Stay Away From Chinesium Printers

[Hackentosher]

Hello! If you're reading this, you're probably in the market for a shiny new 3D printer! But wait, you're a broke, like the rest of us so you're looking at one of those cheap Chinese Prusa i3 printers. Now the Prusa i3 is a very solid reprap design, but the best design doesn't work very well with electronics that cost less than a $5 foot long. Now. Let me try to convince you why you should save your pennies a little longer and splurge on a much better machine. 

 

Printers like this are put together with cut rate materials, printed parts, and most importantly, shitty electronics. Crappy stepper motors or controllers can miss steps,  which means your nozzle will over of undershoot where it's supposed to go causing a shitty inaccurate print. Another common issue is a shitty hot end and extruder combos. A proper hot end and extruder costs more than some of the cheap printers out there. This is because they are quality products.  Similar issues can be caused by bad mechanics. Belts that aren't cut properly, bad bearings, bushings, or linear components can cause similar issues. 

 

A cheap hotend can heat the filament unevenly or melt the plastic. If the filament gets melted in the part of the hot end that's supposed to be cold, this will cause the filament to jam as a plug will form in the cold zone of the hot end. To say the least, this is bad news bears. A bad extruder can also cause problems. If the feeder can't grab the filament properly, the machine will usually under extrude which will put holes in your layers. 

 

So, now that I've spent a good amount of time shitting on the printer you can afford with money to spair for a Gtx 1080, let me recommend some machines that are reliable enough for a beginner in the 3D printing world. As I mentioned before, the Prusa i3 is a very solid design. The man who designed it, Joseph Prusa, owns a company that produces the best version of this printer. And I truly mean the best. The Prusa i3 MK2 is not only one of the best budget 3D printers, it is one of the best desktop 3D printers on the market. Oh, did I mention it's half the price of the next best machine. Don't believe me? Check out these reviews. http://shop.prusa3d.com/en/17-3d-printers

Spoiler

 

 

 

Now, what if you're willing to spend more money on a machine, or you need something a little more professional? Well, my dear, Ultimaker is here! Ultimaker is generally regarded as THE printer to buy if you just want something to work. The i3 mk2 is still a very reliable machine that prints very well because of its auto bed leveling, but Ultimaker has been making some of the highest quality machines since like 2010. I personally have an Ultimaker original kit with a heated bed add-on. This machine is damn fine, I rarely have a failed print and the quality it produces is incredible. Ultimaker's newer machines are even better. The 2+ has an improved hot end, part cooling system, and feeder for increased reliability. See reviews here:

Spoiler

The 2 and the 2+ are basically the same machine, but the 2+ is more reliable because of its improved extruder system. 

 

I personally attest to the Ultimaker ecosystem being one of the easiest to learn and use regularly. These machines require little to no tinkering as they were engineered by some geniuses in the Netherlands, and the community they as a company have created is astounding. Ultimaker is so community driven that everything they produce is open source after six months of the product being on the market. 

 

Ultimaker has recently released their third generation printer. This machine is designed to create an ecosystem for professional use cases. This machine is equipped with two extruders for dual extrusion, mostly for dissolveable support material to allow for beautiful prints. It also sports NFC tags in the filament spools so the printer knows exactly what it's using and how to print with that material. All of this is great, but a professional ecosystem comes with a professional price. I personally would not recommend this for the hobbyist/maker, the original and 2+ are better values for those applications. https://ultimaker.com/en/products

 

So, all these machines are great, but what if you have Ultimaker dreams with a Chinesium budget? The i3 mk2 is $700, an Ultimaker Original+ is like $1300, and a 2+ is like $2000. So what else is there? Especially for under $500? Well, you're in luck! The American company Printrbot (yes that's spelled right) makes high quality, budget machines. They're not the best, but they're still pretty good. They're cheapest machine is known as the Play. And, it's pretty good. For $400, this thing is pretty damn good. Unfortunately, it must be attached to a computer to feed it gcode commands, but that's a small price to pay for the quality in parts and prints it produces. https://printrbot.com/shop/certified/

Spoiler

 

 

[manikyath]

i want to chime in, having just spent a day doing maintenance on my "wanhao duplicator i3 plus", and having some "second hand experience" with ultimaker.

