mosaicmfg.com/
https://www.prusa3d.com/original-pru...-material-2-0/

I can't see any real issue adding either to an enclosed machine. You'll need a way for the filament to get inside, but you'd likely only need a small hole.

What you could actually do with is something like a leapfrog bolt: https://www.lpfrg.com/products/leapfrog-bolt-pro/

But neither open frame idex or enclosed volume idex machines come in 'budget' yet :-)

The craftbot 3 is probably the nearest to affordable: https://craftbot.com/category/craftbot-3-3d-printer
Also looks like it could be enclosed very easily.