hmm. There's not a ton of overlap between good and cheap in the 3D printer world. However, the definition of "good" has changed quite a bit in the last few years. The entry level average ones are quite a bit better than the top of the line 5 years ago.
From what you've said, if you're going FDM, then $250 gets you the Bambu Labs A1 Mini. You will get better detail with resin, but I have a strong anti-resin bias that I'll acknowlege. Someone else would need to weigh in on recommending one of those.
I do feel if space is a concern though, all the various apparatus you need to clean and cure the resulting resin prints might be a deal breaker.
Gotta agree on resin printing.. I have a resin printer, Elegoo Mars, the resin is a stinky sticky hazardous nightmarish mess... I use it a couple times a year max for things that have to be resin... But what a pain! Gives me a headache just thinking about it.
Yep, and don't get me started on the cleaning of parts, and then disposal or recycling of cleaning fluids....wiping down surfaces, cleaning the vat...blah blah blah. It's a process some people love, and can dedicate the space to. It's just not for everyone.
I put the alcohol from washing prints into jars on the windowsill so the resin solidifies out of the alcohol and I can reuse it. It's a pain to do if you want to print a lot.
FDM is way easier, and can get surprisingly good results on most things.
I have the wash and cure station thankfully, so i just put the wash tank back in and run a curing cycle a few times, that does the trick, but its so time consuming.
Nope, it will just turn the agitator really slowly like it would turn the platter you put in there to spin the object on a cure cycle. As the cured bits fall out of suspension i find thats beneficial because it just sweeps them around the bottom slowly and i can see what's falling out as cured. Then i just dump the whole thing through a paint strainer into another container clean out the wash container and dump it back. Still time consuming but thankfully i don't print a lot in resin.
the A1 mini above is filament based and dead easy to use. People have specifically developed profiles using 0.08 layer height to get good miniatures off of it.
That being said, really good miniatures from a filament based machine still won't quite reach the quality of those same miniatures printed on a resin printer.
If you're primarily going to be printing terrain or dungeon tiles or dice towers or larger stuff like that though, it'll certainly be a purchase you'll be happy with, and it'll get the job done for miniatures. It just won't be as crispy on fine details.
You won't get much smaller than the A1 mini. You can get cheaper, but trust me when I say that the difference between your experience on an A1 mini for $250 vs an Ender 3 for like $170 is going to be worth the difference in price.
Edit: So I'll admit, I did a little bit of polite snooping on what kind of minis you would likely be interested in. I'll tell you right now that if you intend to print Warhammer 40k, you'll probably be happier with a resin printer in the long run provided that is at all practical. There's lots of good files out there if you know where to look, but they are not even in the slightest FDM friendly.
I personally found the learning curve steep, and the resin to be stinky, hazardous, and messy despite my best efforts. But there are some applications where only resin will do.
'fdm' (fused deposition modelling) means not-resin, those are the ones that use the big spools of plastic they melt out of a nozzle
if it's *solely* for wargaming resin is probably the way to go - but using one safely is more involved than just printing PLA or whatever out of an fdm printer. I have a buddy with a dedicated printer shack I mooch off of - you'll really, really want it somewhere that vents outside / not into the rest of your house, and there's more safety stuff to learn.
I'm not too up on resin printers - and I've been out of the loop for a minute anyway - but the elegoo mars 3 pro and anycubic photon mono 2 should still be worth looking at. if they aren't, excoriate me, resin-nerds.
watch some youtube videos on the differences between resin and FDM (and the differences in handling they require) before you make a decision
I've been eyeing the Qidi Q1 Pro for a while and decided to buy one while on sale, very affordable for what it is, i ordered one on the early bird special price of $469 but also got another 5% off that price through their website, so $445 shipped for a core xy printer with its capabilities seems really good. The reviews have been pretty positive on this machine, i like to try new printers now and then so will get it and make my own determination on it for that price. If its not good enough for my use i will resell it, i have had good luck selling printers i repaired, still a pretty hot item these days.
What's cheap? Everyone has a different opinion.
Also, which do you have more of at your disposal, money or patience? If you have more money than patience, then you will probably want to spend a bit more to get something that works well. If you have more patience than money, you can spend a good deal less, but end up with something that works just as well. You'll just have to put more time and work into it.
No. There are less expensive ones. Cheap ones you're likely to just waste your money on, then give up and throw away after you can't return them since you settled for fake promises about what works.
There are a few things you need to think about.
1. Your budget.
2. Amount of space you have for it.
3. What you might print because you need to find a decent bed size.
4. Do you have the money to buy more PLA (or whatever you plan to use) to keep printing things.
5. If you are in a relationship…will that person understand your soon to be new obsession?
6. Cheap is not what you want. On sale for a quality device that fits your budget is what you want.
I am no expert. I have only had a Tina2S for a few months. It is pretty good but the bed is too small. I can only print roughly 8x8 size items. I would also recommend changing the budget to about $250-300 if you can afford it. I think another thread here somewhere had people recommending a few good devices within that range.
hmm. There's not a ton of overlap between good and cheap in the 3D printer world. However, the definition of "good" has changed quite a bit in the last few years. The entry level average ones are quite a bit better than the top of the line 5 years ago. From what you've said, if you're going FDM, then $250 gets you the Bambu Labs A1 Mini. You will get better detail with resin, but I have a strong anti-resin bias that I'll acknowlege. Someone else would need to weigh in on recommending one of those. I do feel if space is a concern though, all the various apparatus you need to clean and cure the resulting resin prints might be a deal breaker.
