Out of respect for your time, I'll make this brief. This isn't a place worth spending a bunch of time if you just want to get to creating, prototyping, and maybe even shooting targets in your back yard. I'll give you a few recommendations that can't go wrong and don't pull any punches.
In a resounding victory, the Qidi Q2 comes out on top. Ignore the funny name, this thing is basically made for 3D2A, at a slightly higher price point than the Elegoo Centauri Carbon. Here's a list of the specs:
Bambu Lab's legacy P-series printer still remains one of the most popular 3D2A machines. This was due to there being no real competitors on the market during the Bambu P1S era. Now that other manufacturers have leveled up their offerings, I don't think it's relevant anymore for 3D2A. It will still work if you're printing PLA+ or PLA Pro, but if you want parts that won't melt if you forget them in the car or leave them in the sun on a hot day, you'll need to spend money tweaking the printer. Here are the factors that bring me to this decision for the P1S:
The post was very quickly met with negative response, and Flashforge backtracked to apologize and let their users know they respect privacy. Holy whiplash, Batman.
Even if they went back on this, if you use a cloud-connected slicing software, they can effectively change their mind and send your data to law enforcement. With the Washington state 3D printing ban looming, I have no doubt that it will be talked about. This isn't just a warning about Flashforge's internal policies, but every 3D printer company that uses a cloud printing platform... which is kind of all of them at this point. I recommend blocking outbound traffic from the printer to the internet in your firewall. I'm writing a short tutorial on how to do this soon.
History
In the beginning of the FOSSCAD / 3D2A community, almost all of the prints were made with a beginner in mind and that includes an entry level machine. That machine in the beginning of the community was the Creality Ender 3. While we got a lot of mileage on the Ender 3, and similar open bed slinger printers, the market today is flooded with amazing options at amazing prices.
Best 3D Printers for Getting to 3D2A Printing as Fast as Possible
1. Elegoo Centauri Carbon
2. Qidi Q2
3. Bambu H2S
4. Bambu P2S
5. Cheapest, Most Reliable PLA+ Printer
If you don't want to read any further, get the Qidi Q2 and move on with life. It is the best printer you can get for 3D2A, period. Read on if you'd like to get into some of the specs.
1. Qidi Q2
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| Qidi Q2 |
In a resounding victory, the Qidi Q2 comes out on top. Ignore the funny name, this thing is basically made for 3D2A, at a slightly higher price point than the Elegoo Centauri Carbon. Here's a list of the specs:
- Prints more exotic materials
- 370℃ Max Hot End Temp
- 120℃ Max Heat Bed Temp
- 65℃ Max Enclosure Heater Temp
- 270x270x256mm Build Area
- Camera for Print Monitoring
- AI Print Fail Monitoring
- Hardened Steel Nozzle
- Fully Enclosed
- Fast Core XY Design
- Filters Air
- Automatic Bed Leveling and Calibration
- Filament Run Out Sensor
With features like this, the Qidi Q2 annihilates everything else anywhere near this price point. It also prints great. It's one of the mainstays of the 3D2A community for a reason and is commonly recommended as a good first printer. It will also print non-firearm prints in incredible details and speed. If you can afford the ~$500 price tag, you will not be disappointed. This is a printer you can take out of the box, let it run calibrations automatically, and immediately get to test prints to verify dimensional accuracy.
2. Elegoo Centauri Carbon
This machine earned my number two spot by having the best features at the best price, even beating some more expensive printers. Here's a short list of what it can do.
- Prints exotic materials
- 320℃ Max Hot End Temp
- 110℃ Max Heat Bed Temp
- 256x256x256mm Build Area
- Camera for Print Monitoring
- Hardened Steel Nozzle
- Fully Enclosed
- Fast Core XY Design
- Automatic Bed Leveling and Calibration
- Power Loss Recovery
- Filament Run Out Sensor
If you're not super into 3D printers, this might not impress you, but the ability to print exotic materials is key to having a reliable and temperature resistant firearm. The only caveat is that it does not have a heated build chamber, so you'll have to wait for your latent bed heat to naturally heat the chamber to prevent warping with nylon materials (PA / Polyacrylate). You can print all the normal materials as usual, including the standard PLA+ or PLA Pro that are used for 3D2A builds. It's incredibly fast and accurate, and it calibrates itself saving you tons of time versus those earlier printers where you were constantly tweaking the bed level. Buy one now and move on with life knowing you bought a machine you're going to be incredibly happy with. All the Amazon reviews are good too. If you can't afford it, this is worth saving up for until you can.
