To build atop of OP's response, the Bambu Lab line of printers are much higher quality than some older printers. I have 3 different ones, and I also just pull them off the build plate and begin using them.
Many modern printers also give similar results, but may require a bit of tuning. Also it's as much about the settings in your slicer software, and most current ones have evolved to have great defaults and are easily tweaked.
I'm potentially in the market for a 3d printer for our office. Mostly for one offs and some prototyping, and we don't necessarily need one but more a wouldn't-it-be-nice kinda thing. The Bambu Lab printers look like they could fit our needs/wants really well, but I'd love to do a bit of compare and contrast before placing an order. Are there any buyer's guides out there you would recommend for hobbyists such as us?
Totally agree, I used to muck about with a couple Creality ones and was totally spending much more time tinkering with the printer than actually printing.
Got an A1 mini in the recent sale and it's been so refreshing being able to just focus on what I actually want to do, which is printing stuff.
- print quality and speed is similar (new MK4S seems to be a bit better)
- Bambu's design life is much shorter (Prusas are fully repairable with parts stocked in the online shop, and every new version release includes upgrade kits for old models)
- the amount of effort/babysitting is similar
- reliability seems higher on Prusa's side (no wonder, given that they print parts of the printer on the printers themselves on industrial scale)
Also, if this matters to you, Bambu behaviour (like patenting opensource designs they didn't invent [1] and hostile competitive intelligence [2]) seems quite problematic.
I have a Prusa i3 MK3S+, used it for years, a recent Prusa XL, a Bambu X1C and a Bambu A1 mini. I would pick a Bambu any day, except if you need large prints and need the XL's area/volume. Otherwise the Bambu printers are quite simply better on every possible metric.
I think prusa have been resting on their laurels and fallen very far behind. Bambu sort of raised the bar with their printers and the price points they are offered at. They took much of the tinkering out of the equation that filtered most people from producing quality prints.
If you're working with more exotic or engineering materials, it can still require a bit of work to dial in. But the most common like PLA, ABS, PETG will print without issue.
That's very unfortunate, as I do value open source hardware. However, I value my time more, and Pruša have become complacent and released incremental updates (most of their printers aren't even CoreXY), so Bambu turned up and are eating Pruša's lunch.
I don't think there's much inherent value in the CoreXY geometry. MK4S seems to outperform everything Bambu has both on speed and on quality (especially on overhangs and dimensional precision) despite being a bed slinger.
On the other hand, continuing the bed slinger line let Prusa provide an upgrade path for existing printers.
Forum comments have been the best resource for me. (Followed by joining the printer’s users’ Facebook group to see what sort of issues are most common).
The top SEO’d buyers guide websites are pretty useless in my experience.
That said, having owned a dozen different printers for my own business’s prototyping work, the Bambu labs are truly fantastic. I retired 3 ultimaker S7s for 2 X1 Carbons and haven’t looked back. The Bambu labs legitimately print 3-4x faster and have as good if not better surface finish. AMS system is ingenious. Only thing I did was x-y squareness/skew compensation so both printers make the same sized parts (the printers aren’t perfectly square from the factory). There are guides on how to use M1005 gcode command.
+1 for BambuLab printers. I have an X1C and finally I can work with the printer, not work on the printer. Get an X1E if you have special materials you want to print and/or want an entirely hardwired connection to the printer from the network.
Even the cheapest 3D printers have generally gotten really good recently... I have a new (lower end) Creality Ender V3 SE printer, and it makes perfectly clean prints like this out of the box if you use their own brand of filament and settings they've tuned for it- and it will do so on any new filament if you take the time to figure out the right settings.
Many modern printers also give similar results, but may require a bit of tuning. Also it's as much about the settings in your slicer software, and most current ones have evolved to have great defaults and are easily tweaked.