Basically title, but I can provide some information.
I’m looking to spend no more than $300 or so. I’m not well versed in different filaments (I’ll be honest, I know nothing) or really anything about 3d printing, but I want to be able to print cup holders for someone I know whose vehicle has none, I imagine heat resistance and strength would be important there. I also do robotics now and would like to be able to make my own small robot chassis and parts. I’m also a Linux user and like FOSS, which I believe is fairly compatible with 3d printing, so I would like to find a printer that doesn’t make me use proprietary software and that I can use with Fedora Linux without too much hassle. I know I’m new to this, and I know I’m in other hobbies where people post things like: “I want to spend no more than 6 dollars to get artificial superintelligence running on an Arduino Nano,” so I hope this isn’t that, and sorry if it is. Thanks in advance.
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If you are new and don’t know much I highly recommend staying away from the Ender and similar cheap printers as they require much more tweaking and are less reliable.
Bambu is the best choice in the price range but the printers themselves aren’t very open. No problem running on Linux though, Bambu Studio is available as a Flatpak and Orca Slicer can be compiled.
If you want the reliable, open option in that price range I’d recommend a used Prusa, you should be able to get a MK3S era machine in that price range.
If you like tinkering and fussing with settings, get something like a VoxelLab Aquila, or an Ender. If you don’t want to futz and just want to print or model, go bambu or maybe prusa if you can find a deal
Edit:future me here saying, don’t get the bambu. They were always a little bit close to shitty practices. But now they are crossing the line. Go Prusa instead.
I can’t speak to the Linux piece, but for that price point ender 3 pro is hard to beat. Or the Bambu mini but im unsure if you need to use their software or if you can use any slicer. I’d imagine any slicer to be honest
I highly recommend Orca Slicer, it’s forked from bamboo slicer (which is in turn forked from Prusa), so has their modern UI/ layout and natively, as well as natively support bamboo printers. If Bamboo’s not your jam, it also plays very nicely with Klipper. As an added bonus, it regularly gets new features added or ported from the other slicers.