Several years ago I leapt enthusiastically into the realm of 3D printing by buying a massive, expensive delta-type printer. I had to put it together myself, which was fun, but after that I struggled to get it to print well. Even simply trying to get the prints to stick to the bed were difficult, leading me to add huge brims to all my parts which were a pain to cut off afterward. Eventually I gave up fiddling with it and it’s been gathering dust ever since.
I know that a lot of you treat the hobby as an opportunity for endless tinkering and optimization, which is great, but I think I’ve realized that what I’d prefer is something that just works out of the box with a minimum of adjustment.
The best low hassle printing is going to be resin. You can get a decent Elegoo or Anycubic model for only a few hundred dollars. The only real hassle is cutting supports, washing your prints, and curing the resin. In my experience, water washable resin is the way to go.
Of course, depending on what you are printing, you may not have as much use for a resin printer.
Obligatory ventilate your work area and use your ppe.
Edit: not sure why downvotes. Is this sub anti-resin?
Bambu A1
I was thinking about that or an A1 Mini
I recently got into this and picked up the A1 with AMS. It’s been a lot of fun to play with and other than the routine maintenance like cleaning the bed and lubing the rails, it’s been zero trouble.
How much of a difference does the AMS make in terms of a general printing? If someone wasn’t planning to do multi color prints often or at all would it still be worth it?
If you can swing the added cost, I would 100% get it. I don’t do much multi color, but it’s worth it alone to just be able to have 4 spools loaded up and be able to switch between them in the slicer software. I always keep matte black loaded because it’s what I use most often, and then swap the other three slots as needed. The way I see it, even if you’re ok with having to change the spool everytine you print, you may as well have the AMS and have to switch slightly less often.
Lastly, on more than one occasion the automatic failover to another spool has saved me a lot of effort. If you suspect you’re running low on a spool, you can just load up the same color on a different slot and the print run will automatically switch over to the new spool mid-print if you run out. I was blown away by the convenience of that the first time it happened. Keeps the print moving instead of stopping and waiting for you to make the switch manually.
Low-cost and no-hassle kind of work against each other here. Which is more important?
I’d say no-hassle is more important, in that case. I just don’t want to go spending $1000 on a printer again
What kind of printing (material, use-case etc.) do you think you’ll be doing, and what size do you want to be able to print?
Mostly little gadgets, mechanical things, or small figures or terrain pieces for wargaming, so I’d like a high level of detail (I’m fully aware that it won’t be nearly as good as a resin printer). I’d like to be able to print with PLA, ABS, ASA, and PETG, and envelope doesn’t need to be huge, probably about 10” at most.
QIDI tech? I mean there will be minor issues but the printers seem perfectly usable with the flaw mostly being with perfection hopping. It’s a 3D printer and will print those fine and the Q1 pro is $400
Otherwise the P1S which is slightly more expensive and closed but slightly better.
Or you go for a bed slinger and give up on some of the complex filaments without tinkering again.
I will say for bed adhesion you should be getting a bed magnet and a textured PEI sheet which will fix a lot of issues. Even TPU can be printed on it and removed easily enough without the need for glue or release agent past isopropyl alcohol.
I think Prusa is a good brand to go with
Not low-cost at all though
