TLDR: thinking about getting a new printer with a budget of maybe €1200, mostly for toys and hueforge. Preferably FOSS

I got an Ender 3 Pro three years ago as my first printer. Over the years I’ve printed plenty toys and some occasional functional parts, and it’s been mostly pretty good. It’s developed problems now and then, but I’ve been able to fix them.

I’ve recently played a bit with HueForge, it’s this software that allows you to print really nice multicolour images by blending filament colours. This is doable by printing in super thin layers. It worked really well on the prusa mk4s at work, but not so much on my printer. Extrusion is just not consistent enough after swapping colours, or when there’s a lot of retractions/deretractions.

I’ve gotten a bit tired of all the limitations the Ender 3 Pro has. I was looking at a Prusa mk4s with mmu3, since I enjoyed assembling the mk4 at work, and it’s been working so well, even for the colleagues who don’t know much about 3d printing. Although, for personal use, do I really want to pay the premium price for that level of reliability and longevity? A lot of budget brands do offer multi colour capable printers these days.

But I also feel pretty tempted to try building a Voron, and while I was looking at those I saw some IDEX printer that look so cool lol. And there’s also the Enderwire that can make use of my old Ender 3 Pro…

Please help.

Update: I went and ordered a QIDI Q1Pro. My partner and I agreed to get a Voron kit and build it together for Christmas, I’ll figure out what multi-mterial system to go for after that. Hopefully the Bondtech INDX

  • Panties@lemmy.caOPEnglish
    2·
    3 days ago

    Thank you! I should convince my lab to buy the Mk4s to Core One upgrade kit, especially with the health aspect. It’s a big lab with ventilation, most of my colleagues only print PLA, but we print a lot. The extra speed will make the mechanical engineers very happy.

    Personally I’m starting to lean towards getting a small QIDI printer now, and build a Voron 2 next year with hopefully Bondtech’s prospective INDX. That would be the perfect setup for me.

    • Bluewing@lemmy.worldEnglish
      2·
      2 days ago

      Honestly, my second choice from the Core One would be the Qidi Plus 4. I wanted the X-Smart 3 1803 sized printer as a second machine. But it was discontinued before I got off my butt to buy something. (I ended up with a Bambu mini combo as an impulse buy). But if I was starting over with my first printer, I would seriously consider a Qidi machine.