Many people ask me can you get a decent 3d printer for under $300 not only can
you get a decent 3d printer you can get a whole starter kit for under $300
including a decent 3d printer a 3d printing toolkit that has all the tools I
recommend you need for 3d printing it also comes with wrenches and Allen
wrenches and extra parts to put your machine together or fix it in case that
ever breaks also included is capricorn tubing plus new couplings so you can
make your hot end flow even better and work at a higher temperature included
are nozzles of all sizes so you can print real tiny miniatures or larger
vases or just replace a nozzle if it ever wears out also included are two
different types of filaments PLA or flexible to print things on your printer
to make it work even better also included is software to design your own
3d prints software to convert those prints into g code for the 3d printer
and also profiles so you can get good prints from that software right out of
the box you can get all that and still not spent $300 want to see how to do it
stay tuned right here at filament friday
filament friday is brought to you by these patreon supporters before I get
into this if you're totally new to 3d printing I highly suggest you to check
out my getting started with 3d printing video I'll link to it up here and also
in the description below it should help you understand all the basics of 3d
printing from my starter kit I'm using an ender 3 from Creality the Ender 3
3d printer comes as a kit just like this. this is it fully assembled
thanks you about 45 minutes to put this together a lot of tough stuff is already
done it's just bolting things together but when you're done you'll have a
better understanding of how your 3d printer works so I think it's great to
start with a kit at least this simple kit nothing super complicated that way
you can get printing within an hour and you understand how your 3d printer works
now this particular unit is from banggood.com but you can buy this
printer from amazon you can buy from matterhackers.com you can buy direct
from creality the difference is you're going to pay a different
price. right now banggood until the 30th of the month they have a sale going on a
hundred and sixty nine dollars and ninety nine cents and that's allowed me
to put together a starter package well under three hundred dollars now you can
get the same printer from Amazon for about two hundred twenty nine you can
get it from matter hackers for about that same price maybe two nineteen or
you can get it from directly from Creality for about two hundred dollars but
what I like about this is they have a us warehouse they also have other
warehouses, banggood I buy a lot of electronics through them they're very
reliable but they have a New Jersey warehouse so I got this machine in three
days cost me $169.99 plus $11.50 shipping
so that's still a heck of a deal and well under $300 it allows me room to
make up the rest of the starter kit the Ender three does come with a few tools
to put it together and also tools to replace the nozzle or fix little things
so it's a good little tool kit to include plus they give you a few extra
parts like one extra nozzle a few extra couplings and they also give you a very
small sample of filament to get you started but it's not nearly enough to
print anything so that's why in the starter kit I recommend you get your own
filament. For filament I recommend two types of filament PLA and semi flex this
is our Filament Friday filament PLA it prints really easy this happens to be
red but there's black there's white there's different colors it prints
really easy it's a very low temperature PLA so it's very good for a beginner to
get your first prints to flow nicely and stick to the bed there are other PLA's
out there you can certainly try all different brands but at least get one
spool of PLA this guy will cost you two 22.99 on Amazon and this flexible stuff
from solutech semi flex will cost you about the same 22.99 so there's about 46
dollars added to the starter kit just from these but this will allow you to
print things and improve your 3d printer. also included in a starter kit is my
Filament Friday tool kit these are the tools that I've collected over the years
that I recommend someone getting started with 3d printing should have in their shop
I'm not gonna go through every tool but it comes in a nice zipped up bag and
there's just a couple I want to point out that I really really like one brass
brush for cleaning the nozzle I use this all the time another one a deburring
tool or a finishing tool whatever you want to call it it's got a pivoting head
it's great for cleaning off the edges of a print or inside a holes because it
does pivot and cleans out really nicely it's got hobbyist blades and a cutting
mat works really well and also a digital
caliper I use these all the time in fact I've used them in some of my videos and
then there's pliers and side cutters and several other tools that I recommend so
this kit sells for $39.99 on Amazon so with this included we're still not over
three hundred dollars. a piece of the starter kit are replacement nozzles and
you get a full set from point two up to one millimeter which is a great range
