best print farm 3d-printer for PETG?
best print farm 3d-printer for PETG?
Looking to get another printer that shall be printfarm compatible. What do I mean?
- reliable
- easy to service
- excellent replacement part availability
- affordable
- affordable replacement parts
- AMS (switching spools once it runs out & multi-color within a flat layer [not vertical/between layers])
Normally I would just buy another A1 mini (180€ without AMS) or P1S (650€ with AMS) but with recent issues with the printer & support quality & them banking hard on proprietary with Support staff who don't know what their error messages mean make me question if those are still the best option or if some other company meanwhile took the crown.
other spec:
- approx. 256x256mm
- exclusively used with PETG-filament
- enclosed (keeping dust out)
- network connected. ideally with a web service to use it remotely
- in stock (this sadly disqualifies the Elegoo Centauri Carbon which seems to be the goto at the moment).
I have an Anycubic S1 combo. Enclosed, AMS, networked, hackable (Rinkhals kliipper) . 700 hours on it and it's been fine. Layer 1 isn't absolutely perfect across the entire bed but as long as you aren't mass printing coasters with layer 1 designs, you won't notice. It's never been enough of an issue for me to bother tweaking the defaults.
But if this for a business, you should probably cave and get a P1S.
I gave in an bought another P1S combo.
This is exactly why. All of the alternatives were a yes followed by some but. I hope that Anycubic, Creality, Sovol and the like start focusing on one printer instead of releasing every few months a new model.
For example the Sovol Zero is based on the Voron zero. Perfect. All they need to do is push the good work of the Voron project into the just works category. Right? Wrong. The Sovol zero is a half-backed printer like so many out there.
Another pain point: Most companies try to compete with the X1C meaning their product cost just as much or more as the P1S. If you compare against the X1C it might be worth it but once you set the comparison relative to the P1S they are overpriced.
For example, Elegoo with the Centauri carbon explicitly asked reviewer to compare it against the X1C. Meanwhile, the P1S would have been a much better comparison as the P1S is 450€ and the Centauri Carbon 329€. A much better comparison than the 1000€ X1C.
To be fair, the internet is full of complaints that the P1S has problems with layer 1 too.
Before the current P1S sale it was $600 for a Anycubic with ams vs $1000 for a P1S with AMS. But what got me to get the Anycubic was they haven't locked users out of Orca slicer and forced cloud like Bambu. Anycubic has cloud features if you want it but you aren't forced.