Good price on the extremely popular and almost universally considered best budget 3d printer, the Creality Ender 3.
Bought one of these a few weeks ago for $265 and it arrived very quickly.
I also have an anet a8 and am blown away by how much better the ender 3 is for the same approximate price.
Prices are approx the same from Gearbest/Banggood etc., little bit more expensive even, but take a hell of a lot longer to be delivered, with no AU warranty.
This is more versatile (it will print more than just PLA) and has a larger print volume. The Cocoon Mini, generally, has really good after sales support (you could buy it and take it back no questions asked if you are unsure about the printer as well but that's a different story).
I have a Cocoon Create Touch and a Geeetech A10 (copy of the Ender3 with a few changes, you can pick them up a little cheaper than this) and find the CCT more robust and consistent but the A10 is amazing value for money.
So the Ender will likely offer better value, depending where you place your preferences but maybe better to say bang for your buck, but the Cocoon will offer better support and less risk.
thanks for the response namgib. I think I would like to do some ABS things, the Ender-3 could be better, and I like to tinker, so a bit of assembly/troubleshooting is right up my alley.
Hope you don't mind some unsolicited advice.
I'm an Ender 3 owner, and it really is a fantastic workhorse that with some minor tinkering is extremely beginner friendly (It was my first printer). It's generally pretty simple to set up and can be done within 2 hours (quicker if your not painstakingly slow), and the more recent units have had a lot of the initial design kinks worked out, and the community has created solutions for it.
I bought mine from Ebay but from Creality direct, and although it arrived with a damage build surface and missing a screw, Creality were extremely helpful in replacing them no questions asked, and sent them to me within 24 hours of being notified. None of that was issue enough to stop me from printing though, and my first prints came out beautifully considering I'd slapped it all together without any modification, so it will run fine out of the box.
Creality also helped with some support with minor issues I thought I was having (I wasn't having issues, I was just new), so whilst after sales may not be as good as Aldi, it is still there. That said, the community of Ender 3 owners is HUGE, and if you head over to r/3DPrinting on Reddit, you'll basically have every answer you need at your finger tips. Odds are you'll see some of my work there too.
If you want to print ABS you'll need to consider a few things, such as upgrading the PTFE Tube, or swapping to a Full Metal hotend (preferred). You will also need an enclosure as ABS is really difficult to print without a controlled, hot environment. I built mine from IKEA furniture I found in the reject corner. Most people do start with PLA though, which is your bread and butter of materials, and I'd recommend that. Hitting ABS without understanding your machine fully and what issues can occur during printing will probably put you off it.
Nothing on these Chinese printers is exactly expensive and it's all pretty universal between the CR10 which is another community favorite, and I can't stress how well document everything is well by the community. The Ender 3 also being (mostly) Open Source also means creating your own upgrades isn't too hard since the CAD files are easily available.
Very favourably, both are recognised as top options for budget end 3d printers.
Bigger build area for the ender 3 however does require a fair bit of assembly that you need to get right to avoid issues with your prints.
Hi Jusdrifn, hadn't heard of Aldi's offering until you mentioned it then. Would recommend having a browse of Reddit's 3d printer comparison threads if you want to really get a good variety of opinions before buying
Is there something special about this seller? Cheaper with this seller: https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/292778109678
Huh. Wow didn't see that one. I'll update the post to that seller haha. Good spot
Ah it won't let me change the store on the post. The seller i posted is the one i bought mine from a few weeks ago so i can vouch for quick postage and packaging etc. Probably the same for your linked store but can't say for sure.
I mean that's a decent enough reason :) ~$20 for assurance of a good delivered product is probably worth it.
Just add the extra link to the description.
Neither of them will ship to WA though BTW.
That seller is based in China, so there is a very good chance they are falsely advertising the product as being in Australia. Expect a very long wait on delivery with excuses from the seller that it's Australia posts fault despite tracking showing they don't even have the item yet.
They both have the same delivery timeframe
This was much cheaper (around the $200 mark) during the black Friday sale weekend period, may be worth waiting for a 10% off eBay site-wide sale and stacking with the 5% discount gift cards to achieve similar pricing.
Id be interested in comparing this to my anet a8, there are so many mods out there for it… to improve print quality and speed. probably spent more on my a8 than this anyways… just in parts alone, though i can print polycarbonate with it quite easily now. - and have over volted the heat bed.
Hi mate, this i can definitely comment on given i have both printers. this prints 100% better than my modded anet a8 straight out of the box and only takes 1 hour max to assemble. Once i get my anet a8 repaired to working condition i'm selling it on gumtree asap.
ender 3 is specced to handle high nozzle temp (advertised at 280 but only goes up to 245 realistically before the PTFE tube starts degrading which can be dangerous.)
and the bed handles up to 120 degrees. Thermal runaway protection enabled by default on this batch. Comes with buildtak surface and clips to secure so it can easily be replaced with glass/borosilicate.
my anet a8 prints in polycarbonate, head temperatures over 300 are fine…
over volting the heat bed to about 15volts, gets it up to 120 no problems. (making a enclosure for it now, so should be able to get it higher than that too - though im thinking i may be able to put it in an old oven, but i doubt the oven will be big enough, maybe an old fridge?)
interesting about your quality comparison below… I love the mods to move the extruder motor from the body to the top of the printer though…
Whats the benefit of getting hotter?