now it comes with point four on the Ender three and it comes with one extra
but you will go through nozzles and there's time if you want to put a small
one on if you're doing really fine detail and a one millimeter nozzles
great for printing something big - you don't need real detail but you wanted to
print faster so this is great to have now what I did is I 3d printed a case so
I have a drawer for each size and it works great to store my nozzles but it
does come in a little case and this is a great addition so this adds another I
think nine dollars to the starter kit still not over $300 this next piece of
the starter kit is actually an upgrade the PTFE tubing that comes on the
creality machines has in the past crept up because the coupling didn't hold it
tight enough to the nozzle if you get any gap between the PTFE to the nozzle
you can get blockage so what happens if you put this on with the better
couplings which have the metal fingers it's kind of locked down Plus this is a
higher temp so it lasts longer so this is really an
upgrade to make your printer better and you get a more constant flow you get
about two or three replacements out of the amount of PTFE that's in here plus
the couplings and you get a cutter to cut the stuff which is very very handy
get a nice clean cut so this is really an upgrade piece
but I highly recommend it and it's like $15. 1499 so with this we're still not
over $300 now let's talk about software there is an SD card that comes with the
Ender three it has a sample print and also has a cura slicer on it but I
recommend you just go to the Cura website the Ultimaker cura website and
download version 4.0 or later I do have my own profiles that I share for free
I'll put a link to that in the description below you import those
profiles into cura and use those to slice your files and you'll get really
good print right out of the box with this printer now you also need to level
a bed that's a very important step before you get your first print I have a
video on that that covers how to level the bed on it ender three I'll put a
link to that in description below. as well now if you want to design your own
3d prints I've also got some videos about Tinkercad. Tinkercad is a free
design software that's in the cloud you just go to Tinkercad com sign up for
account and you can design anything you want export it as a dot STL bring it
into the cura software convert it into g code loaded on the SD card and you can
print it all this off or even my profiles they're all included and
available for free so it adds nothing to the $300 price but it gives you
everything you need to get started 3d printing with the PLA you can now make
this side spool converter bracket I share the file on Thingiverse so you can
download it slice it and print it out and then once you have that you can
install it on your machine so the first thing you need to do is remove the spool
holder that you used to print that bracket and then you mount it to the
side spool holder first you drop in the t-nuts these are the same t-nuts that
you used before on the rail and it should line right up and then use the
same screws and put it the bracket into this angled bracket so just flip it over
and tighten them really tight once you get those tight this thing should slide
right into the 2020 rail so just take the back little cover off which just
pry off it snaps in place and then you slide on the side spool holder slides
right into the rail and then you put the black cover back on just like I said
pushes and snaps in place now you can put on a spool
and if we feed the spool straight into the extruder and you're ready to go
with the flexible material you can now print the Ender three rubber feet these
from c3d miguel on Thingiverse work really well there's different ones out
there if you want to try something different but you print out four of them
and I just used a standard profile to print these so they came out pretty good
they're a little bit stiff but you wiggle them and put them into place into
the rails and you know you've got four feet so make it easier to remove the SD
card or install it
there you have it a complete starter kit for under $300 everything you need to
get started and more there's one more upgrade that I highly recommend for your
Ender three and that is the Creality 1.1.5 silent board. I
had hoped the Creality would start putting these in the machines by now
because this is a great addition to your ender three
it's got silent drivers which makes the stepper motors really quiet it's got
thermal runaway protection for safety and it's got a bootloader so it's easy
to update the firmware now this will add another 46 to 50 dollars to your budget
so maybe you buy this instead of a Capricorn tubing or the nozzles but this
is something I highly recommend maybe by the time you've watched this video they
started putting these in the machine so that's why I've kept it as separate
but I highly recommend this. I have a video on how to install this I had one
of the early boards. I showed how to install it just by swapping connectors it's
pretty easy this is something you should consider adding to your Ender three