What 3d Printer Should I Buy

Best Professional 3d Printers

The machines in this category are for professionals looking for a 3D printer with an exceptional build quality that can produce high-quality parts, reliably, every time.

The 3D printers in this category are advanced desktop machines used for a variety of applications. They are best suited for professional designers and engineering businesses.

Lulzbot Mini 2 Desktop 3d Printer

The LulzBot Mini 2 is an upgrade to the LulzBot Mini 3D printer. It is extremely reliable, versatile, easy to use, and a high-performance desktop 3D printer. It is made to deliver premium results and features many upgrades over the previous model.

Every print is enhanced with self-cleaning and self-leveling that ensures a clean and perfectly level foundation for the prints. It features the E3D titan aero tool head with a .55mm nozzle and it is compatible with a variety of both rigid and flexible materials.

The LulzBot Mini 2 works silently, meaning it wont disturb your workshop or classroom activities while printing. Its print surface made of reversible borosilicate glass/PEI can withstand a maximum temperature of 248°F, while the tool head withstands up to 554°F.

This LulzBot product uses Cura LulzBot Edition software to make printing extremely easy. The software offers preconfigured profiles for over 30 materials. You only have to load your 3D model file and print.

The printer comes with a 1-year warranty and 7-days/week phone and email technical support.

Features

What You Should Know About 3d Printers

Be warned that no 3D printer is unbreakable. A day will come when youll need to replace a part or get your hands dirty in some other way. Replacement parts are available for the Mini+ and MK3S+, but not all 3D printers are equally easy to fix. You might want to avoid 3D printing altogether if you arent confident youd be able to perform a minor repair on the equivalent of a household appliance.

Prospective buyers should also be aware that the 3D-printing industry is in a constant state of upheaval. XYZprinting pumps out new printers annually. MakerBot, which was long considered the frontrunner for home 3D printers, stopped marketing to hobbyists and home users several years ago in order to focus on commercial and educational institutions. Many of the printers we have tested have come and gone within the span of a year or two. So its not out of the question that you might someday find yourself without much support from the company that made your printer. Its also possible that a new breakthrough will suddenly leave you with outdated technology.

On the environmental side of things, consider that youre investing in a machine that works primarily with plastics. Its possible to recycle or compost certain types of 3D-printed plastics , but the process can be complicated. Theres also the option to invest in a spendy recycling system of your own.

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Print Bed: Heated Or Non

Choosing between a heated and a non-heated bed might not be easy. ABS users might give you a thousand reasons to choose a heatable platform, as much as PLA users to not choose it.

To avoid a wrong pick, you should always consider which material you are going to use. If you are pretty sure you are going to print with only PLA-type filaments, a non-heated bed is your choice. This is also true if you consider that a lot of new printing materials, which behave like or better than ABS plastic, are now printable on a simple non-heated platform.

Otherwise, if you need to produce parts made of ABS-type materials, you will not be able to do it without a heated bed. A non-heated plate might cause warping, stringing or adhesion issues.

Here is an example:

However, you should always consider that 3D printers with a heated bed perform at their best only when paired with an enclosed chamber. Indeed, keeping the printing temperature constant is almost essential to produce high-quality ABS-made large parts, a difficult task when printing with Prusa-style 3D printers equipped with a heatable platform.

Nevertheless, most modern 3D printers come with a heated platform, clearing almost all your doubts.

Q Wheres The Best Place To Buy A 3d Printer

Our Buyers Guide is the best place for information. We have listed the best 3D printers you can buy.

You can find 3D printers in all the usual places online like Amazon, eBay and many others. If moneys tight, a secondhand option might be the way to go. The secondhand route, though, is more risky, not least because you have no idea how much use the machine has had. For first time buyers, its better to buy new, from the high street. At least this way you can see, touch and test the machines before committing. The most important thing is that you can take it back to the shop if there are any problems. Sending big objects through the post, on the other hand, can be time consuming, frustrating, and unpredictable.

The best advice is to make a shortlist of printers youre interested in, and then read up about them online. You can find plenty of reviews and YouTube vids on most popular models, and also user experiences. Once you become familiar with the models and prices on your shortlist, its time to shop. Ideally, you will want to see live demos and get to speak to people who understand the industry inside out. Remember to always have your 3D printer checklist with you too. This is in case you come across models of interest that youre not familiar with.

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Top Choice: Creality Cr

• 450 x 450 x 470mm print volume

• New unibody design reduces printer footprint

• Significant component upgrades over CR-10 S4 and S5

• Improved bed heating over the CR-10 S4 and S5

The Creality CR-10 Maxoffers major improvements over the other printers in the large-format category. These features come at a price, but the CR-10 Max is still more affordable than most printers in this category from other manufacturers.

Similar to the CR-10S Pro V2 and the CR-X Pro, it features a unibody design with the printer electronics under the machine. With a printer this large, saving any amount of space is helpful. This also means that the CR-10 Max includes Crealitys touchscreen UI, which makes for a much nicer user experience when operating the machine.

