Toying with the idea of buying my first 3D printer

[Steelhammer]

The main reason I started this thread is I wanted to choose the right printer to start with and not buy something that's not quite suitable for my needs or worse still; something that's too complicated for me to learn with. I'm currently thinking P1S with AMS - I really like the look of these and think they are sensibly priced and will more than suffice for my (mainly) model making needs. The screen on the P1S looks a bit bargain basement even compared to the cheaper A1 but in all honesty I think I wont be using the screen much and I'll live with it.

X1C also looks great but aside from being able to print in advanced materials, is there any real benefit to it over the P1S ?

Thanks to all of you that have commented on here, I will be ordering in the next few days and I'm really excited about this (my early Christmas present to myself!)

[tankme]

I have an X1C. The real benefit is that it comes with the hardened steel nozzles and the enclosure. Both of those can be added to the P1S. I do print a lot of ABS so I like the enclosure. I don't print tank parts in PLA as they warp and melt in the sun. ABS needs an enclosure to print reliably. The P1S wasn't an option when I bought my X1C, but I have beat the hell out of my X1C. I did finally have to replace the XY belts at 7500 hours of use which was a royal pain in the rear. I also print a lot of PETG, but it prints with the door open or top off using the X1C. Just be prepared that 3D printing is a hobby all in it's own right. In the beginning you will have print failures no matter what printer you buy. If you don't dedicate time to learning the 3D printing hobby, you will just end up frustrated.

[Dogberry]

If you are going to get into 3d Printing be prepared for some disappointments. I was given a 3d printer and the software for a Warprints Hetzer some time ago.

The results were not that good. Whilst the model was excellent ( I would recommend it to anyone) my printing skills were dire.

To give you an idea this is my attempt at the front third of the Hetzer.

I prefer to stick to brass……..

I have found a guy locally to me whose hobby is 3d printing so If I really need anything I just pay him. His results are perfect.

[tankme]

If you are going to get into 3d Printing be prepared for some disappointments. I was given a 3d printer and the software for a Warprints Hetzer some time ago.

The results were not that good. Whilst the model was excellent ( I would recommend it to anyone) my printing skills were dire.

To give you an idea this is my attempt at the front third of the Hetzer.

I prefer to stick to brass……..

I have found a guy locally to me whose hobby is 3d printing so If I really need anything I just pay him. His results are perfect.

A lot of older printers require a lot of "tweaking" to get them to print right. The Bambu ones tend to print well with very little tweaking. They can be more expensive, but the time and filament saved makes up for it.

[Matdragon]

Just thought i'd chime in my 2 cents here!

3d Printing to some is a whole hobby of building, upgrading, modding, testing etc, in which case they can go for a Creality, Prussia etc, or at a higher end kit form printer a Voron.

However in my case my 3d printer is just a "tool" for supporting other hobbies, I dont have the time for another hobby and constantly worrying about if my print will be successful or when i'm next going to have to pull apart and rebuild my printer.

So I went for a Bambu Lab P1S with AMS. There have been some privacy concerns surrounding Bambu being, but I run mine in "LAN only" mode anyway.

All I can say is that over hundreds of prints and probably over a thousand hours over the past couple of years, I can count on one hand the number of print failures, mostly all my fault for not cleaning the print bed often enough and adhesion failing. Only maintenance i've done was change a nozzle, replace a ptfe tube, and I did have to disassemble the AMS once because my lazy bum didnt dry out some filament properly and it stapped off in the feeding tube after not being used for a few weeks, still an easy job.

I love my Bambu P1S and it is always ready to go, I love being able to visualise an idea, knock it up in tinkercad, send it to my printer and in a few hours that weird idea in my head has become a physical thing in my hand!

Attached a photo of my most recent little project, a ESP32 powered home controller (hooks into Home assistant through ESPhome) for controlling all my light, devices and viewing statuses etc, as well as a ARGB bar for status colours and on screen alerting for when any local hosted services go down, doorbell goes off etc! Honestly I mostly use my printer for enclosures like this apart from when the kids one a new "thing"!

[Herr Dr. Professor]

My thanks to all of you for the the comments on 3D printing and the Bambu P1S. Although I decided three years ago to forego 3D printing for financial, space, time, and hobby backlog reasons, I still find myself wishing. Yet it was then and still is a painful decision. My alternative is to buy from others who 3D print, and I especially recommend as one of the best sellers here in the U.S. (just one of them, there are other good ones) Battleground Model. I would be interested in recommendations other, similar folks who do 3D printing, as I do keep a list.

[ColemanCollector]

My experience as a cautious cheapskate unsure if a 3D printer would be my newest hobby, or newest dust collector.
Bought a good used Enders3 Max for the big build platform. It took some learning in a new world to me, but I made prints! And many failures, plus it likes PLA, but not PETG so much. More fiddling and learning to do. I think a better filament dryer will help. Bottomline--I like 3D printing, but the seemingly problem free Bambu lab machines has me thinking I'll buy one of those for the hasslefree reputation. That's further confirmed by a son's friend who has been churning out great items with his new bambu.

One thing I did right was also buy a used Elegoo resin printer for small detail parts. It's not a big platform but it can handle all of the fuel tanks, gas cans, lights, boxes, tarps, gear et al that will go on a tank. The fine detail is really nice. After trying a few detail parts on the filament printer and being disappointed, the resin printer has not disappointed.

Final thoughts--the Enders 3 is too fussy, but I have been forced to really learn more about 3d printing. I'm good with that but I'll get a bambu labs at some point and hop off the struggle bus.
If you want fine detail parts, don't forget about the resin printing world.

And I haven't even thought about parts design. I'm just using cults3d files. Eventually...

Mike.
PS--Dogberry's idea of paying for perfect prints is most righteous, and depending on your needs and 3d ambitions a great way to go.

[Jib]

Been playing around with my printer finally (Bambu X1C w/ AMS 2 Pro, using PETG and TPU filaments). There’s definitely a learning curve, but overall having a lot of fun!

https://youtu.be/o_tg1o1dTYA?si=dicVuW_DuD6lmB8_

With respect to PETG, I had all sorts of spaghetti problems UNTIL I got their AMS 2 Pro (Bambu’s drying storage/dispenser box) AND got the humidity inside the box below 20%. Now, no more spaghetti monsters.

[tankme]

Been playing around with my printer finally (Bambu X1C w/ AMS 2 Pro, using PETG and TPU filaments). There’s definitely a learning curve, but overall having a lot of fun!

https://youtu.be/o_tg1o1dTYA?si=dicVuW_DuD6lmB8_

With respect to PETG, I had all sorts of spaghetti problems UNTIL I got their AMS 2 Pro (Bambu’s drying storage/dispenser box) AND got the humidity inside the box below 20%. Now, no more spaghetti monsters.

Yeah, PETG likes to be dried before printing. I have a Sunlu S2 dryer that I set to 65C for 8 hours for PETG.