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a while a go i bought a used xyz davinci jnr just to see what a 3d printer could do and now i'm thinking of selling it and buying something more capable with a bigger bed, 300 x 300 or larger.
looking around over the weekend i saw a used duplicator 9, the guy has now decided he wants way more cash than he initially said but hey ho, and in my searching i see they come in at about £380 new which is very do-able.
anyone have experience of them or can suggest others to look at or for?
I've got no experience of the Duplicator 9. Have you looked on Youtube for reviews? There's a pretty strong 3-d printing community on youtube now & you'll generally find several reviews of the same product.
I've got a Creality CR10-Mini - it's got a 210x300 bed with a 300mm print height in Z. It's not without it's quirks, but I get good results out of it printing PLA & it has so far been reliable.
I think alexsimon on here has got a standard CR10 and has had good success with it.
A colleague has got a CR10-S which has a few upgrades over the CR10, like a filament sensor, but I am not convinced that the 'extras' are worth the premium.
There is also the Tevo Tornado, which is very similar, but uses a different build surface & has the advantage of a quicker heating bed.
I have not tried printing with anything other than PLA - there is an issue with the motherboard in my printer that won't allow me to print much higher than about 220 deg. C.
Until I resolve that, I can't really move to higher temp plastics. So far it has not been an issue & the PLA parts are plenty strong enough & have great dimensional stability.
The current Creality darling seems to be the Ender3 - it has a smaller build plate than you want - 220x220, by 250 in Z. This is still a decent size print bed, but I could envisage reaching it's limit. I wanted a printer that had at least one larger axis, hence the 300x210 of the Mini. We've got a Ultimaker 3 Extended at work and I've already had to do a 'home job' because we needed something that exceeded it's build volume.
Sorry, quite a bit of waffle there but basically have a look at the Creality range of printers. I think mine was only £225 in a Gearbest flash sale.
I get my filament from Hobbyking or 3DQF.
thanks, i did look for reviews, from what i read the duplicator was like an improved creality 10, but i didnt know to check on youtube so i'll do that.
i could do with a printer 101 really, maybe that should be my starting point, so i have an idea of what features to look for and what makes one better than another.
Have a look at these YouTube channels:
3D Printing Nerd
Maker's Muse
Thomas Sanladerer
RCLifeOn
Are you planning on modelling your own stuff or just downloading models? If you need a 3D cad package you could do a lot worse than Autodesk Fusion360.
Slicer software look at something like Cura or Ideamaker. I initially used Ideamaker, but get better results with Cura so swapped to that.
Important things to perhaps consider...
Will the printer go to the temps you need? PLA and PETG are fairly simple with even the cheaper printers, but higher temp materials can be difficult with the budget printers.
Auto bed levelling - personally I've not bothered with it and don't really feel the need, but some people swear by it.
Filament run-out sensor - possibly useful, but I don't generally print massive objects and if the requirement is there I would either make sure I was using a fresh reel of filament or keep a close eye on it and pause if required.
The hardest bit for me was bed levelling from the off and getting the profile set up in the slicer in terms of print speed, height, temps, support settings etc.