I currently run a Voxelab Aquila I got for $120 three years ago. It largely replaced a Monoprice Mini, and the Aquila’s done some surprisingly good work for me, but I may look for something new to put on the ol’ birthday list. I would like a flat bed and some modern QoL improvements built in (he said, side-eyeing the BLTouch clone he never installed), but I’m still looking to play in the shallow-end, price-wise, and anyway Bambu just has “future enshittification” written all over it. I don’t do anything time-sensitive, and I’m not afraid to put the whole thing together, so who are the current leaders in the value space? Recent machines from Creality?
I have an Anycubic Kobra 2 that is pretty OK. Only mods I’ve done are print a new fan duct for better cooling and flash klipper on it, other than that it’s original HW. It obviously requires some tuning for best possible results, but the printing with just Anycubics setup guide OOTB were decent.
Never, ever buy Anycubic FDM printers. They are the worst garbage on the market. I have the complete opposite opinion about their resin machines though. Their FDM machines have faulty wiring; as they chose the wrong materials for their ribbon cable assemblies; and any time I’ve asked them for a set of cables to replace a faulty one, they’ve sent me the wrong set of cables…up to 3x in a row.
It’s bad enough, and they know it’s bad enough that they actually removed a bunch of their FDM machines from their own slicer. Additionally, they use a modified version of Smoothieware, violating the license by not giving out the modifications they made to work with the screen.
Maybe I was lucky with mine 🤷♂️ which model have you tried, and how long ago was it? Mine is only a year old
I literally run a 3D printer repair shop. Every model. They’re one of the most frequently seen machines, despite being waaaaaay less popular than the Creality Ender 3. (And honestly, the 3v3 SE is a pretty solid machine now)
Their new line has gotten a lot better, but their support is still difficult to get the correct parts from when things go wrong. And I have to reiterate, their resin machines are amazing. I don’t know how they get FDM machines so wrong, because their resin machines are great.
Elegoo Neptune 3/4 are great and a great value though if you desire speed and reliability.
Yeah then it sounds like I was lucky with mine then. I only needed their support once when I just got the machine. I had a defective Y-stepper (working, but making weird noises), but they were quick and i had the correct replacement motor within a week. A friend of mine had the previous generation of mine, and he has basically no original parts left aside from the frame and belts.