The CR-10 Max includes a number of other important component upgrades, such as a dual-gear metal extruder, reinforced frame, and an improved 24V power supply. However, there are two important upgrades that make this our top pick:

• BLTouch auto bed leveling – Auto leveling is a nice convenience on smaller printers, but it is a gamechanger on large format printers. Maintaining a level bed gets more difficult as the bed gets larger, and other large format printers without this feature can be difficult to work with

• Improved heated bed – Critically, the heater on the print bed on the CR-10 Max covers the entire print bed area , and can be heated to 100 degrees Celsius, unlike the CR-10 S4 or S5.

Someone Wont Like The Noise

Many 3D printers, aside from the most recent devices, are pretty noisy. The stepper motors driving the motion system can buzz repeatedly as they move axes back and forth. Depending on the location of your device, there could be an annoying noise echoing through the home and that could be quite annoying to anyone not as excited about 3D printing as you are.

Dont buy a 3D printer unless you are certain you can keep it quiet or theres no one else to hear it.

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Chapter 1 Where To Start

You should start by determining what projects you want to complete with your 3D printer. Of course, it is enticing to choose a device that offers as many functions and possibilities as possible. However, such machines dont come cheap.

And thats why you shouldnt be dismissive when it comes to narrowing down your choices to specific printers, preferable for solving your tasks.

Here’s a useful analogy:

In my youth days, I wanted a computer that would have the most powerful CPU, the best graphics card, the maximum number of memory slots, plenty of PCI ports for all possible peripherals, and other advanced computer stuff.

In 2019, IBM’s Summit is the world’s smartest AI machine. It cost $200 million to build. Credit: Wired.

But what in reality?

The real life experience taught me that having sufficient configuration capable of running office software and a handful of video games is pretty much enough to make me happy. And this costs much less than top-notch configuration.

Same thing with 3D printers. You may dream of the largest print area possible. But in fact, a build volume up to 300 x 300 x 300 mm is more than enough to solve the majority of 3D printing tasks. For example, the following Iron Man suit was created using Creality Ender 3 which has a maximum build volume of 220 x 220 x 250 mm.

Printing models in parts and then assembling them together can take you far in 3D printing. Physicist Sterling Backus used the same approach to build a Lamborghini.

Elegoo Mars Pro / Mars 2 Pro Best Cheap Resin 3d Printer

• Price: $250 / $280 / 3DJake UK & Europe here
• Build volume: 115 x 65 x 150 mm

The Elegoo Mars is another cheap resin 3D printer, like the Anycubic Photon, that shocked makers with how good it actually was. With LCD 3D printing becoming more affordable, more precise and faster, the Elegoo takes advantage of this to deliver a cheap resin printer that delivers in quality and consistency.

• The original Elegoo Mars is still available for around $199

This upgraded version, the Mars Pro, features improved precision thanks to a revamped Z-axis linear guide-way system that smoothens layers and makes each individual layer line less obvious improving surface finish. There are also a number of safety improvements such as a silicone seal that prevents resin leaking on the 3D printers cover.

It features a 2K LCD projector, with a minimum layer height of just 0.01mm. The Elegoo Mars Pro comes with its own resin 3D slicer called CHITUBOX, and has a good maximum build volume of 115 x 65 x 150 mm. Its also decently fast for a budget resin 3D printer.

• Elegoo also sell some of the cheapest resins on the market. You can buy them here.

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Should I Consider A 3d Printing Pen Instead

Although they arenât printers per se, inexpensive 3D pens are close kin to 3D printersâusing the same filament types and a similar extrusion systemâand we include them in the 3D printing category. Rather than tracing out a programmed pattern, you use the 3D pen much like a normal pen, except that you draw with molten plastic. You can trace a pattern or draw freehand, and even draw in three dimensions as the plastic quickly solidifies and hardens once extruded.

Most 3D pens cost less than $100, and some cost $50 or less. At a glance, 3D pens may appear to be toys, but some artists and craftspeople have taken to them, as it is possible to make quite complicated and beautiful objects with them. If your aim in 3D printing is something closer to freehand design and free expression than computer-centric, structured, and repeatable output, you might give one a try.

Upgrade Pick: Prusa I3 Mk3s+

The Prusa i3 MK3S+ offers the reliability and print quality of the Mini+ plus an even larger print bed, which opens up new possibilities for printing large models, or multiple items at once. It also comes preassembled or in a DIY kit, though we found it much simpler to set up than the Mini+. In addition, it offers you the option to print with more types of filament than the Mini+ does, and its similarly quiet.

In eight test runs, the MK3S+ made five perfect prints, second only to the Mini+. Like the Mini+, it prints layers as thin as 0.05 mm, creating more detailed models than most competitors in its price range. Of the three jobs that were failures, two were due to setup error and one was due to a clog that we were able to resolve. Unlike with most of the other printers we tested, we never saw an obvious error in the printed models.