3. Bambu H2S
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| Bambu H2S |
This was my personal choice in printer. Out of the gate, it's extremely expensive, and even a bit overpriced compared to the abilities of the previous printers I mentioned. Then again, that last 1% of performance always comes at a cost. I really can't say anything bad about the H2S. It checks all the boxes and is the largest print area we've looked at so far. I like it because the quality is so good and I can use their calibration plate to ensure its meeting the specifications it shipped with. This isn't for everyone, but it's a true luxury if you can swing it. Here's a list of the features:
- Prints exotic materials
- 300℃ Max Hot End Temp
- 110℃ Max Heat Bed Temp
- 65℃ Max Chamber Heater Temp
- 340x320x340mm Build Area
- Camera for Print Monitoring
- AI Print Fail Monitoring
- Hardened Steel Nozzle
- Fully Enclosed
- Fast Core XY Design
- Filters Air
- Automatic Bed Leveling and Calibration
- Filament Run Out Sensor
- Power Loss Recovery
- Calibration Sheet (Vision Encoder)
This is the "vision encoder plate". You replace your PEI build sheet with this temporarily and run a calibration program on the H2S (or H2D, H2C) and in 5 minutes it returns a report showing you the accuracy changes across the build surface.
I originally wasn't going to include this, but I figured that it made its way into my own lab so I may as well talk about it. It is very expensive, but the quality and lack of drama is so worth it for me, especially when dealing with $65 / 1kg exotic filaments where mistakes set money on fire.
4. Bambu P2S
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| Bambu P2S |
A more budget friendly Bambu Lab offering, the P2S is Bambu's X1 Carbon replacement basically. It offers many of the features that the X1C had, but at a much more accessible price point. They've upgraded the screen to a color touchscreen. The gears and nozzle are hardened steel. You get a higher res 1080P camera to watch your prints and film timelapses. You also get Bambu's famous print quality and it just works. The reason this isn't my top suggestion is the lack of a chamber heater and cost. Still an excellent printer.
- Prints exotic materials
- 300℃ Max Hot End Temp
- 110℃ Max Heat Bed Temp
- 256x256x256mm Build Area
- Camera for Print Monitoring
- AI Print Fail Monitoring
- Hardened Steel Nozzle
- Fully Enclosed
- Fast Core XY Design
- Filters Air
- Automatic Bed Leveling and Calibration
- Filament Run Out Sensor
- Power Loss Recovery
This is truly an excellent printer. If you can get one for a deal with low print hours, pick it up and you won't be disappointed.
Bonus: Cheapest / Best Printer For 3D2A PLA+ Printing
Little bit of a mouthful there, but in the spirit of FOSSCAD, here's my recommendation for the best cheap printer for printing PLA+ 3D2A items. While you can print PLA+ on any FDM 3D printer, I wanted to choose one at a good price point that reliably can kick out good prints. The limitation of PLA+ is that it is prone to melting if left in a car or even in the sun outside on a hot day. That being said, I think every model I've ever seen was designed with PLA+ in mind. Without any more delay, my budget recommendation is...
5. Bambu A1
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| Bambu A1 |
Lots of Bambu Lab on this list, and it's for a good reason - they make some great printers. The A1 is an open enclosure bed slinger for $299 brand new from Bambu Lab's website. You can also get them for cheap on Facebook Marketplace if you deal hunt and there's a large market of them. While you won't be printing exotic materials on here, PLA+ / PLA Pro works just fine if you want to get into 3D2A printing. There are also some mods for turning the A1 into a mass production printer if you want to minimize downtime when printing a part-heavy project. The feature list is going to look a lot different than any of the higher printers, but for our material choice it doesn't really matter.
