Which 3d printer?

Beat_my_Laptop · July 21, 2021

Hello, I liked the support for the ender 3, but manual bed leveling was aggravating.

In a new printer I want:

Auto-bed-leveling

A large build area (250mm cube or more)

High nozzle temps

Bulletproof reliability

~500$ max budget

That has led me to two printers:

Creality Ender 5 plus

GAURORA A5S 305x305x320mm

Besides form factor & brand these two printers spec the same, except GAURORA is coming in ~200$ cheaper. You can check my other posts about scrounging free parts & shit to see how thin a budget I will use. Which printer is better?

Is the creality worth the ~200$ more?

Is there another printer I should consider?

(I drool over the voron 2.4 but it's out of my budget, with this 3d printer I intend to work on a few projects, but also print the printed parts for a voron with it. Because if I do come into voron size money, printing the parts myself (145$ value for 10$ in plastic) would be almost as much savings as the printer's resale value will have depreciated. Plus I can wait and hope for voron parts to get cheaper, voron to come out with a dual extruder version, or both while I am 3d printing on either "old reliable" (creality) or the "blocky wallet saver" (GAURORA).)

Hackentosher · July 21, 2021

Cr10s v4? Really good machine but I’m not sure about auto leveling. Maybe I’m old school, but I think knowing how to quickly and effectively level a bed with a sheet of paper is an important skill. It helps get the bed at least close enough for a half decent auto leveler to finish the job.

you could also upgrade your ender 3 with a bl touch and a pei coated build sheet to help those first layers.

Remember that the voron project is an open source grass roots initiative. There’s no company pushing development, it’s enthusiasts. I don’t think dual extrusion is really in the ethos of the voron project so I wouldn’t count on it coming to the project. Also the point of the voron project is to build the best printer possible using the highest quality components. The highest quality components will remain expensive due to the nature of their manufacturing. They may get a little cheaper, but I wouldn’t expect to be able to build a 350mm 2.4 for the price of an ender 3 any time soon.