Several software options are available for the MK3S+ we used Cura, . Cura is compatible with a wide range of printers, so during setup you should pick the MK3S+ profile to ensure that its tailored to your machine. Weve used Cura for years without issue. Beginners can start a print quickly, without much thought, or drill deeper into the settings in the softwares intuitive menus when theyre ready to do more fine-tuning.

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How To Buy The Right 3d Printer: A 2020 Guide

3D printers provide a nearly endless array of possibilities. Whether you’re printing out a figurine, a smartphone case, a wrench or a door stop, you need to pick the right device for your needs and budget.

With prices ranging from less than $200/ £200 to several thousand dollars or pounds, 3D printers come in a wide variety of sizes and capabilities. They also use a variety of different technologies that range from FDM to DLP , Stereolithography and more. If all of this sounds overwhelming, don’t worry. Read on and we’ll help you find the right 3D printer.

Hp Jet Fusion 3d 4200

The HP Jet Fusion 3D 4200 is an industrial Multi Jet Fusion 3D printing system. It builds parts by sintering together thin layers of powder material that have been jetted with a fusing and a detailing agent . The Jet Fusion 3D 4200 is a powerful production system that is fast rising in popularity, as seen on the latest Hubs 3D Printing Trend Report.

Together with the printer, HP also offers a processing station that allows manufacturers to minimize the downtime of the machine. The most useful feature of the system is the removable build units, which can be moved between the printer and the post-processing station. A second build unit can be loaded into the printer while the first one is cooling down, allowing users to produce more parts per day. The post-processing station also streamlines the preparation of the next build, by mixing the used powder with fresh, unused powder and

Parts printed in the Jet Fusion 3D 4200 have a stone gray color. They are also watertight to a certain pressure without post-processing, which is a unique feature when it comes to 3D printed parts. However, the material selection is somewhat limited at the moment, but HP is working with partners to develop new materials. Also, it is highly recommended to dye the parts black after printing, as this finishing option guarantees color uniformity and improves the surface texture of the parts.

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Sinterit: For Those Looking For An Sls Printer

Source: Sinterit

SLS printing would have set you back a few hundred thousand dollars years ago, but now you can get one for your desktop workshop. Sinterit is the place to go if you are on the market for an SLS printer. Their printers are both reliable and intuitive for those looking into this 3D printing technology. You can print functional parts straight from the printer. The Sinterit team has even demonstrated its capabilities by printing a book.

Peopoly Moai 130 Best Diy Resin 3d Printer Kit

• Price: $1,395 Available on Matterhackers here
• Build volume: 130 x 130 x 180 mm

The Peopoly Moai is the only DIY resin 3D printer featured, offering fantastic quality at a far lower price than youd expect for such a powerful resin printer. The only catch is you need to build it yourself, though you may find building your own resin 3D printer a fun and fulfilling experience that teaches you new skills.

It takes around 6 hours to build the Peopoly Moai 130, but the results are amazing. The laser spot size is 70 microns, several times more accurate than the average FDM 3D printer, with layer heights as low as 10 microns possible. It also prints quickly, so its ideal for quick prototyping or for printing dental or jewelry models.

The Peopoly Moai 130 set comes with a number of key upgrades. First, the FEP vat significantly cuts down on cleaning time as it prevents resin from adhering and losing its liquid state over time. Theres also upgrades to the heater modules, UV curing light, and an easy-leveling build plate for simple yet effective resin printing. Overall, its a great resin 3D printer kit.

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Too Big Too Small Or Just Right

As you can see, print area is the biggest difference between the various Creality CR-10 series models. We recommend considering what types of objects youll want to print most often and using that as a basis to choose a printer in the lineup. However, keep in mind that with the possible exception of the 500mm S5, a larger printer generally isnt a bad thing, and you may find yourself really wanting a larger build area later. Its worth considering a CR-10 or S4 even if you think you might be able to get by with the Ender 3.

All content copyright Creality Experts 2021.

Advantages & Disadvantages Of Building A Diy 3d Printer Kit

Pros

• If youre thinking of scratch-building a 3D printer, a DIY kit can be a great way to start first.
• Considering the ample learning curve, DIY kits can make you experienced and detail you with more information in the vast world of 3D printing.
• 3D printer DIY kits are less expensive than fully-assembled printers.
• Its much less time-consuming than building a 3D printer from scratch.
• With famous 3D printing manufacturers, youve got vast communities to help you on your DIY journey.
• 3D printer kits usually come with an instruction manual to help you nail assembly.

Cons

• If compared to a fully-assembled 3D printer, you need to have some basic knowledge of putting parts together so theres definitely effort and knowledge required here.
• You also have to put in more hours significantly versus a pre-assembled 3D printer.
• The complications involved might lead you to frustration and giving up half-way if youre not up for it.
• Without buying more parts, you cannot customize your 3D printer as per your choice if you opt for a DIY kit.
• In terms of software upgrades and configuration, some 3D printer kits may have limitations.
• When put toe-to-toe against a printer built from scratch, youre not going to get flexibility in terms of design and other modifications.

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