Hello, I am looking to buy my first filament 3D printer. Any printer or printer brand you recommend and why? What 3D modeling software is usually used to design? Any tips are welcome! (my budget would be 200-300€) I would like to eventually get into resin printing as well.

  • Mugmoor@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    1 year ago

    If your budget allows snag yourself a Prusa. They’re very well made, and Jeff Prusa more or less invented the modern 3D Printer. Creality makes fine printers, but you’ll spend more time maintaining it than actually printing. I have an Ender 3 V2 and wish I had saved up to get a better printer. I don’t have any personal experience with other brands.

    You’ll need to use a CAD program to make models. TinkerCAD is a great free option. You’ll also need to “slice” that model up for printing using a slicer. I personally use PrusaSlicer, but there are others as well.

    If you’re asking these kinds of questions that tells me you’re brand new to all of this. I recommend checking out Thomas Salanderer, CNC Kitchen, and Teaching Tech on YouTube. They’re all great at explaining the minutiae of this hobby.

    Edit: Do yourself a huge favour and get a model with a self-levelling bed, or at the very least a bed-level probe.

    • dmention7@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      It’s a bit of hyperbole to say you’ll spend more time maintaining a Creality printer than using it (Ender3 S1 Pro here), though I agree with the sentiment that you should think twice about them unless you enjoy the tinkering and learning aspect of the hobby.

      If you want high quality (and fast) prints right out of the box, the tradeoff is you will need to spend more than Creality money.

      I would also second PrusaSlicer. I saw significant improvements in print quality and speed using mostly their default Ender3 settings versus what I was able to cobble together in Cura.

    • eatisaiy@lemmy.worldOP
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      1 year ago

      I am indeed completely new to all of this, thank you for your response! I will check out those channels :)