Edit 2: I purchased the Bambu A1 mini. If I regret it, there will be more chances in later years. Haha. Maybe by then I can work with resin and make the really fun minis. Thank everyone who responded for your advice and help.
Edit: I am leaning against resin printing due to the lack of sufficient ventilation in my current work space and the potential for injuring my cats. I also do not plan to do exclusively miniatures; they were just the thing I was most excited for when making this post.
I looked around for a pinned thread or purchase wiki type thing, but didn't see one. I apologize if this is the wrong place.
After visiting a family member, I have decided that 3D printing has finally gotten affordable enough for me to maybe add to my list of hobbies. My primary use cases would be making miniatures (no particular scale necessary, as I just like to paint them at the moment), making parts for other hobbies (including cross stitch), and just generally making gifts and fun knick nacks. My budget is no more than $250 for the machine itself. I have not-insignificant computer experience, and some training in CAD programs.
Several seem to be on sale in the US for Father's Day (today), and I was wondering if anybody had some advice or suggestions on some specific ones.
- Creality Ender-3 V2 is what my family member has had for a while now and enjoyed, and less than $200 is very nice. It does seem to be dated at this point, and Creality support seems to be lacking.
- There's also the Neo of the above for the same price, but I am honestly having a hard time pinpointing the difference.
- Sovol SV06 seems to be a common recommendation for the price range, but I've heard similarly negative things about their support, especially on Amazon (although I no longer trust Amazon reviews very much).
- Flashforge Adventurer 5M appears to be on a significant sale on their official eBay (240 USD), but I have only really seen it recommended in almost spammy manners, which seems like either excitement for the sale or an ad campaign.
Any help you can give is greatly appreciated, even if it's just not getting into the hobby at this price point.
The A1 mini is $200 right now (you have to manually choose NOT to do the AMS bundle on the site though that's also worth considering at $350 for a multi-color/material printer). It's an extremely good printer for the size, and the 0.2mm nozzle and the correct settings will do minis very well.
Check out this video on doing minis with it: https://youtu.be/gw2BuLw9hNE?si=c8HQmq0URGU6-qZc
That's exactly what I got, and it has worked really well so far. I haven't tried printing any minis yet (although I was thinking of trying one of FatDragon's next weekend), so thank you for the link.
My 0.2mm head is in the mail.
Most of what I have printed with ~~it~~ the 0.2 mm nozzle is filament swatches with detailed info "engraved" into them. I tried to do a larger detailed piece with it, but the model wasn't print-ready and I made thin spaghetti instead.