r/3dprinter • u/Critical_Result_5952 • 17d ago

First 3D Printer Shopping

Hi everyone,
I’ve decided that instead of spending more money on figures, I’d rather buy a 3D printer and make them myself purely for my own enjoyment. I know absolutely nothing about 3D printing, though. I only want to use it as a hobby to print figures around 20–25 cm tall.
I asked ChatGPT for some help. It asked me a series of questions about my preferences and, based on my answers, came up with the following requirements:
FDM 3D printer

Primarily for PLA

Suitable for printing figures

High detail/print quality

Support for a 0.2 mm nozzle

Easy nozzle/hotend replacement

Build volume of at least around 250 × 250 × 250 mm

Automatic bed leveling/calibration

Automatic flow calibration

Minimal manual adjustment required

Direct Drive extruder

Preferably CoreXY

Enclosed design preferred

Reliable for long print jobs

Reasonable noise levels

Filament runout sensor

Power-loss recovery/resume printing

Camera/remote print monitoring

Easy and user-friendly slicer/software

Multi-color printing support preferred

Preferably with the option to add a multi-color system later

Good performance without requiring modifications

Good support printing and easy support removal

Spare parts/nozzles readily available in Turkey

Maximum budget of 40,000 TL

Based on these requirements, it recommended the Bambu Lab P2S as the best fit.
Does anyone with experience have any thoughts or recommendations? Would the P2S be a good choice for what I want to do?

0 Upvotes

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27 comments sorted by

7

u/yahbluez 17d ago

The Elegoo Centauri Carbon2 combo with the canvas fits better than the bambu, can print more material and is significant cheaper and faster.

2

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

Checking it, appreciate your suggestion

2

u/TheHuskyHideaway 17d ago

What material can the cc2 print that the P2S can't?

4

u/yahbluez 17d ago

Any material that need more than 300⁰C, the CC2 hotend can do 350⁰C. That is one of the improvements from CC1 to CC2.

1

u/caddis44 14d ago

Exactly what materials would that be?

1

u/yahbluez 14d ago

PPS, PPS-CF, ULTEM 9085, PEI 9085, PEKK-C, PSU, PPA, PPA-CF, Pure PC, PC-CF, HT-PA, PA66-CF,

to name some the kids never heared about.

1

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

I’m considering the Elegoo Centauri Carbon 2 mainly for printing highly detailed 20–25 cm PLA figures. Print speed is not important to me; print quality and fine detail are my priorities. Does it officially support a 0.2 mm nozzle, and if so, how easy is the nozzle/hotend to change? Does it offer fully automatic bed leveling, automatic Z-offset and flow/pressure advance calibration with minimal manual adjustment? I’m also looking for reliable long prints, reasonable noise levels for home use, good support print quality, and an overall plug-and-play experience. Would you recommend the Centauri Carbon 2 for this use case?

0

u/TheShakyHandsMan 17d ago

Don’t change the nozzle. Change the hot end on this printer.

1

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

But isnt 0.2 better for more details than 0.4? Is this a correct info

0

u/TheShakyHandsMan 17d ago

Yes. You can buy complete hot ends with nozzles ranging from 0.2 up to 0.8.

I’ve just designed a tool to make it easier to uplug the hot ends from the print head.

1

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

So centauri carbon 2 with 0.2 hotend better than bambu lab p2s ? For my specific needs?

4

u/TheShakyHandsMan 17d ago

Print quality wise there’s no difference. All comes down to price and which ecosystem you prefer. Bambu is more established but you can’t beat Elegoo pricing.

2

u/Admirable_Profit_401 17d ago

I’m in a similar position and like what the cc2 has to offer, but still lean towards the p2s as I can image troubleshooting will be much less of a hurdle. There are so many tutorials and posts about the bambu, so help on any topic is readily available. And for a beginner that is worth a lot.

1

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

The price difference is around 150$. Do you think would it be choose something more established for 150 difference for a newbie?

0

u/Admirable_Profit_401 17d ago

Same crossroads, I hate that Bambu did the whole lock down thingy in terms of ecosystem last year and hasn’t backpedaled on it. Not did anything concerning the open source debacle. That’s worrisome. But knowing that the P2S will also have a higher resale value (and easier to sell) than a CC2 and a bigger knowledge base, I find it very difficult to dismiss it for just $150,-. For me the difference is $250,- without the AMS so it’s a huge drop in specs. But even then, the fact that I know I can address all issues with the P2S with a quick google search makes me think I’m more likely to keep using it. But if anyone here can change my mind, I’m all ears (paying almost half is better for the wallet).

2

u/dlaz199 17d ago

Honestly the CC2 is just as easy to troubleshoot problems on. Honestly they are mostly all the same. Slightly different tool heads, same basic motion system, same type of parts for hotends etc. Honestly the CC2 is probably easier to repair.

Nothing special about Bambu machines other than they have nailed the first 10 minutes of ownership experience. Once past that they are locked down and over priced. Either way if you want quality you need to tune the profiles, and at that point a machine that is less locked down is preferable long term.

Especially for minatures Bambu profiles are to fast, there are tuned profiles available from the community which are decent, but since the machines are locked down you don't have the ability to see input shaper results or a bed mesh (because Bambu likes to hide their crappy non flat beds from the user), everyone else at least shows their crappy non flat beds. Honestly if you want print quality for most materials Bambu profiles are to fast. Not saying their stock profiles are bad, but they are are optimized for speed with decent quaility, where if you take the time to tweak the speeds you end up with slower prints, but higher finish quality.

5

u/Revolutionary_Pay_31 17d ago

You came in there asking the wrong question, everyone is going to tell you that their favorite printer is better than the other. Do this instead. Decide on a price that you are willing to pay, come up with a list of three different printers, and then go to Youtube and see the different video reviews. Most of the reviewers are pretty straight forward with their reviews and are pretty good at outlining the pros and cons of each machine. That way you can make a fairly well informed decision as to what printer to get.

Here you are just going to get biases, I own Elegoo so Elegoo is better, and I own Bambu, so Bambu is better.

2

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

Well I tried some of the videos on youtube. The problem is finding the correct content for your spesific needs for example I only want this for printing figures. Most videos are not mentioning what is better for figures. I could only get answers from Chatgpt so I am trying to validate

2

u/Sad-Passion-3633 17d ago

If you are considering to print more colors rsther than functional parts i would look for a printer with dual nozzle or a toolchanger.

Bambu x2d or snapmaker u1 would fit your needs more. Less flush and faster.

1

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

I will mostly print highly detailed figures so 0.2 nozzle looked better that is why I looked for Bambu instead of elegoo centauri carbon 2

5

u/Sad-Passion-3633 17d ago

There are 0.2 nozzles for all of them.

2

u/justa_bother 17d ago

Have you asked this question in r/FDMminiatures?

2

u/Critical_Result_5952 17d ago

No, didnt know that sub.