I am looking to buy a 3D printer which will be used in my small business size of about 20 people. We sometimes need little parts made for holding littles pieces of equipment and after seeing a similar lab to us use 3D Printing to make little holders for their antennas, we are looking at buying one ourselves.
What can you guys recommend? So far I have seen this video which suggests the Bambulab P1P, or the Prusa mk3S+ Kit.
I think we will most likely buy the Bambulab P1P as this guy suggests. However he did say that its not great for fixing. “Fixing or replacing parts does not appear to be anywhere near as user friendly or even possible in some cases”
How hard is it to build the Prusa mk3S+ Kit yourself in case we decide we want to have the Prusa given it is more easily fixable? We would prefer the Bambulab as it prints faster and is slightly larger, but might not get it due to the fact its not as easy to fix stuff.
Yeah the fact you can’t fix it as easily makes me a bit worried about Bambu but others have said they are pretty reliable
I have have had a Bambu X1C since probably February or so and I have printed hundreds of prints at this point and it has been really reliable, basically set it and forget it at this point. I have printed PLA, Nylon, PETG, TPU, wood and metal fill, carbon nylon and PLA and all of the prints are excellent quality, no complaints.
For what it’s worth, it’s actually easy to fix and take apart, they have an excellent wiki as well. They also sell most of the parts so you can just buy them if needed, I have purchased probably 5 or 6 hot end assemblies over the time I have had the printer and they are really easy to swap. I have only had one fan die and they replaced it no questions asked and it took like 10 min to install only because I didn’t ready the directions haha.
I also have a modified Prusa mk3s+ that I use sometimes but these days it’s half as fast and I spent twice the time messing with it over the Bambu, it just works and cranks out prints. The hotnends are really easy to swap on the Bambu too, way easier than the Prusa, even with a revo hotend.
No matter which you choose though, definitely recommend OrcaSlicer for the Bambu and the Mk3s.
ETA: to sum it up I guess I would say if your interest in the hobby is in the things you want to make, get a Bambu. If it is more about tuning and modding and optimizing a printer get a Prusa. That’s my 2c at least.
Thanks. I think we will go for the Bambu P1S looks like. What is an orcaslicer? Also do you know can you print metal on the Bambu?
That looks like a really sweet printer, if I were getting another printer right now that’s probably what I would get. The only thing Bambu needs now is a reverse AMS hub so you can share a set of AMS with two printers haha.
As for metal, you can’t really print metal directly on any hobby printers yet but there are a ton of metal impregnated plastics that work well. I have tried a few of them and the Protopasta metal filaments probably has the highest metal content. I haven’t tried heat treating it yet but just the regular prints are noticeably heavier and you can polish them so they are pretty neat, the iron filled one is magnetic and even rusts! They have samples on their site too if you want to test them. Make sure you get a hardened steel hotend for the P1S though as they are very abrasive.
OrcaSlicer is just another slicer app. OrcaSlicer is a fork of BambuSlicer which is a fork of PrusaSlicer which is a fork of Slic3r and some others if I remember right. BambuSlicer is good but OrcaSlicer is better, they added a bunch of other printer support and it even has calibration prints built in! This is a video with information on all 3, there are other videos as well. The biggest thing for me is the UI in Bambu/Orca is much better organized and easier to use I think.
Happy printing!
Here is an alternative Piped link(s): https://piped.video/M-afBr8KS1w
Piped is a privacy-respecting open-source alternative frontend to YouTube.
I’m open-source, check me out at GitHub.