I am very interested in 3D printing and I want to get into it. What would be a good printer for a beginner that is also of reasonable quality.
I don’t want to make anything huge but I don’t want to limit myself to any size that’s unreasonably small.
Edit: Wow, you guys were all so helpful. While I haven’t made my decision I have a lot more to go off of, I’m gonna do a bit more research into it based on what you have all said.
Depends on what you’re looking to get out of it. Printing medium-sized toys or busts or things without a lot of fine details? Probably an fdm printer like an ender 3 to start with.
Wanting to print miniatures for tabletop games like d&d or Warhammer? Probably a resin printer like a photon mono 4k or something.
The fdm printer will have a much larger build plate but lower quality, and resin will be much smaller but higher quality.
Don’t buy Ender 3, it’s not really good (it’s probably the best in cost/value ratio, but not great in general).
Ender 3 isn’t a great printer, but it’s a great starting point to make a good printer with some work. It’s not a great first printer with UNLESS you like the idea of buying a printer that needs work and plan on learning as you modify it. So, expect lots of print failures as you learn and modify the printer.
This was how I learned printing. But I started FDM a decade ago with a SeeMeCNC Orion. Very crude compared to modern consumer printers.
A buddy of mine bought an Anycubic Vyper on clearance and he’s happy with it. It has solid bed mounts and a leveling probe, which resolves half of printer problems, and it has dual Z steppers, which I think helps a lot. I believe it comes with a steel PEI bed which is easier than glass to get good prints (and much easier than painters tape or kapton like my Monoprice mini).