Home Printer

I have been thinking of buying a desktop printer for home/hobby use and I would need something cheap. I like the resolution of SLA and other resin based printers but they tend to be expensive. FDM is fine but finish is poor. Any recommendations?

What do you consider expensive? I have an Anycubic Photon S and it was under $400 new. These are going for less than $300 now, to make room for their new ones. There are a number of decent SLA printers for way less than $500.

This one is sweet:

I purchased a Flash Forge several years ago. It can print just about any material with it's heated bed. It cost 1200.00 several years ago. Here is a video of it in action. By the way the thread dial indicator in the video is still being used daily.
https://youtu.be/or_M7sRjA88

The Prusa XL does look interesting but won't be released until Q2 2022 at the earliest and probably much later if recent experience with new Prusa products is any guide. Like most they seem to have been hit hard by pandemeic supply slowdowns and Czech citizens have been hit pretty hard by Covid as well.

You can pre-order for $200 (refundable) and modify your order at the time of fulfillment.

Creality3D is selling their Ender 3 FDM printer for $179 right now. I have had one of these for about a year, and have put about 40 lbs of filament through it. I am very happy with the value. I haven't made anything really serious, but have made a lot of drawer inserts, tool hangers, kids toys, containers, a face mask, a bull gear lock for stuck chucks, a tablet holder, ....

The quality is only adequate, but it's a great way to get into additive manufacturing of objects at low cost. It is also a good way to get an understanding of the tool chain (Free way is Thingiverse and ultimaker cura). After a bit of time you can get a better understanding of your needs and make a more substantial investment in something that will meet better your needs.

You pretty much need both to work around the limitations of each process, but if you were to get one only you definitely should go with an FDM printer. And I mean without even taking costs into consideration, as those vary quite a bit depending on the features / size within each type.

For FDM printer I think the most important thing is an enclosure, or ability to accept one. Most engineering filaments (ABS is a good example) will warp and delaminate during printing process if not in a controlled environment with elevated temperature. Now it's easy enough to build a box after the fact, except... many printers are all-in-one units, with brains and power supply being mounted under the print bed - putting a box around it will mean you're cooking its brains, and can pretty much kill the unit very fast. So either look for one that has an enclosure from the start (ideal), or one that has the control unit separately from the gantry/bed.

Second most important thing is the range of temperatures. Engineering plastics all like higher temps, so the extruder needs to be able to take at least 250C, and bed at least 100C, but higher for both is better.

Then we got build volume - I would say 300x300x300mm is the smallest size for a fabricator, but bigger is better Everything else, like brands / models is a matter of opinion and preferences.

On a separate note, folks shouldn't forget that SLA prints require post-processing - washing and curing. For good results a proper washing / curing station will be needed, which is an extra expense. You can of course use a bucket and a UV lamp, but that's not practical for the frequent use.

I bought this one, but was $200 ;isf when I did..

Got this one and I love it. It has a good following on Reddit to, lots of information out there.

MachMac said:

I have been thinking of buying a desktop printer for home/hobby use and I would need something cheap. I like the resolution of SLA and other resin based printers but they tend to be expensive. FDM is fine but finish is poor. Any recommendations?

Click to expand...

What type of resolution/finish do you require?
I was quite surprised by the finish quality of my $300 Ender 5.
I can easily print parts within 0.2mm (0.007 inches) pretty reliably

MachMac said:

I have been thinking of buying a desktop printer for home/hobby use and I would need something cheap. I like the resolution of SLA and other resin based printers but they tend to be expensive. FDM is fine but finish is poor. Any recommendations?

Click to expand...

Depends on your application. If you want general use for random things, I would say FDM would be a smarter choice.

SLA is great for fine details, but post processing makes a mess. You don't have just the printer, you have alcohol baths and a UV curing box as well. The latter is probably not needed, but it gives the model a bit more rigidity on the exterior and cures the resin where the wash didn't clean it off. The thing I do like about SLA is the fact that you can print rubber like materials a lot easier than with FDM. Not only that, you can get Lost Casting materials too, if that's what you want to do.

FDM materials are coming along with new compositions too, but some can be troublesome with certain printers/extruders.

People seem to like the Ender series of printers due to the price. But I find my Prusa Mk3 to be quite reliable and it has all the nice to have features you could really want. Go for the Prusa mini if you want to save a few bucks and don't need a large volume printer. Plus, it's not that much smaller than the MK3 anyways but it's half the cost than the Mk3 kit.

I can't recommend any SLA printers as I haven't owned one and don't really follow it all that much. We used to have one of the Carbon M1 printers here at work, but the lease for that was 50k/year. No joke. We also have a Stratasys J850, F370, and Markforged Mark II. We really don't need SLA since we have the J850. And the F370 I would say isn't worth the 70k for an FDM printer. It's really hands off, but maintenance is still required.

The Markforged, however, is my absolute favorite printer. Literally ZERO problems in the last 3 years. Just load a new spool and go. Print quality is the best I've seen from an FDM and we can also have layers that contain continuous carbon fiber, fiberglass, or kevlar. The build volume is long, but short in height and depth. And print speed is not fast by any means. But their Onyx material is fantastic and has properties that are very close to just regular old Nylon extruded stock. At 16K, it's very affordable for shops. Not affordable for home. Just wanted to mention it to help you gauge where my knowledge comes from.

I've owned Two XYZ Davinci 1.0, A prusa MK2 with multi-material, and now I just have my MK3. I've used the Flashforge, Orginal Makerbot, Makerbot 2, and the Makerbots after they sold out to stratasys where they just had issue after issue after issue.

Check out Tom Sanlanderer's videos on the YT. He's pretty thorough with his reviews and knowledge. Other channels that are good are 3D Printing Nerd and Maker's Muse. I'm sure there are other channels, but those ones have been around a while, so they've seen it all.

Cheers!