Find Out If This 3D Printer Is Right For You
3D printing is all the rage, it seems: here’s a list of some simple and some far-out uses. But the technology is not completely at the “appliance” stage yet. Be prepared to wear your tinkerer’s hat for a while, more or less often depending on what make and model you select. That said, let’s look at the market, which stratifies into several layers. Starting at the bottom (all prices in this article are in USD):
- Really cheap, no-name units. Avoid at all costs.
- $200–300 no-name units. Probably avoid these.
- $200–300 name-brand. May be a good entry-level.
- $700-$1000 name-brand. Good to very good.
- $1500+ name-brand. Most of these are a bit more consumer-friendly, but discourage modification.
Brand loyalty is a curious thing. Spending habits show that many of us would rather buy a cup of coffee from either a company we know (Starbucks, or Tim’s in Canada) or a vendor we know locally. But we’d buy a $10 item — like a kitchen knife — from a company we’ve not heard from: whatever the hardware store has in stock. Yet for big-ticket items? We go back to preferring a brand name. There is a rationale for this: Just as you wouldn’t buy a car from a company you’d never heard of, you probably shouldn’t buy a 3D printer from an untried company, because there’s a risk of getting a lemon. Unless, perhaps, your friend has a unit from this unknown company and swears by it, and promises to help you if you come to grief with it. This is true of 3D printers as well. My first printer was a low-budget model from an unknown company on KickStarter, and it brought me a world of grief (I would swear at it, not by it) but also a world of learning. So I’m here to suggest that — unless you really know what you’re doing, or like to live dangerously — you only buy from the known brands. And I’m here to guide you right to them.
But first, a bit about the technology. There are two common types of 3D printers, those that liquify a solid (“fused deposition modeling” or FDM), and those that solidify a liquid (“SLA”). You can think of a FDM printer as basically a “hot glue gun” with three motors to let it move in three directions (x, y, and z, or, left-right, back-forwards, up-down), tracing out the “print” in three dimensions as it lays down melted plastic. FDM is cheaper, simpler, and much more widely used, but generally slower. In place of glue sticks, FDM printers use plastic “filament”, narrow strands of plastic that comes on large rolls (it’s the blue/green strand coming down from the top in the photo). On the other side, SLA printers fuse your design inside a vat of liquid resin. SLA has historically been more expensive, but the mid-range companies are bringing its price down. SLA still needs two machines, the actual printer and a cleaning and finishing bath. Even the resin contains chemicals that you don’t want coming in contact with your skin. In this sense it’s more akin to traditional chemical photographic developing, with FDM being more akin to inkjet printers.
In this article I am only covering FDM printers, because the affordable SLA printers market is too new. Most 3D printers accept files in standard formats (STL and G-Code) that can be generated by any decent set of 3D drawing programs, either commercial or freeware. Most of the printers are driven by open source firmware that developers can download, and tweak, and share modifications with the community. Many are also fully or partly “open hardware” in that the plans can also be downloaded to (re)build or customize components.
In the entry-level range FDM printers, the brand that seems to have the biggest user community is Chinese maker Creality (Shenzhen Creality 3D Technology Co.; it’s pronounced cree-ality as in creative, not see-reality), particularly their Ender 3, which comes in around $250–300 depending on when and where you buy it. Note that the Ender 3 comes “partly assembled” or in “semi-kit” form; its major modules are built and tested at the factory, then these units are shipped (but not assembled), both to save shipping costs and to prevent the machine from being jarred out of alignment. So it will need some assembly and calibration, unless you buy it from a local dealer who’ll do that for you (ask about how much cleanup they’ve done after assembly). The Ender 3 Pro model is only about $30–50 more than the basic, and has a magnetically-removable bed plate and a slightly better mechanical structure, so I’d go for it. One thing I like about the Ender 3 in comparison to my older cheapo printer is its bed leveling. You know that if the bed you sleep in is on a slant, you’ll roll off, and waking up on the floor with bruises is bad. If your 3D printer’s bed isn’t level, the model will either be distorted, or jam the printer part way, or the first layer will fail to stick to the bed. All bad happenings! My first no-name printer had the most horrible leveling mechanism: tiny knobs that were partly hidden and very stiff to turn, and only three of them, so it was very difficult to level the bed. Ender 3 has four large knobs that are readily accessible. Big win for ease of use and reliability! Although, manual bed levelling is so 1990s.
