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Back in 2018 I bought an Ender 3 and over the years after a lot of tinkering and upgrading I got really sick of having to work on it, so I shelved it permanently a few years ago. I didn't have very much I wanted to print by then anyway, and another print failure that resulted in a giant ball of plastic covering the hotend for the umpteenth time tipped me over the edge. I could only disassemble it for service so many times before I started wanting to give it the Office Space treatment.

But now I would like to start printing again, only this time I want to actually just print things and not feel like an unpaid 3D printer mechanic. I don't need anything fancy, I'm still only going to print ~95% PLA with the occasional PETG or ASA maybe. Really all I want is the equivalent of an Ender 3 only reliable, quiet, and with auto bed levelling (also having an actually flat bed to start with would be nice). Any kind of mandatory (or pseudo-mandatory via arbitrary feature-lock) cloud connectivity is a hard no from me. I will use Octoprint to manage it.

Are there any cheap printers that fill that role these days? I'm well and truly OOTL

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[-] Hazy@aussie.zone 4 points 2 weeks ago

I'd argue having to replace the bed because of constant adhesion issues is not "pretty painless"

[-] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 1 points 2 weeks ago

I mean, first layer adhesion is a problem common to more than just a specific printer and there are all kinds of tips and tricks to deal with it. The only one I tried (covering the bed in painter's tape) didn't pan out, and a friend was talking up the glass bed he just installed.

So instead of trying more tips and tricks like taking a glue stick to the bed surface, I went with the glass bed. I was expecting it to be like a $60 part but it was only like $15 so that worked out really well.

[-] Hazy@aussie.zone 1 points 2 weeks ago

Bro I totally get it, but I'm in the exact same boat as OP. Have an old ender 3 I stopped using and wouldn't mind printing again but so over fucking around. If I get a printer again I'll want plug and play.

this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
46 points (97.9% liked)

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