Honestly, ( and I say this as the owner of 2 ender 3’s). Just upgrade the control board and the extruder, and maybe print out some stuff to make it look nice. You’ll spend more money upgrading it than it will cost to just buy a sovol 6 or 7 which is a much better machine with all the stuff you would end up adding to the ender anyways.
Between my two Enders, upgrading to direct drives with decent extruders, double z axis screws etc. I could have just bought a nicer machine. I also have an Ideaformer print mill and a bambu p1s and it’s well worth the money to jump to a better machine when you can
This is where I’m at. I’m very new to 3dprinting and I’ve really been happy with my ender3. I’ve been putting money aside and had plans for upgrading parts, but when I look at better machines, the price point is pretty close to the ender3 with upgrades.
And there’s nothing wrong with ender 3’s , besides creality’s quality control in the last few years. They are a good machine to start on. They print well once they are dialed in and force you to tweak and upgrade them, so you are kinda pulled into learning how things work.
It’s harder to justify them when you can get a decent prusa clone on AliExpress for 250-300 bucks though
Thoughts on the AnkerMake M5 3D Printer? I’ve been eyeballing it as my next printer. I like the improved speed and the quality of life features (auto level bed, error detection).
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Honestly, ( and I say this as the owner of 2 ender 3’s). Just upgrade the control board and the extruder, and maybe print out some stuff to make it look nice. You’ll spend more money upgrading it than it will cost to just buy a sovol 6 or 7 which is a much better machine with all the stuff you would end up adding to the ender anyways.
Between my two Enders, upgrading to direct drives with decent extruders, double z axis screws etc. I could have just bought a nicer machine. I also have an Ideaformer print mill and a bambu p1s and it’s well worth the money to jump to a better machine when you can
This is where I’m at. I’m very new to 3dprinting and I’ve really been happy with my ender3. I’ve been putting money aside and had plans for upgrading parts, but when I look at better machines, the price point is pretty close to the ender3 with upgrades.
And there’s nothing wrong with ender 3’s , besides creality’s quality control in the last few years. They are a good machine to start on. They print well once they are dialed in and force you to tweak and upgrade them, so you are kinda pulled into learning how things work.
It’s harder to justify them when you can get a decent prusa clone on AliExpress for 250-300 bucks though
Thoughts on the AnkerMake M5 3D Printer? I’ve been eyeballing it as my next printer. I like the improved speed and the quality of life features (auto level bed, error detection).
I was looking at that a while ago but none of the reviews I’ve read have been good
https://www.theverge.com/23612429/ankermake-m5-review-3d-printer
The price on it also dropped from 800 to 400 in just a year which isn’t a good sign
Thank you for the ideas!