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Advice on a Printer (lemm.ee)
submitted 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) by to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
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I am very interested in 3D printing and I want to get into it. What would be a good printer for a beginner that is also of reasonable quality.

I don't want to make anything huge but I don't want to limit myself to any size that's unreasonably small.

Edit: Wow, you guys were all so helpful. While I haven't made my decision I have a lot more to go off of, I'm gonna do a bit more research into it based on what you have all said.

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[–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

It’s a bit dated, but I had an excellent beginner 3D printing experience on my Flashforge Creator Pro. The OG.

It’s a bit slow, but very consistent out of the box. It was also pre-built, which was nice.

It was heaps easier to get going compared to my Anet A8. But I learned a lot on the A8 by putting it together.

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  • [–] 3 points 3 years ago (2 children)

    I started with a Flashforge Dreamer - which is relatively close to the Creator Pro. Bed leveling was annoying from the beginning - though after adding some locking nuts at least stayed leveled for a while.

    With PLA I was getting good prints without much effort - though quicky ran into limitations with flashprint, build volume size, other materials. I did some PETG printing, which was a pain - extruder slipping on the material, so compensating with overextrusion which somewhat worked, but gave nad tolerances.

    It is now my experimentation printer -rebuilt with microswiss hotend and extruder and flashed with marlin.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Dang, you give me hope that I can rescue my own Dreamer. Are you still using the original main board? Sadly mine are fried, and Flashforge hasn’t had them in stock for a while. Ran into the same problems you did, but damn is that machine a trooper.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    That was probably one of those most succinct cons list about the Creator Pro / Dreamer I’ve heard. My experience mirrors yours.

    What was your second printer?

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  • [–] 2 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    Prusa mk3s+ with mmu2s and a mini.

    Mini pretty much immediately upgraded with the Bondtech IFS extruder - great extruder, but won't buy Bondtech kits again as their documentation is horrible. Mainly had the mini for flex and abrasive initially, as I didn't want to mess with nozzle changes on the less accessible mk3s, and didn't want to mess with flexible with the MMU. Upgraded it earlier this year to Revo hotend - had a bit trouble due to another delay with their hardened nozzles, but figured out you can get Revo nozzles from China with pretty much the same tolerances for 5 EUR each, so was just running through them until I finally got my obxidian nozzles.

    Mk3s ran stock with MMU for a while, printed the TZB extruder in PC-CF earlier this year, switched to TZB-firmware, and also moved it to Revo - didn't have much issues with MMU before that, but things are very noticeably faster now, plus even very flexible flex just works.

    Not sure if I'll upgrade it to the MK4 - the load cell setup is intriguing, but I don't want to give up the Revo setup, so I'll probably wait and see if mods will come up allowing me to use both.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago (1 child)

    Thank you!

    After my recent PETG jam on the Creator Pro, due to extruder slipping and a consequential jam, I’ve been looking at options for another machine.

    Maybe the MK4 is in my future.

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  • [–] 0 points 3 years ago (1 child)

    This MicroSwiss kit should deal with the slipping - it's relatively easy to install.

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  • [–] 1 point 3 years ago* (last edited 3 years ago) (1 child)

    You rock. But don’t think you’re talking me out of an MK4, either. ;-)

    Edit: For anyone finding this, and considering the MicroSwiss lever kit for their Creator Pro: STOP.

    It's /NOT/ a good solution based on many reviews (b/c single screw is used for tension and pivot mechanism, and the top plate is too tall / obstructs filament).

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