 

bear in mind i paid €500 for this thing, and a similarly kitted out ultimaker is in the €1500-2000 range.

 

my wanhao is quite honestly a piece of chinese garbage, with a few issues quickly showing up:

- the original print head is dogshit, it clogs constantly, they very proudly claim it can print copperfilll, but seeing how well PLA sticks to it, i honestly didnt even dare try.

- the construction is actually REALLY well, but screws come loose constantly, i spend more time checking for loose screws than actually preparing for a print. i've actually had one of the guiderails for the print head come loose during printing.

- the print head cooling.. is a joke... sanding off some of the paint of the heatsink (yes, the place where the heatsink is mounted to the hot pieces it's supposed to cool has a quite royal amount of paint on it) and sticking some artic mx-4 in it it's MUCH better.

- the internal controller... is a clear ripoff from ultimaker.. and sometimes likes to glitch, *ESPECIALLY* when the printer is doing big prints, while it very proudly claims 200x200x180mm build size, i'd much rather suggest not going above 180x180x whatever height, because i can barely get it to print 50mm high without screwing up out the box.

- it has a touch screen.. but GOD is the interface not nice to use at all.. sure it works, but it's just nothing more.

- their official instructions for the printer.. if they even exist for the part of maintenance you want to do, are either "some guy" recording it on his kitchen table, or just wrong all together.

- bed leveling is best done hot, because spacing actually changes significantly when the bed heats up. i guess this explains why their official test print ships with "raft" as bed adhesion, and why they recommend bed leveling with 1mm distance, rather than the ~0.2 i've been eyeballing ever since i gave up on measuring properly during bed leveling.

- the original fans on the thing are... bad.. i've just finished replacing one of them after the bearings are just completely shot, it rattled, it barely even cooled the heatsink properly (which was 70°c because artic mx-4 )

- they're 40mm 24 volt fans.. which with all the will in the world only exist in china. i've bodged in a voltage dropper to wire in a 12 volt fan.

- the out the box insulation on the hotend SUCKS..

- they ship it with an ancient version of cura, with no somewhat recent updates on their website, i've just copypasta'd over the settings into the official cura.

- out the box.. the fillament gets stuck everywhere, and on everything. it's a mess.

 

now.. that rant aside, here's the improvements i've done so far:

- i ruined my hotend because i had to DRILL out a clog, and ironically, i had a catastrophic drill failure... replaced the original hotend with a full metal one.. which essentially has been rather clog-free, aside from the cooling issue

- this thing is NOT made to cool a full metal hotend, before mentioned cooling upgrades did very well tho.

- i did some rather.. interesting changes to how the fillament is held and guided in, with much improvement

- i put the printer inside a sound dampening (ultimaker, please.. do this..) and *vaguely* thermally controlled box, with great benefit to print quality, i'm probably gonna be doing some more changes on that field as well.

- it has a fan to blow cold air on freshly printed plastic to cool it down faster, but i want to murder the guy that designed the "duct" for it, it's not even aimed at the area you're printing on. even my rather bodgy PLA (yes, it deforms to hell) printed duct is leaps better.

- constant wrenching down of screws, i seriously think half of them came loose out the box.

- i picked up a "fireplace cord" at the local diy store, as well as some kapton tape. "fireplace cord" is the rope they put on doors of fireplaces to seal them off, it's very good at insulating and can stand stupid high temperatures, after some skillfull wrapping my print head now stays hot for several hours after turning the printer off  (which actually, based on the sound of the "mean well" power supply, lowered power draw significantly)

- i left some "spare parts" off, because while they at least bother with making it look good, half of them just make repairs take longer.

- i printed some feet for it, because a 20kg printer shouldnt sit on 2mm thick steel feet.

 

some changes i still plan to do:

- weight shedding, because GOD this thing is heavy... if its not structural, it's not needed.

- more lube, it's starting to sound painful...

- loctite. ALL the loctite.

