Congratulations to you and your wife! The custom fabric is a nice touch 
After playing with a pla printer my friend brought over for a bit today, I’m considering buying a printer now. I was looking at the bamboo carbon x1 because it does the leveling and annoying stuff for you and has ok reviews… but is that a good choice? I’d love a multicolor printer but one with multiple heads so you don’t have to mess with wasting filament purging between color changes… but then again I don’t really care too much about multiple colors so if the price jumps way up to get that then I can do without it.
Basically the most important thing to me is that it’s self managing. Bed levelling, job monitoring, minimal maintenance… push the button and get a print and ignore it for 3 months but ready to go when I need it.
To put it another way, I’m not an enthusiast… I am the epitome of a generic user who just wants to use a tool and not get into the nuances of the 3D printer industry.
Any ideas?
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The x1 carbon is the closest to what you want,
You’ll still need to learn bits and stuff… but it’s probably 50% less work at least
I’m still planning to get one come nov 2 December
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Go with bamboo labs. What ever you do stay as far away from snapmaker as possible.
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For the price. I still
Think you might be able to get some mileage with an ender 3 standard
Plenty of us to teach you young Padawan
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Prusa Research has traditionally been known for making great printers that are reliable and easy to use. Bamboo labs is another brand with a good reputation for making machines that actually work and you probably get more bang for your buck but it’s a closed ecosystem.
However, I don’t own any printers from these two companies and can’t give a well informed opinion on the matter.
Most variants of the Ender 3 have design flaws that make them harder to run. Especially if you need precision or are planning to use fancy materials. I’m not precisely happy with mine and wouldn’t recommend creality as I’ve had several problems, not only with one of their printers but with a few accessories as well.
But an Ender 3 should be good enough if you stick to PLA. And I kinda regret not going for the E3 v2 as the power supply is in the base and adding a second leadscrew is a bit easier but I’m thinking about an upgrade to fix a problem with the frame that shouldn’t exist to begin with.
Alternatively, the Sovol SV06 and Ender 3 v3 SE might be good enough at a low cost but I’m guessing based on the specs. In any case, both are better than a base Ender 3 and the Sovol looks pretty nice with it’s linear rods and bearings on all axes.
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I’ve got a solid 3 years of printing before having any real issues on the ender … And all it needed was a $30 part … Just took me a while to figure out which one 
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Was it the bed or the hotend? Or the infamous extruder that’s known to break after a while? But unless you went for a microswiss, that part shouldn’t cost that much.
As long as you only print PLA, are ok with leveling it from time to time, and don’t plan to use it for engineering, an Ender 3 will work ok. I’m going to recommend the Ender 3 Pro at a minimum as the base Ender 3 has a thinner Y axis extrusion and is less sturdy. The v2 moves the power supply to the base and includes a glass bed which should last longer than the polycarbonate ones.
But I think that there are better options.
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I have a microswiss clone ($8-10 on AliExpress 
) with a titanium heat break ($5/each) and a decent nozzle ($5/each) …
Put a HeroMe cooling system to get away from the microscopic 1 sided fan (it gets hot here 
)
Took me a bit of trial and error, but I’m happy to share my recipe if anyone is interested.
Stock/original extruder stepper
The extruder gear didn’t grab the filament anymore, tried a few different dual gear that didn’t work any better than the original one until I went for a clear plastic one that work better than some I paid 3 time the priced and couldn’t return fast enough …
I do have the “original” pro with the larger Y extrusion and meanwell power supply. The magnetic bed bubbled up after the second print, been a glass bed and never looked back.
Pla, abs, petg, tpu … Always works, bed stay lever for about 2, maybe 3 spools … Part of me want to try nylon …
If budget is an issue, the ender 3 is unbeatable, if the bamboo is not out of $$$ it seam to have good reviews (never seen/used one so I can’t speak from experience)
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Lol fair enough
For you it might be easier because you may be able to write off a portion… yada yada depreciation irs bullshit
Yea I’ve been digging in hard to it there are some downsides
Wasted material for filament changes, but I plan to melt my scrap into silicone molds, I did a test recently and it seems like a semi viable concept… most people have issues because they over heat it or use a tiny toaster oven with stuff RIGHT NEXT to the heating coils
I honestly experimented in my kitchen oven with my wife’s blessing after explaining my reasoning and metrics I was looking for, and it was pretty smooth
Yeah the poop chute haha… I agree there could be a lot of waste. I only plan to use the AMS as a convenient way to store the different filaments… I only ever really plan to use a single filament type per job. But… that may be a mistake on my part. I guess filament needs to be kept in a moisture controlled environment… so my plans are probably all for naught.
Throw it in a good dehydrator overnight
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i have a vacuum oven… low temp, but vacuum pulls moisture out of pretty much anything. think it’ll work for filament?
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Do some digging before you do it, I think I have seen carried results
Realistically, for your frequency of printing to start
Since the x1 has a sealed chanber it has a built in filament dryer mode,
Stick roll in printer set temp and it cooks for however long, then toss it in a freezer bag with a desiccant
If your printing with pla it’s fairly forgiving of humidity, just depends how bad your RH is
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Should work, but might be a bit overkill
My rule of thumb for drying:
- has it been sitting for over a month?
No: throw it in the printer
Yes: throw it when you think about it …
The only exception is the wood filled filament, that I put in the dryer for at least 24h …
If there is moisture trapped in the filament it will let you know right away, you’ll see the bubble form when it leaves the nozzle … And you’ll hear the crackling!
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Also… forgot to mention
I am significantly jelly your gunna get the big boy printer before me 
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That’s not the big boy printer, the real big boy printer is a Voron, a Ratrig, or some other DIY and customizable 3D printer. 
That’s going to change very soon. And not having to deal with the small problems of the Ender 3 will speed up this transformation.
And I forgot to mention the Prusa Mini which is the printer I should’ve bought instead of the Ender 3.
Yeap, I made the mistake of getting a magnetic bed as removing parts wasn’t easy. And I had the same problem… Once again, I should’ve bought the v2 instead of the original Ender 3. Well, not really, I should’ve bought the Prusa Mini instead.
Now you see why I don’t recommend creality products? Their quality is rather mediocre and this starts with the design of their products in most cases. But in the US you can get an E3 v2 for about $100 and that’s why lots of people recommend their printers.
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This is exactly why I recommend it to some people
It is the not The One, definitely not, but it does have its place and market. And with some upgrades and a bit of tinkering up front, it’s a very solid machine.
If this is not an option and budget allows, there are definitely “better” options.
That’s something the Ender 3 is not… The X gantry on mine is hard to keep straight and perpendicular to the Z axis. But that’s my no so inner engineer speaking…
I bought one because it was available and I expected something without huge design flaws. The E3 is not a good foundation for tinkering if you ask me. If the frame was a little better and more stable, I’d say otherwise.