What is the best quality printer that is under $1000 (preferably much less), has a fairly large print bed, and can take third party filament?
If you can find it used get yourself a RF1000 or RF2000 from conrad. Very nice built all milled aluminiumframe. Very precise and you can also mill aluminium with a kit with it.
I am using XYZ pro, somewhere around $600… It can use 3rd party filament, has 7.80" x 7.80" x 7.80" built plate. So far I am happy with it.
Best quality means what? Quality of the prints? Features? Printer build materials? What is a large print bed? Do you want closed source or open? What are you trying to print? ABS? PLA? PETG? Do you need it networked?
Original Prusa I3 MK2 hands down
In good quality I mainly mean print quality although I want an all around good quality printer. a good size print bed would be somewhere between 6x6x6–8x8x8 or something around there. The main materials I want to work with are ABS, PLA, and Ninjaflex… However would love to try some metal filaments but that isn’t priority. No I don’t NEED it networked.
if I were to get a Prusa is it worth the extra money for the preassembled or is the kit fine?
It depends on how technically oriented you are. The kit doesn’t seem hard to build to me but I scratch built my printers and I’m used to more headaches than a kit so it is hard for me to judge. Skin through @Thomas_Sanladerer build video here: https://youtu.be/sNYyEEukImg
@Tim_Gaertner I’m seriously looking at the Prusa Mk2 for my second printer. AIUI the kit is fairly easy to assemble and the instructions good, however some people on the forum have had problems with the auto-levelling which the Prusa guys appear to have politely inferred is down to the quality of the build, not a problem with the printer itself (it’s only happened on kit built ones).
Bear in mind you get full support for the pre-built, whereas only forum for the kits and that right now there’s a waiting list for the pre-builds.
I just got the kit version of the Mk2 about 2 weeks ago. After a few nights of assembly and one readjustment it’s worked perfectly so far.
Instructions are great and the act of building it sure helps get an understanding of what’s going on.
@Jon_Gritton That sucks, kinda discourages building kits. Might be worth the $200 difference just for the support.
@Tim_Gaertner I have the Printrbot Simple Metal (v1) and I love it, it only costs $750 (same price for kit or prebuilt). The v2 is in preorder but it’s $950 and for an extra $50 you can get the Printrbot Plus which is better. Only benefit with the Simple over the Plus is portability. If you want a prebuilt machine I’d go for the Printrbot, if you’re up to constructing a kit I’d go with the original Prusa Mk2 for $700. The Prusa has a bigger build area and is a bit more customizeable but the Printrbot is an extremely robust machine that will print very reliably.
The only beef I have with the MK2 kit is the use of the threaded rods for the base. I feel like it could lead to some misalignment. I would rather see extrusions and that way you know for sure that you won’t have misalignments
@Adam_Steinmark you can understand why they do it though; a kit could have been built horribly and tying up support lines for what is likely to be none of Prusa’s fault just hurts people who’ve paid for a finished product.
If you’re halfway competent with a screwdriver, and follow the instructions to the letter, I get the impression the build isn’t that difficult though.
Thanks for all the comments. I think I might be settled on the Prusa MK2. My last question is what slicer should I use? Since i’m fairly new to 3D printing I don’t understand how to use sli3r and I can’t find anything on the web explaining it well. Does the Prusa have a suggested software?
@Tim_Gaertner I use Simplify3D and it’s a very popular program. It’s not free, but then again you always get what you pay for…
Lots of useful tools, easy access to all manner of settings, etc.
ok. thanks. ill look into that. Also, how does Cura work with a Prusa?
Yeah start out with Cura but make sure you use 15.04.6 and not the current version designed for use really only with Ultimakers.
New version is a pain in the ass for non Ultimakers. Spent 45 min trying to get it working and gave up and went back to 15.04.6
oh ok. But the 15.04.6 works good?
Yup! Been using some of the 15.xx builds for months and am super happy