- get to the bottom of this thing's print head, i'm actually looking into the difficulty and/or cost of manufacturing a custom heatsink, or even watercool the print head because watercooling. (and because not needing a heatsink on there would decrease bulk, and increase accessibility)

- cable management, because the intended way just looks stupid. sorry some guy at wanhao that thought it looks good, it's hideous.

- some other small details

 

i'm confident i can get this thing faster than a stock ultimaker (it happily prints at 200%), more reliable than a stock ultimaker, for less money than a stock ultimaker.

 

but that's where the difference lies: i'm confident.

a friend of mine that's honestly a flipping idiot has an ultimaker, and he can use it out the box, where he'd just be completely lost trying to use the chinese junk.

 

if you're in for an experiment, a sensible chinese budget is the way to go (seriously, dont go below the wanhao duplicator i3 plus, i was considering a vellemann that's (appareantly german? ) 50 buckaroo's cheaper, and appareantly a complete disaster.

if you want it to just work, pay as much as you can afford, get an ultimaker, maybe if you really have a healthy budget go with something professional. in 3D printers, paying more really means getting a better product.

[VoyexTech]

OK I agree that some i3 clones can have terrible printing results but at the same time if you don't have a lot of money or you aren't sure that youll like printing some Chinese printers can be very nice. For example:

That object was printed from a $180 Prussia i3 clone. That object is straight off the printer no post processing. 

 

It may take awhile to calibrate the printer that nice (no way it'll look that good out of the box) and you'll have to assemble the printer yourself. but if you can it can be a very nice printer. One thing you are missing with a Chinese printer is customer support. But for that printer there is a 10,500 and growing (about 3k per month) Facebook group for any questions. Overall if you have the money and are willing to spend it or have had a printer before then go with the official Prusia i3 kit if not then a Chinese may be a decent alternative.

 

Link to 3d printer:

https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32747068399.html#autostay

 

Link to Facebook group:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/1068531466501015?ref=content_filter

[Hackentosher]

3 hours ago, VoyexTech said:

Snip 

This guide was more geared towards beginners, someone who's looking for their first 3d printer that wants the damn thing to work. My recommendations print like that out of the box (assuming you have your settings figured out). 

[manikyath]

3 hours ago, VoyexTech said:

OK I agree that some i3 clones can have terrible printing results but at the same time if you don't have a lot of money or you aren't sure that youll like printing some Chinese printers can be very nice. For example:

That object was printed from a $180 Prussia i3 clone. That object is straight off the printer no post processing. 

 

It may take awhile to calibrate the printer that nice (no way it'll look that good out of the box) and you'll have to assemble the printer yourself. but if you can it can be a very nice printer. One thing you are missing with a Chinese printer is customer support. But for that printer there is a 10,500 and growing (about 3k per month) Facebook group for any questions. Overall if you have the money and are willing to spend it or have had a printer before then go with the official Prusia i3 kit if not then a Chinese may be a decent alternative.

 

Link to 3d printer:

https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/32747068399.html#autostay

 

Link to Facebook group:

https://m.facebook.com/groups/1068531466501015?ref=content_filter

that's also not a terribly hard object to print, from my expeirence.

 

oh, and the quality is quite visually worse than my wanhao duplicator shitbox ++ which comes assembled out the box, and has some honestly pretty nice features for its budget range like a heated bed powerful enough to make waffles

(if they even have heated beds on the cheap end, you're gonna be putting cardboard on them to even get them to an acceptable temp)

[Curious Pineapple]

I recommend my UK designed and made Delta printer that's cheaper than a Chinese i3 clone

[manikyath]

7 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

I recommend my UK designed and made Delta printer that's cheaper than a Chinese i3 clone

i hate to break it to you, but i cant seem to find a delta printer cheaper than my wanhao, and even those cheapy ones look like they are accuracy disasters, which is a pretty big issue with those delta things on the cheap end

[Hackentosher]

4 minutes ago, manikyath said:

i hate to break it to you, but i cant seem to find a delta printer cheaper than my wanhao, and even those cheapy ones look like they are accuracy disasters, which is a pretty big issue with those delta things on the cheap end

Have to agree here, the point i made in my original post was that you should avoid cheap printer and that cut corners to get below a price tag. Those corners can cost you a lot of time and headaches. That's why I recommend getting a more expensive machine, the quality, support, documentation, and engineering that went into the machine makes it worth the premium.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Hackentosher said:

Have to agree here, the point i made in my original post was that you should avoid cheap printer and that cut corners to get below a price tag. Those corners can cost you a lot of time and headaches. That's why I recommend getting a more expensive machine, the quality, support, documentation, and engineering that went into the machine makes it worth the premium.

or as i put it: my €500 wanhao is now as good as a €1500 ultimaker is out the box, the difference is 3 months of headache.

