So the Bambu labs A1 looks like the perfect starting point.

One problem, it uses proprietary firmware and software, I’m a big advocate for owning the things you buy, and not supporting companies that don’t allow you to do that as much as I reasonably can. So yea I can’t buy Bambu.

The Creality SparkX i7 seems nice, it looks like a straight up clone of the A1
https://store.creality.com/eu/products/sparkx-i7-3d-printer

I’ve heard a lot of people complain about Creality though, so unsure. I’m a bit stuck and getting decision fatigue.

My budget is ~500 Euro.

Help.

    • Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
      4·
      11 days ago

      The are also printers that are inspired by the voron project, while not fully being a voron, but more pre-assembled. I think sovol has some, and formbot has the troodon series, including a smaller 250mm version.

      I haven’t used either, but it might be worth looking into. I did but a voron kit by formbot and honestly that was great. Firmware is just klipper, so fully open source, of course.

        • Creat@discuss.tchncs.de
          1·
          10 days ago

          They aren’t vorons then. There are printers, including some that I listed, that are very closer to this conceptually, but they aren’t allowed to be called vorons (and you won’t get an official serial number for them).

          One core point of a voron is the fact that it’s built, from scratch, by you. A pre-assembled printer can never be a Voron.

          Note that anyone is free to use the parts and designs, that’s the point of them being open-source. The Voron name is intentionally protected so you can’t sell a commercial 3d printer product called Voron.

          • ☂️-@lemmy.ml
            1·
            10 days ago

            i mean, as long as you get the excellent functionality of a voron.

            you won’t get the prestige or the customization, but it’d be fine as a first printer i suppose.

    • depressed_lemon@lemmy.ml
      2·
      11 days ago

      If you don’t want to go down the e.g. “Voron route” nor that I could recommend for the first 3D-Printer, Prusa or partially Sovol Printers would be good. For what I can say Prusa MK4S would be a solid option, although more costly than the Mini.