Print doesn’t warp and you can print in different materials, based on Balmaino’s comment, this printer sounds pretty damn good, if I had to choose again from the start I’d probably choose this though…
"Thermal runaway protection enabled by default on this batch", where have you seen that? I've seen very different remarks on Reddit about that, and it's potentially dangerous to make that claim based on what Creality have said in the past. Would be interested to see if it is true because that's a huge safety upgraded if true, and means people can save $10 on an Arduino unless they want Mesh Bed Leveling or other custom features.
https://3dprinting.com/questions/creality-ender-3/does-the-f…
This might be a case of one guy getting the wrong info then another guy hearing this and giving the wrong info, i haven't actually tripped it yet. Marlin saved me on the anet a8 when the element fell out of the heating block but i hadnt bothered to chuck marlin on the ender because i thought based on potentially wrong info that it already has it enabled…
Moral of the story, please double check this yourself if you get the printer or chuck marlin on there to be on the safe side.
It also has a bigger bed, sturdy aluminium v-slot construction, and you can tell when putting it together they've put a lot of thought into the design. With the anet i though oh well its just a couple of bits of acrylic, some motors and wires no wonder it's so cheap. With this it suprises me they can sell something this good for so cheap.
How is the running cost of this printer (i.e.: cost for buying "ink")?
One 1kg spool of filament is $30. This will print (approx) 1kg of items. This is a lot of items since most of the objects you create are about 80% hollow. As a guide i've had a 3d printer for 2 years and haven't finished a single spool yet. However i have bought 4 spools as i wanted different colours.
Thanks for the info. Just trying to decide if this unit would be a good father/son Christmas present…. Spending up to about $300 I would be happy with.
Sounds better than the anet a8 based on the op review, I’m pretty happy with my anet a8, so cant really go wrong…
Just make sure you update/improve the printer
Doesn't post to Perth Metro!
I assume this would be quite the upgrade on my original XYZ Da Vinci 1.0 I can never get to work?
Looks (and reviews) quite good
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odDZMYr1di8 review isnt very good out of box, you need to replace some parts to make it work better
Also to note in the comments of the video: Ender 3 is now completely Open Source Hardware, so that should help speed along development of patches and upgrades.
The Ender 3 will print fine out of the box if you assemble it right and be mindful the Z-Axis is a mess and not over tighten a certain part. A lot of Angus' video has now been outdated since Creality never stop creating minor new iterations of the machine. It's also mostly Open Source, there are still a few things missing such as the LCD Unit, but I would say it's 98% complete.
Stock firmware is trash, however, and actually a fire hazard in the unlikely event of a critical failure. Within the first 2 months I recommend EVERY Ender 3 owner upgrade to a more modern and updated version of Marlin (Open Source Firmware developed for 3D Printers, which the stock firmware is based on).
If you want to know why, read on, otherwise no need. This is more general information to help people with buying decisions.
Long story short, there's a feature called "Thermal Runaway Prevention", which basically stops the machine from overheating itself, which isn't included anywhere in the stock firmware. Whilst this isn't likely to happen under normal circumstances, if the thermistor falls out of the hotend, the machine won't really know what the temperature of it's hotend will be. So say your printing PLA, normal temperature is about 200°C, it will heat up to that point, read as whatever air temperature is, and keep going. Leave it long enough, or if it falls onto something flammable, well you have the start of a house fire. An Anet A8 actually did cause a house fire because of this exact issue.
Thermal Runaway Prevention basically gives the printer logic to realize that, perhaps, heating up for 2 minutes with no meaningful temperature change means something has failed, so it should shut down.
I was lucky enough to buy one yesterday at $218 on eBay with the 10% off Deal. The price today from a Sydney seller is $239
Do you have the link to that item? Local stock?
I assume these printers are better than the Aldi Cocoon Create ModelMaker for $249?
Can't comment on the quality of the Aldi but can say that the ender 3 is very good quality
Side note if you're thinking about buying the official glass bed.. don't, they're crap
abs juice instead?
There is now a CR3 Pro version https://www.gearbest.com/3d-printers-3d-printer-kits/pp_0098…
What is the difference between the Creality Ender 3 and Ender 3 Pro? They appear to be exactly the same except for price
By John Boren Nov-21/2018 15:59:32
A
Hello John,
Thanks for your inquiry.
The Pro structure is more stable, the profile and the control box are different. Pro has a soft magnetic sticker, which is equivalent to the upgraded version of Ender-3.
$223.20 with Plasma code now
How does this compare to Aldi's Cocoon 3D Printer that is $199-$249 around Aus right now….? Will be my first printer