[Hackentosher]

5 minutes ago, manikyath said:

or as i put it: my €500 wanhao is now as good as a €1500 ultimaker is out the box, the difference is 3 months of headache.

Even then, an ultimaker out of the box still take some time to dial in when you don't know what you're doing.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Hackentosher said:

Even then, an ultimaker out of the box still take some time to dial in when you don't know what you're doing.

i have a friend that cant operate an ethernet cable, and he manages to print decent quality with an ultimaker, so i guess it's not all too hard on that end

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

i hate to break it to you, but i cant seem to find a delta printer cheaper than my wanhao, and even those cheapy ones look like they are accuracy disasters, which is a pretty big issue with those delta things on the cheap end

It matches the print quality of the i3 it was printed from, mostly. It's actually just printed some new parts for that i3 to upgrade it to proper leadscrews. It's mostly 3D printed parts so does require being bolted down to a sturdy base, and to get the price down we will be ordering parts in quantity to build 20 machines at once. After we increase the length of the diagonal rods, we will be printing another one with it.

 

Documentation and build guides won't be a problem, nor will support.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Curious Pineapple said:

we will be

may i just note two things here:

- advertising is very, VERY much against the forum rules, so i suggest to tread very carefully here.

- by default, companies think their own product is best, if it wasnt the company would close up shop. and you know what that means for my opinion on what you're saying in this regard. (and believe me, i have plenty of experience to form that conclusion)

 

while delta printers can be made MUCH more cheaply than the regular ol' x y z axis printers, they very easily lose print quality from flexing during printing, the base design of the printer asks for extreme accuracy in order to even print a propper square, and calibrating is hell, compared to the "print line and measure" approach i do on my wanhao.

 

above that, my freaking chinese piece of garbage completed a print missing a guiderail because it fell off during printing, that's the level of "winging it" the x y z design can take over a delta, which makes a cheap delta very, very hard to recommend over a cheap x y z.

 

in essence, anyone can make an x y z in their basement and make it run as good as an ultimaker (in fact, i'm pretty sure someone on the forum did), but making a delta do its thing properly is such a complex matter i honestly cant even begin recommending it for new folks.

--

and to add a bit of "old manning it" to the bunch:

we've had x y z CNC machines for years and years, with delta type CNC machines being a very rare sight, that's with good reason

[Curious Pineapple]

Not a company, by we I mean me and my brothers in an attic. It's a project we may sell as a parts kit, but currently it's being a nightmare to get a decent first layer down, and is rather wobbly at high printing speeds. Whatever happens it will be released as an open source project. It's been built using printed parts and carbon fibre, then bolted to a 15mm thick piece of wood, and it still needs more support so will probably end up with perspex panels on the rear 2 sides to make the frame solid and keep the heat in for printing ABS.

 

The design goals were Delta platform and as close to the RepRap idea as possible, with as much as possible of the machine 3D printable. It can also be made larger by printing new parts and inserting them into the top and bottom frames, which are 100% printed. Thats also why it needs external support to keep it stable. It just started as my brother buying an i3, and we decided to try design a really simple Delta. It if failed then all the parts we bought could easily be used in an XYZ platform with no real wastage. There's about 4 months of work in it spread over the last 12 months. It was definitely easier to get this printing at a reasonable quality than it was with the Sintron kit. In fact, this Delta was initially built using warped parts as the i3 had a lean on the Z axis, and it still printed pretty well.

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Curious Pineapple said:

currently it's being a nightmare to get a decent first layer down, and is rather wobbly at high printing speeds.

*watches my wanhao crunch trough a print at 250% speed*

 

this is exactly why i recommend against deltas, for as much as i try to make my wanhao shit itself in terms of speed, i seem to be unable to.

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

*watches my wanhao crunch trough a print at 250% speed*

 

this is exactly why i recommend against deltas, for as much as i try to make my wanhao shit itself in terms of speed, i seem to be unable to.

250% of what initial speeds? That's dependant on your slicer settings. It has first layer issues as we chose delta rod lengths that are just too short. It lifts the head up slightly towards the edge of the print bed, so getting the edges to stick without the nozzle being too close in the middle is impossible. Still prints decently in the middle of the bed though. I currently have the default slic3r travel speeds set and it copes with up to about 160%, after that the Arduino Mega has a shit and misses steps. It also struggles when the LCD is enabled. I'm currently designing an ARM control board, using an Arduino Due initially I will likely move to a complete solution with its own processor rather than using an Arduino.

[manikyath]

6 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

50% of what initial speeds?

the same as an ultimaker at 0.1mm layer height, if that draws the picture

 

EDIT: i'm a derp, i fixed the derp.

[Curious Pineapple]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

the same as an ultimaker at 1mm layer height, if that draws the picture

1mm height? You got a Volcano on that thing?!?!

[manikyath]

Just now, Curious Pineapple said:

1mm height? You got a Volcano on that thing?!?!

correction, 0.1mm

 

twas a long day today

[Curious Pineapple]

3 minutes ago, manikyath said:

correction, 0.1mm

 

twas a long day today

I think i've been pushing 60mm/sec on perimeters and 80 odd on infill, but thats the limit of the Arduino, not enough power in an 8 bit microcontroller.

 

0.1 sounds more sensible, I have 0.3 I think. Not 100% sure now though after all the work thats been done to it over the last few weeks

[manikyath]

Just now, Curious Pineapple said:

I think i've been pushing 60mm/sec on perimeters and 80 odd on infill, but thats the limit of the Arduino, not enough power in an 8 bit microcontroller.

 

0.1 sounds more sensible, I have 0.3 I think. Not 100% sure now though after all the work thats been done to it over the last few weeks

i print everything at 0.1mm layer height because i cant be bothered figuring out how fast this thing goes at 0.2mm.

 

the wanhao "advertises" 60mm/sec, but it seems to blatantly ignore anything i put in that field, and 50mm/sec seems to be the rule of thumb (which is the same speed as my ultimaker friend prints at), and beyond that i just go in increments of 25%, seemingly with the head insulation i have now, 250% is about the limit, seeing it's having issues keeping stabile temps. besides at these speeds infill is merely a cobweb  (mind you, i'm only using infill so it has *something* to put the top layers on, i dont actually need it, structurally)

[Curious Pineapple]

1 minute ago, manikyath said:

i print everything at 0.1mm layer height because i cant be bothered figuring out how fast this thing goes at 0.2mm.

 

the wanhao "advertises" 60mm/sec, but it seems to blatantly ignore anything i put in that field, and 50mm/sec seems to be the rule of thumb (which is the same speed as my ultimaker friend prints at), and beyond that i just go in increments of 25%, seemingly with the head insulation i have now, 250% is about the limit, seeing it's having issues keeping stabile temps. besides at these speeds infill is merely a cobweb  (mind you, i'm only using infill so it has *something* to put the top layers on, i dont actually need it, structurally)

I use 20% honeycomb infill as the Delta prints it so quickly. I have a video of it I'll try and post here. Looks good when printing with translucent PLA and is really rigid.

[manikyath]

3 minutes ago, Curious Pineapple said:

I use 20% honeycomb infill as the Delta prints it so quickly. I have a video of it I'll try and post here. Looks good when printing with translucent PLA and is really rigid.

PLA is stronger than you think, with a well made print you'll need to whack a hammer on a hollow print to do any damage.

[Curious Pineapple]

37 minutes ago, manikyath said:

PLA is stronger than you think, with a well made print you'll need to whack a hammer on a hollow print to do any damage.

Unless it gets warm, then it will soften and melt

[manikyath]

1 minute ago, Curious Pineapple said:

Unless it gets warm, then it will soften and melt

congrats, you just explained every material on earth.