I have cut my teeth on the Ender 3 Pro v2 printer by Creality. Neat little printer; it works wonders when/if it’s perfectly dialed in. The thing is, I don’t have the interest to dial it in like it needs to be. I just want to turn it on, send it a print, and walk away. I do t want to spend all morning (like this morning) trying to “auto-level” 🙄 the bed, just to not have it be level.
When I try to manually level the bed it’s worse: I can measure one corner 5 times in a row, and get 5 wildly different heights each time. And I’m even using the Creality BL Touch sensor!
I have upgraded the springs, and I’m using the wide knob’s, and spent days trying to tune in my printer. I’m also using the Jyers Marlin firmware (15x15).
It’s exhausting and not fun. Help me Make Printing Fun Again. 😩
I’m not very original but Prusa.
I got a MK4 18 months ago and it’s been a reliable workhorse.
I’m usually starting the prints remotely from work and picking it up from the print bed once back home.
After the Ender 3 Pro, I got a Bambu X1 Carbon. I have been running it for over a year now and it just makes whatever I send to it. The few times it has needed my attention, the instructions were clear and easy to follow.
Bambu P1S.
I’ve never had a print failure. It’s so plug n play n walk away that I have it on a smart plug and turn it on from my phone, slice the print, and then send it without even going down to my basement where my printer lives.
I only go down to grab my print and remove the test strip it prints right before starting the model. Love that machine.
I’ve seen Ender v3s being discussed in forums as hobby killers a few times. Most notable printers will probably take less fiddling.
Prusa works hard on their reliability not least because they dogfood their printers constantly, using print farms to produce printer parts.
Bambu printers are reliable appliances with a ticking clock.
I have a qidi x-maker that feels so easy to use. It is a Chinese brand that is a little closed source, but they have a line of printers that I assume are better and are larger than my bottom of the line one. I haven’t leveled the bed almost since I got it and only had minor issues that are easy to fix with very little research.
I gave up entirely on my Ender 3 pro. No amount of tweaking could get it to print more or less flawlessly every time. There was always an issue that needed tweaking every time I fired it up. Everything I changed to make it better only made it worse.
But somehow my newer Ender 3 S1 pro has been mostly flawless. Calibration has taken a while, but its built in bed leveling actually works. You’ll still need to do the initial leg work. But now that that’s done I just periodically run the bed leveling and mostly just fire it up, start a print, and let it go. I’m never again going to touch a custom firmware.
I don’t know how to “dial-in” a 3D printer and have been using the Creality K1 with no problems. :)
I love my bambu. I know they have their issues and all that but honestly I just don’t have mine hooked to the internet and it runs like a dream. It almost never fails. It calibrates so quickly. It prints with really good quality.
Worlds above my ender 3. It was worth the price