- 300℃ Max Hot End Temp
- 100℃ Max Heat Bed Temp
- Hardened Steel Nozzle
- Can connect a 1080P webcam for print monitoring (not included)
- Automatic Bed Leveling and Calibration
- Filament Run Out Sensor
- Power Loss Recovery
Even with this short list, this is all you need to get great 3D2A prints.
(Dis)Honorable Mentions
These are some options that I've seen other people recommend that don't exactly make sense for 3D2A. I'll still include links in case you want to check out or buy any of these, but I figured I would provide a second opinion on some old suggestions from the community.
Bambu Lab P1S
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| Bambu Lab P1S |
Bambu Lab's legacy P-series printer still remains one of the most popular 3D2A machines. This was due to there being no real competitors on the market during the Bambu P1S era. Now that other manufacturers have leveled up their offerings, I don't think it's relevant anymore for 3D2A. It will still work if you're printing PLA+ or PLA Pro, but if you want parts that won't melt if you forget them in the car or leave them in the sun on a hot day, you'll need to spend money tweaking the printer. Here are the factors that bring me to this decision for the P1S:
- Requires modifications to print exotic materials. By the time you spend money modifying a P1S to bring it up to spec for printing Nylon, you could've gotten better features in the Qidi Q2 at a better price.
- The screen is well known to be not great. Almost all printers these days have big color touchscreens that allow advanced operations without running back and forth to your computer.
- On the used market, there is money to be saved by buying one of these, but they're usually well-loved with a lot of hours on the machines. This means you'll have to do some maintenance that will keep you working on the printer and not printing.
When it comes to the P2S, it's a great value of a printer for about $100 more than the P1S. In exchange for those $100 you get a better screen, hardened steel nozzle, better motion tuning, better sensors, better cooling, and generally better print quality. You also get a higher res internal camera. That's a lot of value for money.
Literally Anything Made by Flashforge
Flashforge is super popular with beginners to the hobby due to the low prices, but they had a rather unfortunate social media post claiming they would block and report the printing of 3D2A objects to authorities. But don't just take my word for it, here's their post:
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| From Flashforge's Twitter Account |
The post was very quickly met with negative response, and Flashforge backtracked to apologize and let their users know they respect privacy. Holy whiplash, Batman.
Even if they went back on this, if you use a cloud-connected slicing software, they can effectively change their mind and send your data to law enforcement. With the Washington state 3D printing ban looming, I have no doubt that it will be talked about. This isn't just a warning about Flashforge's internal policies, but every 3D printer company that uses a cloud printing platform... which is kind of all of them at this point. I recommend blocking outbound traffic from the printer to the internet in your firewall. I'm writing a short tutorial on how to do this soon.
Old Creality Ender 3 / Bed Slingers
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| Smithsonian's Ender 3 |
As I mentioned at the beginning, this was the default printer recommendation until Bambu shook up the market effectively. Believe me when I say you do not have the time to mess around with bed slingers from 2012. The repairs, upgrades, slicer tuning, calibrating, will not add up to a happy experience.
This comes with a caveat. 3D2A / FOSSCAD was intended to make manufacturing your own protection at home cheap and simple. If this is literally all you can afford or access, it will work. You can find old machines on Facebook Marketplace for as low as $50 and I've even seen them lower. People give them away. No shame in using what you have in front of you.
Now that I have that out of the way, just don't. You want to print and send lead down range, not fight with the printer. If you want a tinkering project, go for it. But I am not wasting the amount of filament it takes to calibrate one of these to get the kind of results we were getting back in 2012. A lot changed for the better in 14 years.
A quick aside on bed slingers: many have made them work, but if you ask me slinging around your workpiece is just asking for adhesion issues. They're also inherently unenclosed by design, so no nylon or other exotic materials. You're choosing the harder way and also the lower quality way.
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