I'm 3D Printing a set of Dash Panels with Gauges
Thank you, that was a good description. That unit looks nice, might stretch my budget, but go big or go home tends to be my motto.
We use a lot of printed parts for prototypes in our new product development and I have been wanting to get into it for a while, but with something more capable than the $300 entry level units. Another tool/hobby to keep me out of the bars.
The leap forward they made with this printer is amazing. They basically took all the modifications people were doing to their printers, and used all the knowledge gained by people spending years tinkering and perfecting their settings and packaged it all up while also adding LiDAR. This thing prints 3x faster than my $500 Ender 6 did, it’s a larger initial investment but you’re saving the hassle and money of upgrading it down the road anyway if you bought something else
Think of it like: if when cars were invented you got the frame, engine and wheels, but to really make it work well you had to add a body and suspension and electronics and figure out how to make it all work yourself…then someone just sold a complete car that works the way a car should work. That’s what it feels like going from another printer to the Bambu
I'll give the other side of the coin and how I'm good with starting with an entry level machine.
I bought an Ender 3 Pro about 6 months ago. I'm retired and was looking for something else to have some fun with. I looked at a few and kept coming back to the Ender.
So, does it have all the bells and whistles to start with? No... But it printed right out of the box without too much drama. By going with this printer, I didn't spend a lot of money up front. That wasn't real important, but the cheap side of me didn't want hundreds of dollars sitting in a closet if I didn't care for the hobby. So that was my goal and the machine fit nicely.
Since then, yep, done some upgrades. The first major was replacing the main board and that made it run quieter if nothing else. Then I swapped the control board out and that has a few more bells and whistles.
Yea, probably spent as much to upgrade (never checked) as buying a higher end machine to start... But I also learned a lot about the machine and how it works. Doing the upgrades meant spending some time working on the machine itself along with doing the research on what to upgrade and how to do it. Had to learn a bit about modifying the firmware too.
I'm never going to make a dime with this... Probably never going to take on a huge project like this one either... I'm just having fun. I feel that by taking the path I did, I learned a lot more than I would have if I'd bought the "better" machine. So for me, it's all good. IMHO, it's a good way to start and you can always move up to a bigger/better machine if you want AND keep the first one as a spare and to do things like print out a soap dish for the wife (did one last night LOL) and stuff like that.
Using a car analogy, you learned more from fixing that cheap car in the driveway then the new car with the warranty that goes to the dealer. Probably had more fun doing it too!
That's my two cents.
@KevinB also makes a lot of sense about buying a better piece too.. It's up to you and what you want to achieve and what path to take. If I was doing this to make money, it would have been the best I could afford with the best bang for the buck options so I didn't spend any unproductive time learning when I could be making money.
