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 MDSW wrote:

All of the items you mention might be good as replacements when the original goes bad, but not necessary at all to get the best sub $200 FDM printer available, IMHO. I have put over 5 spools of filament through my Ender 3 and have leveled the bed only twice, replaced the nozzle and bowden tube once and cleaned off the extruder gear when a snag in the filament caused it to stick and grind up the filament. I have been running this nearly 24/7 for the past 3 months!

Well my experience is slightly different, but I didn't really stop at printing ezpz PLA either, so there's that to consider as well.
You probably don't want to see that "awesome magnetic plate" after a single ABS print attempt by the way

5 spools and you've already had to replace the bowden tube (I don't blame you, the original is... questionable at best) and the extruder already showing how "good" it is at pushing stuff.

I've ground down that single extruder gear with just plastic and I had to just trash the thing and replace it with a dual-gear Voron Mobius extruder.
Bowden tube, we have clone (and original too) capricorn and I haven't really had to change them after we replaced the existing tubes with that. Well except for one where I managed to leave a snapped filament inside and didn't bother to find a way to push it out.

5 spools is a good start, and it's where you will start to see things go to gak and start thinking about the running costs / maintenance schedule.

A few numbers to put this in perspective:
$100 in plastic
$100 in electricity
$200 in cheap printer
$20 in parts (in your case, I have more like $400)
40 hours of working for the printer (printing mods, researching, etc. etc. ) - even if you don't value your time much, that should be at least $800

That nets you some very happy prints, and a $200 printer with $20 in new, good parts, and $180 in terrible, cheap and soon ready to be replaced parts.


That's why I say this "200 bucks printer" is mostly a fallacy and not exactly where you want to send people, except if they just want to get their feet wet at minimum cost.



So in our case, after a few more spools, a lot of mods to make it able to print ABS and simply print better overall and be more reliable, it was more like this:
$400 in cheap printer
$400 in mods
$2000+ in labor

To get a 400 bucks printer, with terrible design and motion as well as cheap parts.

That's when we realized that the only way you're going to keep the actual costs down is to have a quality printer, well-engineered, made from good or at least known quality parts and assembled by people who care.
Now we have the Voron V2.1
$1300 in parts
$1000 in labor to build
$0 in mods

It doesn't really have problems, chews through spools, prints ABS infinitely better than a cheap bed fapper can print PLA, only gets better when you work on it, prints twice as fast as the CR-10, takes half the space for the same build area, will not light your house on fire, does not need any leveling ever - hell I just moved houses, pulled it out of the box, and launched a print that went just fine.


In other words, the CR-10 and Ender3 are perfect machines to just get to know 3d printing, start you tinkering, build some confidence with some mods.
But they're really a waste of time in terms of 3D printing "tools".


I suspect the Elegoo Mars and other cheap MSLA printers are pretty much the same, it's just unfortunate that I haven't found any high quality DIY option for MSLA.
On the other hand, it kind of makes sense as these printers are so very basic they're also unappealing for an Engineer who wants to build something awesome.

You are correct, as this is just for hobbyists, not for engineers and the like. For the most part, these printers more than suit my needs in this affordable range. Sure, more expensive machines will be better, but that is the reason they are more expensive.

...and, yes, I do not plan on doing ABS on the ENDER 3, as it will destroy the magnetic properties. But, if I do, I will just clip down the flex plate just like you would have to do if you sprung for a replacement glass plate. The flex plate is just too good come time to remove prints compared to anything else i have had.

 MDSW wrote:
You are correct, as this is just for hobbyists, not for engineers and the like. For the most part, these printers more than suit my needs in this affordable range. Sure, more expensive machines will be better, but that is the reason they are more expensive.

...and, yes, I do not plan on doing ABS on the ENDER 3, as it will destroy the magnetic properties. But, if I do, I will just clip down the flex plate just like you would have to do if you sprung for a replacement glass plate. The flex plate is just too good come time to remove prints compared to anything else i have had.

That reminds me we bought ez-peelz surfaces at some point but never really got around to use them since they don't work for ABS, how good is the Ender3 flex plate compared to that?

I have never used the ez-peelz, but the flex plate for the 3 pro is great and I love it. It sticks down well does not budge, but peels right up and your prints can be popped off super easy. I did use some different filament and had some stubborn prints that did not want to stick well, so i put good old painter's tape on the flex plate and have not looked back since. It is the same tape for over a month and probably at least 1-2 rolls on it. No more scraping for me.

And, for those that heat up the bed for ABS and lose the magnetic feature, just keep it in place with clips - that's what you would do with a glass plate, more or less...