Submitted 17 hours ago by monkeyFromTheLake@programming.dev to 3dprinting@lemmy.world
https://eu.store.bambulab.com/de/products/x2d
Hey everyone My sister wants to get into 3D printing. She has her birthday soon and we are thinking of gifting here a printer. What models wold you recommend?
What do you think of Bambu Lab X2D. What would you get for a beginer?
Don’t get a Bambu lab, they’ve been screwing over open source creators with BS license claims. Go with Prusa.
Despite their hefty price tag, Prusa still seems to be predominantly a “tinker printer” more that a “press-play” printer, so not necessarily the best option for a beginner.
I’ve been incredibly impressed and pleased with my Prusa Core One, as a beginner, over the past several months. Assembled myself (I’m a beginner to 3d printing and modeling but not to technical topics) both for cost savings and to have a deeper understanding of how to take out apart if something goes wrong, but it’s been rock solid so far. I was happy to pay the cost premium over Bambu to be on the moral high ground with ethical corporate behavior and production.
YMMV, but I was blown away by how good it was out of the box. I pressed play and it just worked, even with what I thought were ridiculous overhang angles without supports.
This hasn’t really been true since the MK3. Even then, I have a MK3 and besides recalibration between filament changes, I have not had to tinker with it almost at all.
Prusas are for people who like to fuck around with printers and beta testing as part of a “community”. We’re past that point, thankfully.
I’ve been 3D printing since about 2014, real early on with early Prusa stuff and the Reprap. I did a few years of resin printing when I was playing 40k during COVID.
I highly recommend the Centauri Carbon/Carbon 2 by Elegoo. As said elsewhere in here, it’s just about as easy as 3d printing can get. They send you a video to follow for set up and you can start printing within an hour reasonably with no experience.
Bambu is similarly easy, but Elegoo isn’t hostile towards its users in the same way. The Centauri Carbon/2 is best price to performance combined with ease of use that I think is currently for sale.
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 14 hours ago Under no circumstance should you buy a Bambu Lab, that company is god damn awful. They literally refused to admit one of their printer series’ (A1) being a fire hazard. Also actively locking people into their ecosystem, breaking workflows in the process.
Snapmaker U1 (cheap but good) or a modern Prusa (high quality and longevity) are good picks.
See recent reviews of the INDX Prusa… typical design issues.
I just bought a U1. I print protein models, which are the most difficult things to print and the very first print on the U1 in two colors with a third plastic interface for supports was perfect.
Natanox@discuss.tchncs.de 6 hours ago They fumbled the INDX release, that’s true. Probably betted on it, ran short on time and released it too early.
The U1 is great indeed, got one myself. :)
I personally avoid Bambu like the plage
If you are looking for the same performance and feature set (bot not a PR nightmare and locked eco system) look at Snapmaker U1.
If you wish to not break the bank as much, and just want something more simple and cheaper. I belive Creality still makes decent options.
Prusa is the best, no questions. But they are also the most expensive
At the $900 price point, which is the price of the X2D, I’d get a Snapmaker U1. You will need to set it up for her (print heads and tubing need to be installed) but once running it is easy to use, reliable, and 4 seperate heads means it’s far faster and less waste than an X2D.
Alternate would be an Anycubic Kobra X for $300. It’s multicolor with low purge waste and might be a good starter printer instead of jumping right to high end and then having it sit.
Bambu is a double edged sword.
On one hand, their printers are really plug and play. Or, their most recent printers are plug, plug and play (talking about the "security key" they added to the X2/H2 series because of laser). You plug it in, and it works. And it works well. Fast, indeed Apple-style handholding, and generally very few issues when it comes to the higher end models.
The downside is, they're a Chinese company, with the usual Chinese business mindset: anything they take from others is fair game (copyright be damned), anything they do must be super secretive (to the point of breaking A/GPL licensing). They're also not too keen on admitting mistakes.
If you're in the EU or Europe in general, consumer protection laws will protect you from their shittery, most of the time. Otherwise you're SOL.
