So I’ve decided to get “back” into 3d printing. I was getting into it in 2012 and I started assembling a kit, but then life happened and I never had enough time or room to complete it.
However, now I’m in a much better place (both literally and figuratively), so I’ve decided to dive back in. However, last time around it seemed that almost everything was some variant of Prusa, and I think I want to go in a less DYI direction this time.
- Once calibrated, doesn’t need much fidgeting or maintenance.
- More or less prefabricated. Some assembly is fine, but I don’t want to sit there an dremmel a hobbled bolt again, or build a power supply.
- I prefer one of those enclosed printers, as it will be in a location with minimal climate control.
- Must not rely on any software that does not run on linux
- I’m not too worried about printing speed. Print quality matters more to me.
- Preferably one that is fixable if it breaks.
- Single filament is fine.
- Don’t need wifi
Any suggestions?
Oh, and I still have a spool of ABS around here somewhere… Is this still a reasonable material choice? Any other materials worth considering if I prefer the prints to be durable and not brittle?
This is where I could list a budget or preferred price range, but purchasing power parity and exchange rates probably complicates this, so let’s just say “reasonably priced”
UPDATE: I ordered a Prusa Core One. I went for the kit, as I will hopefully better understand how I can fix it later after assembly. I threw in a spool of PETG as well, as I’m curious about the material.
I’ve got a Bambu A1 mini that I’m quite happy with. Bambu studio works perfectly fine on Linux, and I can import lots of different kinds of designs from anywhere, but I think you do really need Bambu Studio to prepare the print for this specific printer. I have no idea if there’s any way around that, but is that necessary?
The a1 mini is very good at small details. The main downside is of course that it’s not very big, so not suitable for large prints. It calibrates automatically and is very low maintenance.
They blocked third-party slicers for printers with a firmware update. I personally use OrcaSlicer (a fork of Bambu Studio with additional features, and Bambu Studio is itself a fork of PrusaSlicer…), so I had to set mine to LAN only mode to continue using it. That also means I can’t use their mobile app (it doesn’t work with LAN only mode, almost certainly to push people into their ecosystem of software) but I wasn’t really using it anyways.
I don’t like that Bambu are locking down on their ecosystem like this. Hopefully they don’t get any ideas from the 2D printer industry and make it required that you use their own brand of filament…
That’s indeed a bad development I wasn’t aware of. Even more so if they base their own software on others, and then block others from their platform.