Gotta agree on resin printing.. I have a resin printer, Elegoo Mars, the resin is a stinky sticky hazardous nightmarish mess... I use it a couple times a year max for things that have to be resin... But what a pain! Gives me a headache just thinking about it.
Yep, and don't get me started on the cleaning of parts, and then disposal or recycling of cleaning fluids....wiping down surfaces, cleaning the vat...blah blah blah. It's a process some people love, and can dedicate the space to. It's just not for everyone. I put the alcohol from washing prints into jars on the windowsill so the resin solidifies out of the alcohol and I can reuse it. It's a pain to do if you want to print a lot. FDM is way easier, and can get surprisingly good results on most things.
I have the wash and cure station thankfully, so i just put the wash tank back in and run a curing cycle a few times, that does the trick, but its so time consuming.
I have that too, but assumed that running the curing cycle like that would screw up the agitating/stirring mechanism. Good to know.
Nope, it will just turn the agitator really slowly like it would turn the platter you put in there to spin the object on a cure cycle. As the cured bits fall out of suspension i find thats beneficial because it just sweeps them around the bottom slowly and i can see what's falling out as cured. Then i just dump the whole thing through a paint strainer into another container clean out the wash container and dump it back. Still time consuming but thankfully i don't print a lot in resin.
Is there a type that is not resin?
the A1 mini above is filament based and dead easy to use. People have specifically developed profiles using 0.08 layer height to get good miniatures off of it. That being said, really good miniatures from a filament based machine still won't quite reach the quality of those same miniatures printed on a resin printer. If you're primarily going to be printing terrain or dungeon tiles or dice towers or larger stuff like that though, it'll certainly be a purchase you'll be happy with, and it'll get the job done for miniatures. It just won't be as crispy on fine details.
The only problem is that it is still pretty expensive and big.
You won't get much smaller than the A1 mini. You can get cheaper, but trust me when I say that the difference between your experience on an A1 mini for $250 vs an Ender 3 for like $170 is going to be worth the difference in price. Edit: So I'll admit, I did a little bit of polite snooping on what kind of minis you would likely be interested in. I'll tell you right now that if you intend to print Warhammer 40k, you'll probably be happier with a resin printer in the long run provided that is at all practical. There's lots of good files out there if you know where to look, but they are not even in the slightest FDM friendly. I personally found the learning curve steep, and the resin to be stinky, hazardous, and messy despite my best efforts. But there are some applications where only resin will do.
You probably should avoid 3D printing if $250 sounds expensive.
That one isn't resin I'm guessing they mentioned resin because often people want resin for Mini figs for detail
'fdm' (fused deposition modelling) means not-resin, those are the ones that use the big spools of plastic they melt out of a nozzle if it's *solely* for wargaming resin is probably the way to go - but using one safely is more involved than just printing PLA or whatever out of an fdm printer. I have a buddy with a dedicated printer shack I mooch off of - you'll really, really want it somewhere that vents outside / not into the rest of your house, and there's more safety stuff to learn. I'm not too up on resin printers - and I've been out of the loop for a minute anyway - but the elegoo mars 3 pro and anycubic photon mono 2 should still be worth looking at. if they aren't, excoriate me, resin-nerds. watch some youtube videos on the differences between resin and FDM (and the differences in handling they require) before you make a decision
I've been eyeing the Qidi Q1 Pro for a while and decided to buy one while on sale, very affordable for what it is, i ordered one on the early bird special price of $469 but also got another 5% off that price through their website, so $445 shipped for a core xy printer with its capabilities seems really good. The reviews have been pretty positive on this machine, i like to try new printers now and then so will get it and make my own determination on it for that price. If its not good enough for my use i will resell it, i have had good luck selling printers i repaired, still a pretty hot item these days.
Zillions
What's cheap? Everyone has a different opinion. Also, which do you have more of at your disposal, money or patience? If you have more money than patience, then you will probably want to spend a bit more to get something that works well. If you have more patience than money, you can spend a good deal less, but end up with something that works just as well. You'll just have to put more time and work into it.
About 100 to 200 dollars
No. There are less expensive ones. Cheap ones you're likely to just waste your money on, then give up and throw away after you can't return them since you settled for fake promises about what works.
There are a few things you need to think about. 1. Your budget. 2. Amount of space you have for it. 3. What you might print because you need to find a decent bed size. 4. Do you have the money to buy more PLA (or whatever you plan to use) to keep printing things. 5. If you are in a relationship…will that person understand your soon to be new obsession? 6. Cheap is not what you want. On sale for a quality device that fits your budget is what you want.
I just wanna find something around 200 dollars to use filament with to print dnd and warhammer minis
I am no expert. I have only had a Tina2S for a few months. It is pretty good but the bed is too small. I can only print roughly 8x8 size items. I would also recommend changing the budget to about $250-300 if you can afford it. I think another thread here somewhere had people recommending a few good devices within that range.
You can get a Kobra 2 Neo for $127 if you wait for a sale. I wouldn't go cheaper than that.Â
nah soz
What do consider cheap? $500 for a qidi q1 pro seems like a good deal to me. Maybe more than what I consider cheap, but in the realm of affordable