Creality Ender-3... it's time to move on.

Cant beat the ender3… when it’s f*ck*ng working

One thing that still keeps Ender 3 variants sometimes more competitive for some people are the coupons that Microcenter likes to do for “new customers”. An Ender 3 V2 at $99 is hard to beat, especially for someone that isn’t sure they will stick with the hobby.

Hope Naomi is ok. She not only had been a legit Maker for ages, she has been fiercely protective of "Young Makers". Thanks for mentioning her situation.

The Ender 3 is the only 3D printer here in Brazil that you can reasonably afford even if you're on minimum wage, and since it's popular, you can easily find info on how to make it perform better or fix issues that arise, as well as find parts for it.

One benefit of getting an Ender 3 as your first printer is it come with about a month's worth of practice projects as you make all the parts needed to make it more user friendly. I think the first prints for mine were different guides, brackets, fan shrouds, etc. 🤣

Leave my ender 3 alone omg

I appreciate this video. Until today I couldn't understand why certain people were so critical of the Ender 3. Mine has been a sheer joy from day one. It is still the printer I use the most.

The ender 3 is an absolutely fantastic printer, I run a small company and we prototype parts on it all the time, we bought a K1 Max and two bamboo lab P1S's and I love them as well especially the bamboo labs but at the end of the day you can get a Ender3 for like $150 any day of the week, and it teaches you a lot about the concepts of printing when you're tinkering with it. But because all the parts are pretty robust you're not going to really break anything. I own 6 Enders and just love them especially when you have a glass bed. Ender3 + FreeCAD = Fun

When reccomending a printer, I've always told folks that they'll have a much better time if they think of Creality as a parts reseller, and go into it knowing that they are 100% community supported. That said, the a $99 Ender 3 Pro is a heck of a learning platform - out of necessity. Great video, spot-on.

I just bought my first 3D printer - an Ender 3 V1 (but upgraded with auto leveling). I’ve been blown away so far with how good it is, but I get the impression that the original owner upgraded a lot of pieces and tweaked it to be awesome).

The community losing Naomi Wu is a bigger blow than many realise, she was the only person local to the actual production companies and could give real feedback in addition to her OSHW work.

I love my ender 3 neo. I am using the creality slicer software and have printed a number of your challenging prints including the easter egg torture test and all have worked perfectly. I am new to 3d printing and am 73 year old female. It's great fun. I have not needed to make any modifications to the printer or the settings to achieve the results

“Hey Mom, I made it into a Makersmuse video!” 🤣😂🤣

Ender 3 is like the Small Block Chevy of the 3D printing world. There's way better options but the Ender 3 is good enough, has tons of support, and a huge community.

@4:20 - oh man, I remember that. The CR-10 was a massive success with the price point for the build volume. It's like they took a minimum parts needed for that size, and put it all together. Before that, the size contest was strictly expensive, and I still remember buying my first gMax 3d printer :)

My ender 3 has 700hr on it since july 14th when i upgraded it to klipper. Over all it have like 5k+ hrs on it. Even if i never use it again after my version of a vzbot is built ill still never sell it and it will always have a place on my shelf. Its been an incredible machine that got me started in 3dprinting. I now have 4 machines of various configurations churning out parts almost 16hrs a day. My ender has a place in my heart. Bury it with me.

8:00 I’ve actually been really surprised for how much Naomi contributed to the tech/open source/3d printing community, that there’s been so little reaction to her getting shut down.

My Ender 3 Pro is awesome. I can turn it on after months of not using it and get a perfect print first time. It’s not very fast compared to newer printers, but it is reliable and asks for nothing in return. It was a great first printer. Agree that there are newer models that might be better, and Creality needs to get the Ender 3 variants under control.

I bought an Ender 3 back in 2018 as my first (and until recently only) 3d Printer. Back then, there wasn't much choice available at that price point and it was surprisingly good out of the box (I guess I also got lucky). I had the occasional problems with leaks in the hotend due to bad fittings or molten PTFE tubes, but generally it worked fine. Of course it got some mods over the years: lots of 3D-printed attachments, a Raspberry Pi (OctoPi) with a camera, magnetic PEI bed, new mainboard with silent drivers (most mind-blowing upgrade), BLTouch ABL, quieter fans, a new, full metal hotend... It got to a point where it was mostly reliable, had good enough print quality and was even quiet enough to sleep in the same room it's running in. I actually only used it occasionally and for simple enough prints it worked really fine. However, I never got the settings quite perfect for low-tolerance prints and some special cases. I knew I could get there, if I actively spend at least 10h calibrating and adjusting everything (maybe replacing some worn out parts), but I never really wanted to take that time. Over the last months I often thought about cool stuff to print, but knew I'd have to fix the printer first for really good results, so I didn't do it. Then a friend told me about Bambu Lab. After some thought I got myself a P1S for Christmas and oh boy, is that a game changer. After the easy setup I printed the benchy that's readily sliced on the included MicroSD card and couldn't believe how fast that thing was! And it wasn't only fast, it was also the highest quality print I ever produced to that day. Without any tweaks. That changes it for me and I'm completely back in the printing game again. The only thing I really miss from my Ender 3 is how quiet it was with the upgrades. For me, tinkering with the Ender 3 was a fun hobby from time to time, but most of the time, I just want a reliable and easy to use tool - which the Ender 3 never really was. Would I recommend it for someone to buy? Maybe, if that person is good with electronics, patient and wants to have a DIY experience. Otherwise: never. I would consider almost all my upgrades on the Ender 3 to be sensible and maybe even required for a good experience. The catch: if I combine the price of my Ender 3 with the price of all the upgrades, I could get a Bambu Lab A1 for that price, which I'm 100% sure would be the better printer by far in almost every way (except maybe customizability - better printer, not better project).

Got to say you're spot on in your analysis of the 3D printer market. (My personal experience) My son got an Ender 3 as a hobby printer as it was cheap and great to learn with and pretty much got me into the whole 3D printer world. I loved the whole design and print side of 3D printing and wanted to get my own printer but could see so many things wrong with the Ender 3 I didn't want one myself. The Ender 6 came out and I talked myself into how it would make a great hobby printer and to learn on and even make some mods to take care of its shortcomings. The Ender 6 has been a great tool but the constant need of fettling to get great prints was getting tiresome when what I wanted was my printed design to come out without any drama. Enter the Bambu A1 combo. The thought of easy colour prints was tempting but the ease of use and self calibrating element of Bambu printers in general had me reaching for the credit card. My, so far, short experience of the A1 has me blown away. Just this morning I sent a print from the web to the printer from my phone and it just works with nothing more than turning the printer on. Bambu have moved things on considerably with their ease of use it's night and day. Was the Ender 6 a bad printer? No. It taught me so much but now it's time to move on to what I really want to do, design and print, without the fettling.