Best 3D printer for me? Comment advice.

[curious aardvark]

fusion 360 is a solid modelling cad program and you can only print solid models. So that's a good start.

Sheesh - the number of machines in the sub $2500 category is enormous.

I don't usually like these lists but in your case it would be worth using a 3d printer picker website. At least to start narrowing down the candidates.
Eliminate makerbot to start with and as marm says davinci are chaep but questionable quality and utility.

This isn't a bad list and includes some of the ones I'd recommend: https://3dforged.com/best-3d-printers/

For my money the best machine on that list is the bnc3d sigma.
Dual independant heads are the way to go imho.
And having seen it in action at a couple of tct shows - had I money, I'd have already bought one.

Here's some stuff I've learnt over the last 3 1/2 years. There are lots of things you can add or modify on any 3d printer. this is more things to look for in the description when buying a 3D printer.

Things you absolutely need:

Heated bed. Many printers now ship with unheated printbeds. Yes you can print pla without a heated bed - but it works much better with one and a heated bed also massively expands the variety of filaments you can sucessfully print. Also if you choose to buy an unenclosed machine and then build your own enclosure, the heated bed works as the heater to warm it up :-)

Things that are well worth having:

All metal hi temp hotend - the higher rated temperature for the hotend(s) the better.

Enclosed print volume. Useful for the more problematical filaments and hi-temp filaments. NB: not much point having hi temp hotend on open frame printer as everything that works well on open frame machines extrudes at or below 250c. If you want to print abs - you NEED a heated enclosure.

Things that might not be as useful as you think:

More than one extruder. With the exception of the bcn3d sigma and a couple of the leapfrog machines that have independant extruders. These generally don't get used that much. Knowing what i know now. I would either not bother. OR get a machine with independant extruders OR two or more filaments feeding into a single extruder. These are slightly limited in that both filaments need to have the same extrusion temperature. But still a good idea.

Auto bed calibration. It's one of those things I often think would be really useful. Then I read another post about someone having problems with the auto calibration and remember I calibrate my print bed maybe 4-5 times a year, and it takes about 5 minutes.


So have a look through that list and see what you think :-)
https://3dforged.com/best-3d-printers/

[Davo]

Things you absolutely need:

Heated bed.

Things that are well worth having:

All metal hi temp hotend - the higher rated temperature for the hotend(s) the better.

Enclosed print volume. Useful for the more problematical filaments and hi-temp filaments. IE not much point having hi temp hotend on open frame printer.

Things that might not be as useful as you think:

More than one extruder. With the exception of the bcn3d sigma and a couple of the leapfrog machines that have independant extruders. These generally don't get used that much. Knowing what i know know. I would either not bother. OR get a machine with independant extruders OR two or more filaments feeding into a single extruder.

Auto bed calibration. It's one of those things I often think would be really useful. Then I read another post about someone having problems with the auto calibration and remember I calibrate my print bed maybe 4-5 times a year, and it takes about 5 minutes.

Sticky this please.