Edit 2: I purchased the Bambu A1 mini. If I regret it, there will be more chances in later years. Haha. Maybe by then I can work with resin and make the really fun minis. Thank everyone who responded for your advice and help.
Edit: I am leaning against resin printing due to the lack of sufficient ventilation in my current work space and the potential for injuring my cats. I also do not plan to do exclusively miniatures; they were just the thing I was most excited for when making this post.
I looked around for a pinned thread or purchase wiki type thing, but didn't see one. I apologize if this is the wrong place.
After visiting a family member, I have decided that 3D printing has finally gotten affordable enough for me to maybe add to my list of hobbies. My primary use cases would be making miniatures (no particular scale necessary, as I just like to paint them at the moment), making parts for other hobbies (including cross stitch), and just generally making gifts and fun knick nacks. My budget is no more than $250 for the machine itself. I have not-insignificant computer experience, and some training in CAD programs.
Several seem to be on sale in the US for Father's Day (today), and I was wondering if anybody had some advice or suggestions on some specific ones.
- Creality Ender-3 V2 is what my family member has had for a while now and enjoyed, and less than $200 is very nice. It does seem to be dated at this point, and Creality support seems to be lacking.
- There's also the Neo of the above for the same price, but I am honestly having a hard time pinpointing the difference.
- Sovol SV06 seems to be a common recommendation for the price range, but I've heard similarly negative things about their support, especially on Amazon (although I no longer trust Amazon reviews very much).
- Flashforge Adventurer 5M appears to be on a significant sale on their official eBay (240 USD), but I have only really seen it recommended in almost spammy manners, which seems like either excitement for the sale or an ad campaign.
Any help you can give is greatly appreciated, even if it's just not getting into the hobby at this price point.
I have a Sovol SV07 Plus, that is the newer version of the SV06 Plus… or in other words, the mechanically identical, but larger, SV06. It’s easy to assemble, it’s bigger than the A1 Mini. Now, you don’t know how big your printer needs to be, until you find out that it’s too small! I found that the 22cm square offered by my old Ender 3 was enough for most things, but it wasn’t enough for everything. I also had a 12cm square with a Monoprice Select Mini Plus V2(the name was the biggest thing lol) and that was quick to become restrictive. Would I suggest the A1 Mini, that has halfway between the two? I don’t know. But at the same time it comes pre assembled (it might not be a concern for you) and easy to use. In short I would recommend the SV07 as that’s the small and less expensive version of what I have, but the SV06 should be mechanically identical so that gives me hope it’ll perform equally well. The downsides are a less than stellar control unit (the hardware inside the touchscreen), a weird as fuck cooling fan that is super loud, and instructions that trick you into believing that the packets of screws are numbered in a meaningful way. Don’t. That said it prints everything with ease, it’s really fast and that fan might be loud, but at the same time works wonders. I love it. Oh! Also. Once I ever so slightly fucked up the Z offset, making it scrape quite thoroughly the build surface: nothing got damaged, build surface included!