Best 3D Printer for beginners
The Flashforge Finder used to be one of my favorite 3D Printers for beginners when giving recommendations.
I made a review of the Flashforge Finder in the beginning of 2016 as a recommended 3D Printer for beginners.
Thousands of you have bought it and enjoyed it, and most of you have grown out of it by now.
Today, there are plenty of options that far surpass what the Flashforge Finder could offer.
What makes a good beginners 3D Printer
In my opinion there are a few factors that makes a good beginners 3D Printer.
Easy of use, reliability and good support/community. And maybe most importantly a price that can be justified to experiment with. 3D Printing might not be for you, or as with any new hobbies, interest might die off shortly after.
Although in my experience, the interest seldom dies off when it comes to 3D Printing. Quite the opposite!
Which 3D Printer is best for beginners
So, what 3D Printer ticks all of those requirements?
Quite a few actually, but they are still different in some ways. To better understand why I would recommend one over another, let’s go through each “category” and further down in this article we’ll list the recommendations.
We’ll focus on FDM 3D Printers in this article. If you’re unsure what 3D Printing technology you should start with, this article comparing the 3 common 3D printing techniques for beginners will help.
Ease of use
This means that the printer is not too complicated to learn and still operates with ease. Both a beginner and experienced user should find it easy to actually use in the common operations like levelling the build plate, load/unload filament and just run the correct settings and have successful prints.
Things like machine feedback, automation and presets help a lot for beginners!
If we just roll back 2 years, I would argue that a Ultimaker S5 at $6900 is one of the easier 3D Printers to use, thanks to an almost fool-proof way of integrating NFC-chips in the material and have the machine match your settings with whatever the machine is physically equipped with.
Today, we have Bambu Labs who have incorporated the same simplicity at a 10th of the price. More on that later.
3D Printer Reliability
To have a 3D Printer actually work over time can be both a blessing and a curse. Be prepared that you do need to get your hands dirty.
No beginners 3D Printer comes with a services technician jumping into a car to fix your issue. This in turn requires you to (in time) learn the parts of you 3D printer and why an issue arises. Maybe it’s just a nozzle change or changing a sensor that gets you back up and running.
Having a reliable printer is more about it performing as you’re expecting. Consumables, that depending on printer are easier or harder to change are just part of the game.
Reliability is difficulty to review and to read up on. Skilled users that use simple materials are less likely to do a mistake or push the machine, and might therefor consider their machine much more reliable, while another user may use material types that the machine can’t really handle.
Based on my experience, users of Bambu labs and Prusa Research 3D Printers are among the most happy with reliability, but there are plenty more that are great printers.
Support and community
A beginners friendly 3D Printer needs to have good support. You want to be able to learn how YOUR machine works, what you should do if something happens and to be able to get help.
Most small-sized budget brands have a lacking support-organisation and rely mostly on the community. But being one step ahead and providing a wiki or instructions for every operation is key for beginners. The community will sooner or later stop answering the same questions over and over.
Prusa Research and Ultimaker are some of the best wiki/support system out there today. Bambu lab are quickly getting closer and both have great communities that figures things out. While companies like Flashforge have had a great track record of support over the years.
Beginners mentality
Before we can talk budget it’s important to try to identify yourself in the two categories.
Do you want to learn 3D Printing? - Do you want to understand how the 3D Printer works, all the parts and how the technical things work? Are you focusing on 3D Printing, rather than an outlet of your designs and creativity?
Then you are what I consider a “hands-on-first” type of customer. You can save some money by learning your machine and optimizing, even upgrading it.
Is the 3D Printer just a tool? - Are your 3D Printer just a way of making your designs real? Are you more about creating than actually understanding and nerding into hardware? Then you are what I call a Hands-off type of customer that shouldn’t buy a 3D printer that forces you into too much tinkering. '
The 3D Printer is your tool, not a hobby itself.
Budget for a beginners 3D Printer
Depending how you factor in all the requirements above, you’ll end up with a question about how much money you want to spend.
In my examples, everything under $1000 could be considered a budget for a beginner. Before you comment that’s crazy, please consider some beginners are small business with more budget and even less time for hands-on.
I recommend going for the “pay upfront” philosophy for beginners, then you don’t have to keep throwing money on your printer to get it to perform as intended.
This means that modding or upgrading a printer is not what I consider optimal for a beginner, specially not a hands-off type of beginner.
3D Printer for beginners recommendations
For a full list of my hands-on or hands-off reviews of FDM 3D Printers, see here or just see what videos I’ve made reviewing 3D printers here.
For hands-on-first type of customers there are a few options.
Creality Options
Starting with the really budget one. We have the (very) new Creality Ender 3 V3 SE. This is building on a long history of budget 3D printers. It’s a lot of 3D Printer for the roughly $200. It handles common materials and is even tuned for printing faster, something that has become very trendy lately. Creality Ender 3 V3 SE lacks the support and wiki one would want as a beginner. But it’s brand size, user community makes up for it, somewhat.
A newer (and a bit more expensive) Creality Ender 3 V3 CoreXZ is also available that adds stability, a new movement system and integrated sensor that helps with high-quality fast 3D printing.
The earlier Ender 3s (specially Ender 3 V2) is a fantastic hands-on machine that have inspired hundreds of thousands as their first printer. You can always look for one of those used, to save extra.
Prusa Research
The Prusa MINI+ from Prusa Research is an fantastic beginners 3D Printer that has already proven incredible reliable. With a fantastic wiki (among the best) and a strong, aligned community, this is probably the best hands-on-type of customer 3D Printer you can get right now. The RnD and paid support staff comes at a premium at $429 for the kit and $459 for a semi-assembled kit.
Despite it’s price, it’s the pay-first mentality that matters. This printer will work like a charm. But the design and feel is more targeted to customers who wants 3D Printing as a hobby.
For users who are not interested in the actual 3D Printing technology, and wants printing out of the box and a tool to generate their parts and design on, something more enclosed, less tech-savy looking is important.
Still wondering what you should get?
No problem. I offer free shopping support. Just fill in the form and I’ll try to figure out what printer fits your needs best. Learn more and get advice here.
Bambu lab P1S
Bambu lab has revolutionized the market with their incredible printing speeds, without really compromising on quality. They are very easy to use and get fantastic results. They have become hugely popular in the community thanks to the value, speeds and multi-color ability.
Once you go bambu lab, you don’t go back, more or less. The downsides are that they are not very tinker-friendly, not open source and are still catching up with their success in terms of stock and customer service.
Support and communication is a bit slow, but their wiki/guides are almost on par with Prusa.
Their P1P is slowly being replaced by the enclosed P1S that comes in at $699 which is starting to be a bit much for a beginner. My reasoning is that the value and overall fit for a tool-first, Hands-off customer is all but perfect.
The Bambu Lab A1 and A1 Mini
This new $299 - $459 A1 3D Printer from bambu Lab is targeting the Prusa Research Mini, while adding tons of features from the X1/P1 series 3D printers.
The Bambu Lab A1 is bigger than the A1 Mini and have the same build size as P1P/P1S and X1, but at a lower price and no enclosure. It’s currently recalled and will have it’s power-cable replaced before you can start buying them again.
