3D Printers for reef aquariums

[anthony]

Interested in buying a 3d printer. I know several people here have them and I'm looking for information as to which is the best to get. Mostly wanting to print stuff for reef equipment and others stuff.
Currently looking for a bambu lab x1 with ams..

 

[chaples55]

My recommendation is definitely for bambu lab. Can save some money by going for the P1P or P1S though. AMS is only really necessary if you must have multi material or multi colored prints. Otherwise manually changing colors between prints is pretty easy.

I still use my ender 3 pro from many years ago just because I already have it and I've invested a lot of time, replacement parts, and mods into getting it working fast and reliably. But if I could do it over again today I would absolutely get a bambu lab. Skip the hours and days of troubleshooting and get the thing that just works hassle free.

 

[hzheng33]

Interested in buying a 3d printer. I know several people here have them and I'm looking for information as to which is the best to get. Mostly wanting to print stuff for reef equipment and others stuff.
Currently looking for a bambu lab x1 with ams..

are you good at cad or modeling?

 

[mattgee87]

Bambu labs is the only printer I would ever buy. I've owned a ton of printers and Bambu is 10 notches above the rest

 

[Justin Ranke]

I use bambu a1 mini and it's able to print most of my reefing needs. Definitely regret not buying the larger one though

 

[siege]

I've been considering adding an FDM printer to my setup, especially since my oldest child had a friend get a Creality K1C for Christmas, and now he's really interested.

That Creality looks a decent printer, particularly for the cost, but Bambu is definitely the one I get the most recommendations for.

However, I have a friend who does a lot of printing for table-top wargaming miniatures, and says he has an Elegoo Neptune 3 he's willing to loan/give to me, so I guess that's where I'm going to get started.

I already have an AnyCubic Photon MonoX, and while I am seeing "dental" resins that say they cure at 405nm, and so would work with my printer, I've yet to see one specifically advertised as marine-safe, and user reports about the safety of these are all anecdotal - I haven't seen any yet that had, for example, ICP-MS results from before and after adding a resin print to a tank - so I'm disinclined to consider trying them... and I don't have spare time, money and fish tanks to perform the experiment myself. The best advice re: resins I see all seems to say that even if you're going to use an FDA-approved, medical-grade, "biocompatible" dental resin, after extremely thorough curing and washing you should still coat it in a marine-grade epoxy to prevent leachate. Too much trouble, which is why I'm not risking it until I get an FDM printer that uses known safe materials.

 

[anthony]

are you good at cad or modeling?

Not yet

 

[mattgee87]

Be aware resin is highly toxic for aquarium

 

[siege]

Not yet

You don't really need to be unless you're trying to build something custom from the ground up.

A lot of things already exist and the files for them can be had for free or cheap. Making minor modifications to existing models can be a good way to start learning how a given tool works before trying to jump in feet first and modeling from the ground up, but a lot depends on you and the program you choose.

 

[CherylG]

We started with a creality and that thing has about a 8/10 failure rate in our house. We later got a Bambu x1c and it’s incredible. Easy to use and very rarely gives us a failed print

 

[hzheng33]

in my opinion you really need to have some skills in terms of CAD otherwise you're reliant on what's available online. i see folks with good/decent/capable printers just sitting in a corner somewhere in their houses because they can't print according to their requirement.

 

[scottw]

There is no reason for an x1. I have 7 P1S's, 2 can print 16 colors, 2 A1 with AMS, and 1 A1 Mini with AMS. There are so many people out there sharing files, so you don't need to know CAD. If you do want to design your own files, go with TinkerCAD its free to use, no need to go with Fusion until you start printing items that need more details. I use Tinker for 90% of my designs and fusion for 10%.

If you want to spend $1K+ buy 2 P1S's instead of 1 X1.

 

[1mbrews8]

Have an A1 with ams and was working great before I started working with the 3 color/silk stuff... now clogs/gives error codes and stuff and I'm annoyed with it lol!

 

[anthony]

Thank you, man. I was waiting for you to chime. In and was looking forward to what you had to say. I know you have quite a bit of experience with these things. So I figured what you would say was probably pretty helpful.. I definitely was looking at the x. C. Which I believe stands for carbon? I'm not sure what that's all about, but it sounded interesting. But if you say I don't need to go that route, I can do it. Just as good cheaper, i'm definitely interested

 

[scottw]

Thank you, man. I was waiting for you to chime. In and was looking forward to what you had to say. I know you have quite a bit of experience with these things. So I figured what you would say was probably pretty helpful.. I definitely was looking at the x. C. Which I believe stands for carbon? I'm not sure what that's all about, but it sounded interesting. But if you say I don't need to go that route, I can do it. Just as good cheaper, i'm definitely interested

The x1 has a better camera (who cares put a cheap cam on the front like we all do).
The x1 has spaghetti detection (when it works) not a huge issue since these printers just work and rarely fail.
The x1 come pre-installed with hardened extruder gears. (you can upgrade yours for $35), and use the exact same parts. Unless you are printing non-stop daily this is a non issue using the pre-install steel gears. I only upgraded mine at 4,000 hours to hardened.
The x1 bed will get hotter but I have never needed this function and don't know many that do.
The x1 has a pretty screen installed. (again who cares) I don't set up any colors/filament on the printer, I do it from the laptop or app. If this is a huge issue panda makes a screen you can attach and then control all of your printers from that screen, I have it, I have used it 1 time, the day I installed it and was like ok, this is useless lol.
Both print ABS

For me, the money saved was used towards another machine. The x1 is nice, it will do a little more but imo you are going to print 99% of the time with either PLA or PETG (fish stuff). So if you don't think you are going to build car parts to resell, save the cash and buy a P1S with AMS and A1 with AMS for the same price as 1 x1. they are all 3 256x256 build plate size, so unless you wanted to wait for the new one that is coming this year with the bigger build plate (my guess is it will be $1500-2000), go with a P1S combo and rip. You can go to MicroCenter and pickup in person too, don't wait for them to ship from bambu, you run the risk of the glass front breaking with the way FedEx kick boxes around. You can also add a 2 year warranty from MicroCenter, so if it breaks in 2 years they just swap it out, they don't try to fix them, they just give you a new one in box.

If you have any other questions I am happy to give my .02. Bambu is the ONLY printer I will ever run again, they work, take 15 minutes to setup, and the software is simple to use.

 

[ecoreefguy]

Not sure what they are going for nowadays, but I bought a second hand K1 max. Does pretty much everything and anything I need. Maybe i haven’t needed anything to specialized but I have found plans for anything I needed made. Pretty plug and play for most part