One concern about the Creality line, and printers like it, is that the people I know who have them seem to spend quite some time and money modding in features that are standard on the next tier of machines; features such as better extruder heads, auto-leveling sensors, extra frame pieces for stability, etc. If you don’t mind tinkering, or just don’t want all the features, these machines may be right for you. But you may, in the long run, spend almost as much money, and some of your precious time, modding it to bring it up to snuff as if you’d bought from the next tier up.
Another concern — and this applies to most or even many of the cheapo off-shore 3D printer makers — is the risk of fire. There are many reports of various low-cost printers not having proper electrical engineering and/or solid wiring. When you are heating the hot end to 200C and the print bed to 100C, that’s enough energy to go seriously wrong if mis-directed. Start reading here.
In the $700–1000 range there are two printers that I’ll root for. The Original Prusa i3 MK3 from Prusa Research in Prague, and the SnapMaker 3-in-1, from China. The Prusa i3 is what the Ender 3 was partly copied from; Josef Prusa started Prusa Research in Prague in 2012 after years of contributing to RepRap, the original open source 3D printer project. The word “Original” is part of the brand name; Josef is so well known that many cheap knock-off makers, and even Creality, resort to using the term “Prusa” or even “Prusa i3” in advertising their derivative products. Maybe Mr. Prusa should have trademarked his own name, though I’ve heard he believes in the old saw that “imitation is the sincerest form of flattery” and that quality will win out. Anyway, one choice that Prusa offers that Creality doesn’t is to buy the machine either in little pieces and build it (kit, $749) or fully assembled ($999, with a better warranty). The Prusa features a full range of features and is a solid machine to work with. Some printing job shops (including Prusa Resarch themselves) have these machines basically running 24/7 cranking out printed objects.
You may ask why should you buy the Prusa over the Creality if you can afford either? Other than the risks mentioned earlier, of course. It’s well known that people continue to choose durable goods (cars, printers, houses) on initial cost rather than TCO (total cost of ownership). To take an example from one of my other fields of writing, electric cars generally cost more up-front to buy, but the cost of driving on electricity is so much less than the cost of gasoline, and EVs need so much less maintenance and repair, that it costs significantly less over the life of the car to drive electric. But people still only look at the sticker price. When you factor in print failures, the time you lose futzing around, the cost of mods needed to make it do all the things you want, and so on, the Prusa is almost certainly the better buy based on TCO. Check out the support groups for Creality and Prusa: both about 22,000 members, but the Creality has on average several times more problems posted.
The $799 SnapMaker 3-in-1 allows you to use the three-dimensional motion structure as a 3D printer, a laser engraver/cutter, and a CNC (“computer numerical control”) milling machine. It does this by having replaceable print heads. One downside is its print volume, which is about 1/4 of the Prusa-style machines; details are in the table below. I have not had my hands on this unit yet but the versatility looks like a big win.
I am working on more detailed reviews of some of these machines, which I will link in the table when done.
In the $1000–3000 range there are a number of printers; these tend to be more a bit more consumer-friendly, with all features of the mid-range 3D printers but also enclosed rather than open frame (this helps keep noise and fumes in, keeps dust out, and aids temperature stability; if you buy a printer without an enclosure, you should probably make an enclosure for it). Three of the best-known, established brands here are MakerBot, UltiMaker, and LulzBot, with many new entrants (including some companies that are known for making other electrical appliances but are new to 3D printing). I am less familiar with the printers in this category and budget, and suggest you look at Consumer Reports or some of the many 3D printing sites that cover them.
Comparison
Here’s a table that briefly summarizes the main comparison points of my top three. The first four features listed are the bare minimum you should consider.
- Heated Bed helps the print stick to the bed when doing the critical first layer.
- Auto-level is a feature you won’t want to be without — leveling the bed by hand can be a nightmare. The Creality Ender 3 lacks this feature.
- Power Recovery lets you resume printing after a power failure.
- Filament recovery lets the printer pause if you run out of filament.
You can buy printers without both these recovery mechanisms, but you generally shouldn’t. Prints usually take from one to many hours to complete, and you don’t want to be watching the whole time.
Note 1 to table — Bambu offers printable files for sides; you’d need to add a front door and a top to make it fully enclosed. Their higher-end X1 is enclosed.
That’s all for now. As mentioned, more detailed reviews should be forthcoming; watch the table above for links to them. Or search this site at https://medium.com/i-tried-that/search?q=3d.
Best mid-price 3D printer value: To my mind, considering all the ins and outs, is the Original Prusa i3 MK3 (as of 2019).
