People will pile on me and say that it’s not the best choice if you value privacy but I’ve never had an issue with my Bambu P1S I’ve owned a total of 3 printers and they all had issues with something except for the P1S. Hundreds of print hours, as reliable as the day I got it.

I do, and it's one of the reasons I bought a Bambu (pre-lockdown shit of course). Despite not having many hours, the prusa mk3's my college had in their makerspace were CONSTANTLY having issues and were a lot harder to get successful prints off of. I got an x1c when i got real money after graduating and it's given me 1200 hours of zero maintenance except grease and a couple belt tension resets.

Just as satisfying when you print something with several parts and the tolerance is right first time. You hear all about people printing several prototype parts to dial in the design. Nothing to make you feel like a design king by first print mic drop.

I used to be an avid modeler, but never got into printing for this one reason. It has to just work. Maybe the hobbyists are ok with troubleshooting, tweaking and fettling every little issue that emerges, but some of us just want to get (our) stuff done.

For that reason, it's easier to just pay to get it done. But the whole idea of 'click and print' isn't yet the reality.

Do you guys know how awesome a printer is that is just working?

You mean a copy shop?

my mrk3+ needed some mods and a little tinkering but it's always ready to go now. Prusa for life

I spent a decade or so building my own reprap printers from scratch before I ever bought a printer.

You have no idea.

My original Průša i3 mk0 has been going for 11 years now. It did receive a mk1 upgrade at some point when 3mm filament was getting scarce.

The IEC heatbed connector melted twice. But it's been solid since I replaced it with an XT60.

Looks like I'm finally getting some metal fatigue in the heatbed temp sensor. I'm considering a new printer. The rest of the components are probably close to giving out after all these years.

I have had the opposite experience. My mosfets died O think the control circuitery on my btt skr mini e3 v2 so I decided to control them externally with a pico ordered it from aliexpress it showed up then it died. Later I bought a genuine pico and it also died... That's how my printer isn't working for 27 days straight.

It's especially nice to eliminate machine issues so you know that subsequent print issues are due to modeling problems or orientation while slicing or something else.

I have an ender 5 which I've had to do all sorts of things to. I've also had terrible luck getting z-probes to work with it. They'll work for a while and then just die on me...

A while ago I backed the Phrozen Arco on Kickstarter. It was a mess of a compaign but I eventually got the printer (Over a year and a half late). However it's just worked and makes nicer prints than my ender 5. I love it so much. My makerspace has a Bambu which seems to have the same results. I love just printing something and having it work and not having to fuck with the printer. It's been so nice.

Pony up for something expensive like a Bambu or embrace the tinker

'tis the way of things

My Mini has also been fantastic! I've been running it for about a year with almost no issues, primarily printing petg. Far more reliable than my last two Enders which surprised me. I also just recently upgraded my extruder, heat break and nozzle with Bondtech equipment, which has produced some great results.

My bambu a1 mini is as plug and play as you can get probably. Working great for over a year. Printing mostly PETG, and sometimes TPU and PLA.

My Ender 5 performs very well after replacing everything but the frame.

I had a few Enders and it was fun to mod and mess around with to make it work better. Upgrading boards, firmware, hot ends, ect.

But as I got older and free time became more and more rare I picked up a used Bambu A1 mini off marketplace with a ton a of hours. I heard the hype so I wanted to take a chance. The A1 I got had like 900 hours on it mind you, it worked flawlessly! Almost little to now tweaking on it to get it to work.

A year later I just ordered a P1S with ams which I just got. So far out of the box it’s been great no messing around at all.

I will say having the ender makes you appreciate how great some of the higher end products are. And also prepares you how to fix things that may pop up vs buying something turn key that just works.

My Prusa XL 5 tool is printing like a champ. So far I have printed a 2 colour PLA print that took the whole print bed and a flexible (TPU) print for my bike

It hasn't missed a trick

I love Prusa

I also have an ankermake printer which I bought hoping their colour system would happen, but it never did. I'm tempted to replace it with a Prusa mk4s with their working multiple material unit (MMU) which is already in version 3

And it works with an open source slicer

And their printers have a history of being upgradable

Any printer I get in the future will be a Prusa