There's also the moral side of things. Bambu did rip off multiple companies, and recently lost lawsuits against Stratasys (honestly, this lawsuit was 💩 against 💩). They also went after open source devs with fraudulent DMCA takedown requests and C&D's, and have been pretty much Apple level anti-consumer-freedom.
But then again their printers are probably the most beginner-friendly, and the cheapest when it comes to multi-material handling. I mean the H2C, a 330x320x300 volume printer with 7 toolheads is £1900, whereas the closest to this (without AMS, without smart track switching for filaments, etc.) from other manufacturers will set you back 50-70% more (Prusa XL+ with 5 toolheads and no enclosure is £3600, for comparison).
But that's about it, if you want to go off the beaten path, do funky things and hope for open source integration... That won't happen with Bambu that easily. I've made my own changes to e.g. Bambuddy and OrcaSlicer to host the entire print stack "in the cloud" (on my own homelab I have remote access to, so I don't need a computer for full slicer support), but it's a hacky solution that's prone to break any time. Their entire stack is closed source (Bambu Srudio is FOSS because the base, Prusa Slicer and Slic3r, are GPL licensed, but their network plugin that allows direct comms to the printer, isn't), and you're at their mercy for firmware updates, features, bugfixes and whatnot. The X1 series had some custom firmware progress but it's mostly stalled nowadays.
My other main issue with going non-Bambu is that there aren't other companies really that are better AND aren't overpriced AF. Prusa constantly prices their machines 30-50% higher than their real market value, aiming at semi-professionals/businesses instead of consumers (plus they've been going non-FOSS for a while now). Creality, Elegoo, and all the other Chinese brands will have the same issues as Bambu - often even worse because they don't have the capacity for fully custom software thus end up violating GPL even more - so if your main qualm with Bambu is their non-openness, these are out the window too.
Anycubic might be the best choice, but they had their fair share of hardware troubles too - on the other hand, installing open software on their hardware is generally quite straightforward (at least compared to other brands).
And beyond these, you only have the big industrial players that focus on B2B sales and products... which isn't the best choice for home printers.
Ultimately you have the fully open printer options, like Voron. They aren't ready-made, at best you get all the parts in a kit and have to assemble it yourself, at worst you need to buy the individual parts yourself and have the printed parts printed by someone else. Much more work, but you're getting the most flexible printer out of it. If you check some of the hardcore 3D printing demos on Instagram/TikTok, you'll find that most use a Voron base with some heavy modifications to achieve some super funky results. I've seen some of these plastic-punks print things in 6-10 minutes that would take 2-3 hours on a Bambu printer! Plus if you want exotic material support (PEEK for example), you'd need a custom build anyway as Bambu's hotends/chambers only go to a certain temperature.
Balanced take, but Prusa is very transparent about why their pricing is the way it is, and basically the answer there is that they try to keep an EU centric and ethical supply chain.
Which would be perfectly acceptable if they didn't market features that are half-working, half-assed, and will be delivered over 1-2 years of the product's lifetime.
It's a bit like ST:Generations - every key component won't be delivered until Tuesday.
Like others said, I would avoid Bambu like the plague. It’s asking for trouble in the future.
I would also avoid Creality printers as I have had reliability issues with them in the past. I had an Ender 5 that went through mainboards like filament.
I’m currently running a pair of Flashforge Creator 5, one Pro, one not. Both have proven solid and have been running nonstop since I got them in late July.
Of the two I like the Pro a bit better due to it being enclosed. Prints have been more stable with the wide temperature shifts we have right now. Damned easy to use and while setup wasn’t quite “plug and print” it wasn’t far off. Flashforge as a company isn’t really Linux friendly (Statically, probably not an issue for your sister but worth mentioning), but the printers are solid and work with OrcaSlicer without much trouble.
Other than that, Prusa has a solid reputation (except for the INDX varients right now. It has been a rough release. ) and so does Snapmaker.
