this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2026
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What's a good entry level printer these days? (sh.itjust.works)
submitted 1 week ago by punkfungus@sh.itjust.works to c/3dprinting@lemmy.world
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Back in 2018 I bought an Ender 3 and over the years after a lot of tinkering and upgrading I got really sick of having to work on it, so I shelved it permanently a few years ago. I didn't have very much I wanted to print by then anyway, and another print failure that resulted in a giant ball of plastic covering the hotend for the umpteenth time tipped me over the edge. I could only disassemble it for service so many times before I started wanting to give it the Office Space treatment.

But now I would like to start printing again, only this time I want to actually just print things and not feel like an unpaid 3D printer mechanic. I don't need anything fancy, I'm still only going to print ~95% PLA with the occasional PETG or ASA maybe. Really all I want is the equivalent of an Ender 3 only reliable, quiet, and with auto bed levelling (also having an actually flat bed to start with would be nice). Any kind of mandatory (or pseudo-mandatory via arbitrary feature-lock) cloud connectivity is a hard no from me. I will use Octoprint to manage it.

Are there any cheap printers that fill that role these days? I'm well and truly OOTL

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[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 4 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

My Ender 3 V3 SE (I think I got all the initials in there?) has been pretty painless. The only thing I changed on it was replacing the stock magnetic bed with the glass one. I was having constant adhesion problems with the base layer and the glass bed fixed that immediately.

The other thing that (seemed to) help was switching from whatever slicer I originally used (forget which) to OrcaSlicer and just using its generic defaults for the filament and printer options. When I first started, I took the specs from the filament rolls and made profiles for each brand, but that just made my prints worse. Orca's defaults "just work" for me and less effort on my part. Win-win lol.

[–] Hazy@aussie.zone 4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I'd argue having to replace the bed because of constant adhesion issues is not "pretty painless"

[–] IcedRaktajino@startrek.website 1 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I mean, first layer adhesion is a problem common to more than just a specific printer and there are all kinds of tips and tricks to deal with it. The only one I tried (covering the bed in painter's tape) didn't pan out, and a friend was talking up the glass bed he just installed.

So instead of trying more tips and tricks like taking a glue stick to the bed surface, I went with the glass bed. I was expecting it to be like a $60 part but it was only like $15 so that worked out really well.

[–] Hazy@aussie.zone 1 points 5 days ago

Bro I totally get it, but I'm in the exact same boat as OP. Have an old ender 3 I stopped using and wouldn't mind printing again but so over fucking around. If I get a printer again I'll want plug and play.

[–] spongebue@lemmy.world 4 points 6 days ago

That's the same initials of mine! I did a PEI bed sheet though, and so far I've stuck with Cura (but you're tempting me!)

Is it the greatest? Of course not. Does it take care of a lot of issue I had with my previous Ender 3 V2? Definitely.