So, I have always wanted to do multi filament printing. The thought of doing multicolor or washable supports has been such a cool idea and I tried to make that a reality all the way back when I bought my Geeetech A10M… And oh boy did I hate it. (Don’t do single extruder multi filament kids, it ain’t worth the headache.)

So, with only my trusty prusa mk2 at my side I’m thinking of finally getting an IDEX machine and trying again right this time. Then I looked at the price of the Prusa XL and died a little.

So, this is where I am gonna ask for some help.
I saw that Flashgorge is selling their Creator Pro 2 for only $400 and with a cheap upgrade for a magnetic plate seems like it would be an awesome deal even if it’s a bit small of a build size.

Or I could go 3rd party and get the JGMaker Artist D Pro IDEX 3D Printer (which I have never heard of) for the same price but with a heck of a lot more build space.

Or I could swallow my pride and a shit ton of credit card payments and do just the 2 head semi-built prusa XL for 3x the cost.

So essentially has anyone tried the Flashforge Creator Pro 2 and thinks it would be worth it for basically half off?
Have 3rd party Chinese brands gotten more trustworthy and actually able to print decent at these insanely low prices?
Or is it still one of those you pay for what you get and if you want good multi filament printing you have to pay for it?

  • Krauerking@lemy.lolOPEnglish
    2·
    9 months ago

    Love the write up on it! Thank you so much. Sounds like I should go with maybe a cheaper printer for now to take advantage of price drops of older good devices and let that run it’s course a bit since I don’t need nearly as much build volume at moment.

    • Betty_Boopie@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      9 months ago

      No problem, I hope you find something that works for you. There’s definitely a ton of money to save if you forego a lot of the cutting edge features of the XL. I just feel jaded about waiting for years and still having a product that feels unpolished.

      • Krauerking@lemy.lolOPEnglish
        2·
        9 months ago

        Don’t! I’m still jealous even if it’s not perfect. That device still seems so cool and the mechanism of swapping entire tool heads is incredible and then using standard nozels still makes it cheaper than me going for likely one of the proprietary systems I’m looking at instead in the far flung future.

        I will bet it holds it’s value and you could resell it at the cost you put into it for quite a while and people like me will be jealous for as long as you have it.