Flashforge is starting to show similar issues to bambu iirc
I was very happy with bambu lab as a beginner. It’s a good price and it’s super easy to use.
As I became an enthusiast, I noticed that bambu is kinda like apple. They hold your hand and don’t let go, they want you to use their printer in a way they tell you to and any other way is met with constant friction. I feel like I want something as good, but more open and flexible and diy nowadays.
A friend of mine got some other printer at the same time (i don’t remember the company, something new and chinese) and he had way more trouble with it and then bounced off.
But again - for a beginner the Bambu experience is perfect.
For reference, just to show the ‘apple’ factor.
Bambu had “accedently force pushed” an updated to all printers before, that locked them to only able to print with confirmed Bambu Lab filament.
That this is even an option they invested research time into boggles my mind.
source? i have a bambu and this did not happen.
When was this? I’ve had Bambu printers for around 2-3 years now and never ran into this issue.
What a wonderful brother!
I guess my answer is yeah, the bambu labs x2d would be excellent for a beginner. What I would say is that most mid-range printers these days are very user-friendly.
I’m sure some people will complain about bamboo labs’ behaviour. Especially around the open source licensing business. Which for the record is aggravating. Honestly for someone just entering the space, I don’t think it should be a dealer breaker.
I recently purchased a new machine after running my old one for the best part of 10 years. It was crazy how far the technology has come. I went for the snapmaker U1. It offers multicolor printing with a fraction of the waisted material.
To be honest. Until your sister has started doing some printing, it’s difficult to separate a lot of printers. She will get a feel for things like,:
what materials she generally prints What size prints she’s aiming for The speeds she needs
I got a kit that was not complicated to assemble but it took a fair bit of time so I would say the price for this machine is pretty fair.
No idea about how well that one works, but I guess it comes with guarantee?
Better make sure to have a list of projects first, because while cool to have, you can just order 3d prints, you don’t need the machine yourself. Or you can visit hack spaces and ask for a turn on their machine. And it’s like… an actual waste of living space if you’re not using it. It’s actually in the way. Same thing as useless kitchen devices that sit on the counter and collect dust.
Then again, if you want to be nice and give your sister a nice gift, go for it.
Also idk how relevant money is to you, 800€ can buy a nice dinner, nice clothes and a weekend trip to a nearby city. Or like… think about an actually high quality bag or purse that gets used daily. Definitely the price range to discuss it with her and not just show up at her door with a huge box. 😅
OP:
My sister wants to get into 3D printing.
Your suggestion: Tell her to order prints from a farm vendor or makerspace and buy her a nice purse instead.
What?
No.
Your suggestion: discuss it, have a plan, make sure this is the right gift by talking to her, otherwise, the machine is fine.
I think that depends on you budget. If the Sky is the limit a Bamboo X2D or a Prusa Core 1 are good options.
But if you are going for a lower budget, look for a printer with auto bed leveling and availability of spare parts. Printer nozzle and print bed and considered consumables.
If you find one with a direct drive extruder it’s a winner.
discomatic@lemmy.ca 8 hours ago
No Bambu or Creality, seriously - get a Centuri Carbon from Elegoo. It’s the absolute best option for a newb, the price is incredible for what you get, and they just work. Bambu and Creality are both very hostile toward their users for no reason.
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
I’ll throw my hat in with the Centauri Carbon. Good price point, good capabilities, won’t give you a headache every 5 minutes.
zout@fedia.io 4 hours ago
I've got a Centauri Carbon 2 since early september, was a complete noob with 3d printing. Printed lots of stuff, only did the installation (with help of youtube videos) and automatic bed levelling before starting to print. Last week I had to clean the bed plate for the first time with some soap (I should probably do that more often), other than that it's hassle free.
Why lump Creality in? Did I miss some issues with them?
PattyMcB@lemmy.world 5 hours ago
In my experience they’re just difficult to work with. I never had a problem with customer service because I never engaged with them, but the printers themselves are always a project instead of the project. Not a good choice for beginners who aren’t serious about learning everything, imho