Hello there,
after a few years of being out of the hobby I am starting to get interested again after seeing that a lot of budget printers now are having all the features that my old one were missing. Direct extruder, auto bed leveling, dual z axis, stuff like that. So which one of the budget printers around 300€ would you guys suggest one should get to get started again? Elegoo Neptune 4? Creality Ender 3 V3? Anycubic Kobra 2? Sovol S06? There are so many good looking options that I am interested in your experiences and opinions. Thanks!
What are your goals? Do you want it to just work (and be more expensive) or do you mind tinkering with it (and it being cheaper)? Do you want to print fast (more expensive) or is slower ok (and cheaper)?
Personally, I wanted cheaper and medium functionality. I don’t want a pure-tinker situation (no voron or ender 3), but I don’t wanna pay for Bambu features or Prusa features/quality. I went with Sovol SV06 Plus. It’s a 4/5 *'s printer for me. I don’t think I like the volcano style hotend, it’s too stringy for me, but I like the big build area. The filament runout sensor location is a poor design decision, but that’s easily fixed with a 15 min print. There’s something with the ABL that I’ve not fully figured out (perfect in center, but worse the further it gets away from center), but it might be twist in the X gantry. I’ve read reports on that, but haven’t verified it on my machine. (I solved that by printing fat 1st layers, 0.6mm width on a 0.4mm nozzle.)
Sovol or machines like it are good for mid-range, IMO.