I wouldn't recommend a Creality to someone new to 3D printing. They can be a pain to work with. They're CHEAP, and there's plenty of aftermarket support, but that ends up turning the printer into a product for someone who sees the printer itself being a hobby, rather than the printer being merely an appliance that produces things.
Buying a Creality printer is like buying a hobby-grade RC car (ie, Traxxas, Team Associated, etc.). Decent out of the box, but you're likely going to be reaching for buying upgraded parts and it eventually becomes a Ship of Theseus.
I have an Ender 3 Pro, my list of upgrades:
- Replace the crappy flexible mat with PEI-coated flexsteel
- Filament runout detector
- Motherboard replacement (made flashing custom firmware 100x easier, and uses quieter stepper motor drivers)
- Automatic bed leveler
- Dual-gear extruder
- Customized firmware that changes the 3x3 bed leveling matrix to 7x7
- OctoPi
A decent printer will have half of these features already built in.
I did a similar path to you (Ender 3 Pro, same updates as you except runout), and I was miserable. Yes, I learned a lot about 3d printing while doing it, but I basically never printed unless I REALLY needed something, because I knew I'd spend a bunch of time fiddling and failed prints to get it working. A friend with an unmodified Ender 3 Pro has much better experience.
I wanted a Prusa but didn't want to drop the money on it when I first got started, so I thought I'd just add a bed leveler to get less tweaking and more reliable prints, and it went downhill from there.
I ended up getting a Bambu P1S, and gave the Ender 3 Pro to my kids school. In a twist of fate, I basically had to undo all the upgrades I did (I was able to keep the new mobo and Sprite extruder though) because the school IT couldn't allow OctoPi on the network and they needed something they could just drop an SD card in.
The Bambu P1S has been a real workhorse. In the first couple months I printed more stuff than I had with the Ender 3 Pro in 5 years. And the multi-filament AMS has been a lot of fun for making multi-color prints. I'm kind of glad I learned everything I did with my Ender, but now I want to focus on creating models and printing.
Prusa apparently makes great printers, I like their ideals and almost got one, but in the end I decided to go with the Bambu because of the AMS and a Father's Day sale and have been extremely happy.
I agree. I have a Creality Ender 3 V2. I wanted something cheap that I wasn’t going to worry about if it became a paperweight (due to lack of use). As I worked more with it, I upgraded it a ton, putting about as much money into it as it cost (which wasn’t much). In the end, it’s a decent printer for what I want to do with it.
I added:
* Bed leveler
* Flexible build surface
* direct drive extruder
* second z axis screw drive
* octopi
Everything except for the octopi was a Creality kit. So it’s not like they don’t know their market is looking to tinker and do upgrades themselves.
If you want to make things because the end product is the goal, get something fancier. If you want to know how and why it works, spending a bit more time on the journey part (which might be frustrating), the Creality might be a good fit. It’s not going to have the same user-experience as a Bamboo or Prusa, but for me, that’s okay.
well this.
when I started tinkering there were none of those kits, and the Ender I have now has pretty much nothing in common with the Ender I bought back then except some parts of the frame and the drives. and still the whole journey cost was about the same as just buying Prusa and then learning nothing.
this is a bit philosophical, but when you do want to shape material, be it wood or plastic, you have to not only understand how it's done, but to feel it. or you will repeatedly end up with crap and then endlessly wonder what went wrong
this cannot be bought, it's experience. for 3d-printing the fastest way is to get something like Ender and then build your own perfect printer out of it over several years.
If you are going with Creality the K1 series is what you want. I am new to 3D printers and it absolutely was perfect for a beginner such as myself. I recommend just using their slicer to start, specifically the desktop one.
Concur. I had a grin on my face when I threw my ender into a dumpster. Then regret for not Office-Spacing it first. Replaced it with a Raise3D E2, which just works.