20

So the Bambu labs A1 looks like the perfect starting point.

One problem, it uses proprietary firmware and software, I'm a big advocate for owning the things you buy, and not supporting companies that don't allow you to do that as much as I reasonably can. So yea I can't buy Bambu.

The Creality SparkX i7 seems nice, it looks like a straight up clone of the A1
https://store.creality.com/eu/products/sparkx-i7-3d-printer

I've heard a lot of people complain about Creality though, so unsure. I'm a bit stuck and getting decision fatigue.

My budget is ~500 Euro.

Help.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] Ek-Hou-Van-Braai@piefed.social 7 points 13 hours ago* (last edited 13 hours ago)

bambu x1c ?
I don't want to support companies that lock down their firmware. The more Open-Source the better.

[-] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 4 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

The are also printers that are inspired by the voron project, while not fully being a voron, but more pre-assembled. I think sovol has some, and formbot has the troodon series, including a smaller 250mm version.

I haven't used either, but it might be worth looking into. I did but a voron kit by formbot and honestly that was great. Firmware is just klipper, so fully open source, of course.

[-] umbrella@lemmy.ml 1 points 6 hours ago

can't vorons be bought prebuilt these days?

[-] Creat@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 3 hours ago

They aren't vorons then. There are printers, including some that I listed, that are very closer to this conceptually, but they aren't allowed to be called vorons (and you won't get an official serial number for them).

One core point of a voron is the fact that it's built, from scratch, by you. A pre-assembled printer can never be a Voron.

Note that anyone is free to use the parts and designs, that's the point of them being open-source. The Voron name is intentionally protected so you can't sell a commercial 3d printer product called Voron.

[-] fluxx@lemmy.world 2 points 5 hours ago

Sovol sv08 is basically a prebuilt voron

[-] depressed_lemon@lemmy.ml 2 points 11 hours ago

If you don't want to go down the e.g. "Voron route" nor that I could recommend for the first 3D-Printer, Prusa or partially Sovol Printers would be good. For what I can say Prusa MK4S would be a solid option, although more costly than the Mini.

this post was submitted on 24 Feb 2026
20 points (95.5% liked)

3D Printing

5448 readers
49 users here now

For everyhting 3D printing related.

Please be excellent to each other :)

Icon by Freepik, Banner photo by Thiago Medeiros Araujo

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS