Can’t recommend a filament dryer enough, this is a great tip. The AMS itself helps keep your filament more dry longer than being exposed to the elements, but you really should consider a good dryer.

As far as nozzles go, mind the filaments you plan to use with them, as a .2 nozzle is way more likely to clog with “filled” filaments, but if you’re printing non abrasive, non filled filaments and you want the extra detail you can’t beat a .2 - i purchased the CMYK lithophane kit and the detail with the smaller nozzle makes them almost photo quality. The great part is, though, bambu nozzles are far simpler to change than most other printers. If you plan on swapping them often, I’d recommend printing the cable/connector removal tools as the connectors can be a bit fiddly.

You can get both Bambu and Orca skicer(s) from the AUR if your distro is arch-based or a flatpack of either if you’re Debian based if that’s your main concern, but from what you’re saying you’re more interested in the “open-ness” of the platform. I’ve never owned a Prusa myself, but I’ve seen them in action and was very impressed. I currently run a P1S and daily-drive Debian now and couldn’t be happier, but iI do understand the concerns people have with Banbu. Sounds like you’ve done your research, and if the Prusa ticks all (or the majority) of your boxes, is local to you and you don’t mind the price tag, I don’t think you’d be disappointed at all.

This is getting ridiculous. While I only have an associates degree in CAD and machine design, I’m pretty sure I can pick out when a piece of 4040 extrusion is BENT, and i own and know how to use engineering squares. It wasn’t an assembly mistake on my part. Since you buy them literally all the time on Ebay, someone must’ve snatched mine up before you could, since this NEVER happens. By your own admission, that extruder, from my generation, was junk. Yes it was only a $15 fix, and really, if you’re going to get into this hobby you should be able to swap this part out, but the point stands-

First machine I bought was an OOB failure. When I brought it back to the store they opened the box and confirmed this with me. They did not need a finely honed straightedge to confirm it, the top gantry extrusion was bent.

Round two, the machine did okay, aside from the bed seemingly “losing” it’s trimming. I purchased the “yellow springs” and installed them. This, at the time, seemed to resolve the issue. Until it didnt. At that point, I purchased and installed Creality’s own ABL, I believe it was the CR touch, but you’ll surely correct me if I’m wrong, after looking into several reviews/yt videos and multiple installation guides (somewhere during this time the extruder went, and yes, this was an easy fix with the red aluminum one). This is when I learned that the glass PEI bed that came with my machine was no longer flat. Fair enough, I figured this was a consumable part and bought another one. This did solve the problem again… until it didn’t. This one had warped as well, as confirmed with a good, flat straightedge (an 18" Starrett 385, to be exact). It wasn’t from improperly tensioned belts. Rather than attack someone personally over their experience, you scream Creality’s praises on the internet and seem to insist that my experiences could not have happened. Sure, I bet you and your team are able to resurrect broken down machines, and that is fantastic. It keeps junk from filling up landfills and may even be able to get someone into the hobby at a lower price point. I commend you on this, honestly. However, after dumping time and money into the second machine Iexperienced from them, I decided it was no longer worth the effort. Mind you, these things all happened in about 8-9 months. I got some pretty good prints from it, but I also got a lot of failures, and when those kept piling up I cut my losses. As I’ve repeatedly stated, this was MY experience. Yours has clearly been different. I’m fully aware that scores of people likely fuck up these machines by putting them together incorrectly- I assure you this was not the case on mine.

Sure thing, chief. You were there when I bought the 1st one, there when I returned it for another one, and then held my hand through the tough times with the 2nd one. I salute you.

That was MY experience. You, as a 3d printer repair shop owner, had / have a different one. When a shop takes one back for a blatant defective part, do they send it to you? When that non-glass filled, poorly casted brass geared extruder breaks and it’s an easy-enough $15ish dollar swap, does it cone to you? Or do the majority of people just try it and it works long enough for them to think, “well maybe if I just throw a little more time and money into it, it’ll be good enough”? I. Me. The guy who’s responding. Had multiple bad experiences with Creality printers. I’m done with them. My Bambu has been great since I’ve bought it, no maintenance aside from cleaning the carbon rods and the stray strands that make their way under the build plate. I repeatedly said, that was MY experience. I won’t recommend them to anyone until I see major changes in their hardware. Feel free to disagree, but you’re trying to argue with me regarding what I dealt with for far too long before I bought a printer that… wait for it… just works.

I would imagine the one I returned got shipped back to the manufacturer or distributor, I can’t say for certain, but I’d guess most people who had such an obvious defect out of the box would do the same thing, might explain why you’ve never seen one. And, yes, I improperly lumped the poorly spec’d brass extruder gear into QA, you are correct, it was poor design. My point stands, Creality, at least from the period I bought mine, (likely manufactured during that era) had poor QA / poor design. I eventually got tired of manually trimming the bed every few prints, installed the Creality abl switch which really didn’t do much other than highlight the fact that the glass/PEI Creality beds seemed to warp on me. Once again, I’m speaking on my own experience, and if you’re new to the hobby and feel that Creality printers have improved enough to the point where they are reliable and relatively hands-off maintenance-wise, feel free to purchase one. My advice is worth exact as much as everyone else’s, one random voice on the internet.

I’m just going on personal experience, 1st e3v2 I bought had a bent gantry extrusion (box was not damaged) and I had to deburr several of the holes. Luckily microcenter is local to me and I was able to exchange it. 2nd one was good for about a month before I had to replace the extruder as the teeth had worn off to the point it would slip and make that fun clicking sound we all know and love. I was only printing standard Inland PLA, nothing filled or overly abrasive. All ghings being equal, as someone new to the hobby at the time, spending more time and money trying to get it to print “ok” versus trusting it to not fail a 10+ hour print finally got to me. Not sure about their newer machines as my Ender experience left a bad taste in my mouth. Personally, when people ask what I’d recommend, I default to Prusa or Bambu (I went with Bambu), or Sovol or Quidi for more budget friendly options. I’ve heard Creality’s newer stuff is better, but I’m not planning on buying any more of their stuff. Eventually I’ll jump down the Voron rabbit hole, but too many other projects at the moment, plus a 350x350x350 machine is going to take up serious space in my print room.

Tl;dr : if you have a creality machine and you’re happy with it, by all means. One can only speak on their personal experience.

Agree with everything with one caveat - creality QA is absolute dogshit.

I’d just search YT or the regular interwebs for tutorials on designing compliant mechanisms in CAD (pick upur favorite software). I know Teaching Tech has done a couple videos on this

Orca slicer is a fork of Prusaslicer

Yeah Bambu Studio is available and works fine on Manjaro (I’m too lazy to build arch from scratch nowadays), obviously ymmv on another distro.

Bambu firmware is closed source. I’m 100% happy with my Bambu, but that being said, Prusa makes amazing printers. However, like everything else, it comes with a price. Buying used is an option, just note you’ll ideally want to see it in person and printing before plunking down cash. As good as their printers are, you could still be buying someone else’s problem.

Totally agree on the core xy printers, I think OP was trying to keep cost under $500, so that would limit to P1P, but still a great printer, you can add the enclosure kit later if you want. I’m interested in the Sovol SV08, basically a Voron clone for $579 USD. I just don’t want to be the 1st on to try it 🤣

You can use OrcaSlicer, another Prusaslicer fork

I second Bambu printers. My P1S was as simple as taking it out of the box, pulling out the included accessories, take out three screws that keep the bed from moving during shipping, plug in cord. During setup it will run a self-calibration routine and you’re all set. I thought I liked tinkering with my Ender 3v2, but when I needed to print, a failure would cost me time, effort and money. Stick with the better printers if you can afford it.

Ngl that’s fucking genius

Oh, we all need to tinker…

Tempted to do both. As much as I hated tinkering/fixing/breaking my E3V2 and the absolute bliss of my Bambu, the larger form factor, and having two of them is… going to kill my wallet.

It’s “mostly assembled” in a flatpack. Gantry is one piece, verticals are one piece, base is assembled w/wiring complete, top is assembled. No enclosure panels yet, says they’re supposed to be available “soon after launch”. Just a ton of screws to put in. The frame is custom, purpose built, not the normal 2020 extrusions used in a “real” Voron build.

I only got about 40-ish minutes into Nero3D’s “livestream” (it’s 3 hours long), but so far one of his complaints is that it’s a proprietary “Bambu type” quick change hotend, and not something that takes existing nozzles