Hi all.

My venerable ender 3 has likely printed it’s last benchy. Plus side, the tech has advanced significantly since I bought it. Down side, I’ve not kept track of the newer options.

Can anyone give me a rundown of which are worth looking at, and which to avoid?

I’m mostly concerned with reliability, but a speed boost would definitely be welcome. A heated chamber and/or multi material would also be very nice to have.

I would like to keep the costs closer to £500 ($680) but can stretch that, if there is a machine worth it.

I also have a complete no on bamboo printers. I don’t like what they’ve done regarding abuse of the open source movement.

Thanks all!

Edit to add. I’m not against non open source printers. I just have an issue with companies trying to burn the ladder behind them and lock their customers into a bubble.

Double edit: The snapmaker U1 seems like my best option. Ticks all the boxes, while remaining well in budget.

  • ivan@piefed.social
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    17 hours ago

    I’ve had Ender 3 V3-SE, which had been an upgrade from basic Ender 3 Pro, which, funnily enough, got glitchy from firmware flashing gone wrong.

    And on topic of Creality Cloud - I’ve just used Octoprint on RPi as the latter was simply cheaper at that moment. 🌚

    • Jo4ted@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      13 hours ago

      OctoPrints what I’m also looking towards. Had a friend deploy it with his Ender 3 Pro, and it was so smooth compared to CC.