Hi everyone. I’m looking into my first 3D printer and would like a resin one for the great detail it can produce. I’m looking for companies that make respected machines that aren’t out of China. I know of Prusa but their resin printer is incredibly expensive for me and a beginner.
As a second note, I would love to support a USA company as a first choice if available and like the software and firmware to be open source. I’m happy to have found PrusaSlicer with UVtools so there’s one less Chinese/semi proprietary/subscription based software.
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Is this your first printer you’ve ever had?
If so I’d suggest getting one that has auto bed leveling, not having to worry about that is a very nice feature.
Prusa is kind of the reigning king of “it just works,” but they tend to be expensive. I myself have a Prusa MK4, but I wouldn’t really recommend that for a beginner due to the price, only reason I got it for my first personal printer is we use two MK3’s at the lab I worked at and I wanted something similar as that’s what I’m used to.
If you do decide to go with Prusa I’d look at the Mini (I’ve heard though that the Mini will benefit if you print a custom brace for it). The MK3 also got a pretty decent price drop with the release of the MK4, so that’s something to consider as well.
But otherwise I think Creality released a couple of new printers that aren’t too bad on price.
Given that you specifically mentioned the X1C, are you trying to do multi-colored prints or just want something fast?
Stay away from creality IMO, especially your first printer. Shit quality control and there are better options out there now in the budget arena like sovol and elegoo. You’ll spend more time troubleshooting than printing with creality in my experience.
I’ve heard some inklings of that. I’ve heard diehard fans say that they specifically got Creality printers because they wanted to work on a 3d printer, not have one that just worked out of the box. Though the K1Max from Creality looks pretty neat.
I myself always preferred low maintenance things, but I like knowing how they work. So I got the kit for my MK4 and built it on one of my days off. Took about as long as I’d heard (8+ hours), but was worth it.
Haven’t heard of sovol, I’ll look into them though. Always good to know the other brands.
Prusa is King for real. My Mk3 is fantastic. I wouldn’t second guess another purchase from them and it would be the first place I look for my next device.
They really are.
The MK3 is an absolute beast of a workhorse. We use two MK3s at the lab I work at. They collectively have 2000 hours of print time and they just now started exhibiting issues. One had a hotend fail, the other had a thermistor fail.
They’re damn good printers. I heard bad things about the MMU2, but I’m hopeful the MMU3 will be great, I have one on preorder.
I’d look into the nextruder upgrade for your MK3, it’s really nice. Only two thumbscrews to release the hot end out, and the LoveBoard makes servicing different components on the extruder a lot more painless.
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My MK4 is definitely a lot quicker than the MK3s we use at my lab. It’s certainly not the fastest printer on the market, but I’ve been very happy with it so far.
And what’s nice about it (from your perspective), you can very easily disable the WiFi permanently on it, given that the WiFi card is externally mounted on the board chassis and held in place with like one screw. I installed mine and finally was able to set up the PrusaConnect feature on it. I’m usually not a fan of cloud services but I trust Prusa more than I trust Bambu.
Regardless, if you can get your job site to fork the cash over for one, I have nothing but great things to say about the MK4. The nextruder and its LoveBoard will make maintenance on the hot end worlds easier and more convenient than the MK3 (which wasn’t that bad to start with).