I think it’s finally time to upgrade from my Ender 3, and the market has… grown substantially. I’m a bit out of my depth.

Definitely looking at a coreXY, and definitely prefer a multi-color system (multi-material really). My budget is around $600, but that’s a bit flexible.

The Elegoo Centurion Carbon 2 looks attractive, and it’s on sale. But I’ve heard good things about multi-head systems, particularly when it comes to waste from purging. Granted, that stretches my budget a bit.

What’s the move? It seems like so many of the options (coughcoughBambu) have pretty gross anti-consumer practices. Are there any good options out there?

Update: Alright, I pulled the trigger on a Snapmaker U1. It seems like it’s going to be the Ender 3 of tool changers: the open source darling that becomes the de facto standard for the mod community.

  • CIA_chatbot@lemmy.worldEnglish
    3·
    4 days ago

    Dooooo eeet! Let the filament flow through you! I am your father.

    Seriously though, I have 6 printers spanning Bambu, Anycubic, creality etc. 4 of them are multi-color and none of them can touch the u1 on pretty much every metric.

    The U1 is fast, prints amazing, has open source firmware and minimizes filament waste by a ridiculous amount.

    The Kobra 3 Max is my most used printer, but it only gets more use because it’s a large format printer and I’ve been printing some large art piece stuff(if it wasn’t for the constant filament clogs with the crappy filament cutter system it would be great).

    Don’t even touch my p1S anymore unless I need to print a bunch of stuff at the same time.

    (Other printers are used for more industrial prints so multicolor isn’t something I care about with them)

      • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        3 days ago

        While you wait for shipment, start printing an ikea lid mount for the u1. It’s not necessary but it’s great to keep dust out. I did the beaverworks because it was first but I don’t recommend it because there are better ones now. Beaverworks version has unnecessary extra material and needs toyou to unplug the hot extruders to install.

          • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            3 days ago

            I’d suggest starting now because you are going to want to have your U1 busy with multi color prints. Multi color tpu is amazing. I made a mini chess set with tpu and the pieces feel fantastic.

            U1 tip: make sure all the plastic trim is snapped in inside the printer, especially behind the toolheads. It took me a month to figure out why my toolheads sometimes didn’t park. It looked fine but with more pressure I got a click and haven’t had problems since.

            • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
              1·
              3 days ago

              My throughput isn’t as high as it used to be, I’m not constantly printing, plus I’ll be too busy to do much for the next month or so. That should only be what, 10-15 hours of print time tops?

        • agamemnonymous@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
          2·
          4 days ago

          And then that greatness reduced once again to atoms when I inevitably get a full color 3d scanner to start making perfect miniatures of everything. Luckily I’ve probably got a few years before there’s a decent markerless scanner in the hobbyist price range, so I have time to recover.

          • CIA_chatbot@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            4 days ago

            Yea, all the hobby level ones suck horribly unless you set everything up with perfect lighting, sacrifice a goat to the elder gods, and get lucky.