Printers: notoriously temperamental but often essential to any standard home office set-up.
Famed for jamming when you need them most, running out of ink at the drop of a cyan, yellow and magenta mixed hat, or often just stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the existence of anything beyond itself like some egocentric mechanical mule, printers have been the bane of many a life since the first development of the dot matrix (younger readers, don’t bother). I, myself, have threatened a whole succession of inanimate inkers with an untimely demise from the first-floor window of my home study on countless occasions, so I know the struggle.
But rather than attempt to improve the reliability of these existing 2D monsters, printer scientists around the globe simply wrote them off as a failed experiment and turned instead to the future: the 3D printer!
Okay, that’s not what happened at all and, yes, the bulbous plastic stone in the shoe of home studies everywhere is still lurking in the corner and refusing to print your pages, but ignore that irritable old inkjet and abandon any hope of getting anything productive done any time soon, because now you can print pretty much anything you can think of… in 3D… and it’s about to become your new obsession.
Making it sound simple, you start off by designing a 3D object on your computer, hooking it up to your 3D printer of choice and then sitting back and staring in childlike wonder as the printer magically dissects your design into innumerable slices and then begins to thermally create each slice, from the bottom up, layering them on top of each other until your new glasses case/mini model of yourself/undeniably surreal objet d’art/literally anything you can think of is complete.
I know, I know – it’s exciting. I’m excited. You’re excited. We’re all excited. So, as the available working materials expand from PLA plastic filaments to include metal, graphite, and carbon fibre, let’s get down to the nitty-gritty, get you sorted with the 3D printer of your very recent dreams and, together, work to answer the ultimate question: can a 3D printer print the parts of a truly reliable 2D printer? See you at the next round of Nobel Awards…
Best 3D printers for home at a glance:
- Best for medium-scale 3D printing magnificence: Flashforge Adventurer 4 - £499, Amazon
- Best for beginners: AnkerMake M5C - £399, AnderMake
- Best for pure PLA plastic play: Creality Ender 3 Pro - £159, Creality
- Best for brilliant detail at a bargain price: AnyCubic Photon M3 - £899.99, Amazon
- Best for 3D printing on a budget: WEEFUN Upgraded Tina2 3D Printer - £139.40, Amazon
- Best for high-end 3D printing performance: Dremel DigiLab 3D45 - £1,831.02, Amazon
- Best for starters with smaller spaces: Original Prusa MINI+ - £406.80, Prusa
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Flashforge Adventurer 4
Best for: Medium-scale 3D printing magnificence
Weight: 25kg
Dimensions: 500 x 470 x 540mm
Obviously arriving fully assembled, this full enclosed offering from Flashforge plays nice with a wide range of plastic-based filaments and, with a max capacity of 220 x 200 x 250mm, lets you build anything from, say, the tiniest Christmas tree ornament to, well, something measuring 22 x 20 x 25cm, I suppose.
The Adventurer 4 offers automatic filament detection so that your printer is always playing at its best, plus automatic levelling, leaving you free to deliver your design direction via USB or Wi-Fi.
Also benefitting from a built-in HD camera, you can check in on your printing masterpiece while out and about and, should you so wish, even record it to playback in a timelapse video to ‘impress’ people at parties.
With cloud storage and online slicing on offer for free too, the Flashforge Adventurer 4 is a lot of 3D printer at a very agreeable price.
Buy now £499.00, Amazon
AnkerMake M5C
Best for: In the beginning…
Weight: 11kg
Dimensions: 47 x 37 x 48cm
So fresh out from AnkerMake that it probably needs to sit on the side a little to cool down, the latest addition to the range sees a 3D printer that’s been designed with utter ease of operation in mind.
Featuring a 49-point automatic bed levelling system, the M5C can be customised to function exactly how you want it to. It operates at the touch of a single button (the whole printing, re-printing, levelling, homing, pausing, or stopping caboodle is all controlled via the same button), while the magnetic plate provides a thoroughly flexible and stable platform onto which you can see your 3D creations come to rapid life. How rapid? Thanks to AnkerMake’s PowerBoost 2.0 tech being tucked away inside, speeds of up to 500mm/s can be reached, with acceleration up to 5000 mm/s², up to a print size of 220 x 220 x 250 mm³, that’s how ruddy rapid.
Controllable over Wi-Fi and Bluetooth from multiple devices, you can transfer their models directly from a smartphone or laptop and then sit back and monitor the whole printing process remotely. There’s also complete flexibility as to what filament you use, be it PETG/PET, ABS, TPU, PA, PLA-CF, PETG-CF or PA-CF, all creative bases are covered.
A one-piece design, built from sturdy aluminium alloy, the AnkerMake M5C is simplicity itself to set up and, as such, is the absolute ideal choice for those taking their initial steps into the oddly thrilling world of 3D printing. Pricier than many of the other models I’ve looked at here, sure, but for full filament print and user-friendly fun, this is an option worth every 3D printing penny.
Buy now £399.00, AnkerMake
Creality Ender 3 Pro
Best for: Pure PLA plastic play
Weight: 6.98kg
Dimensions: 220 x 220 x 250mm (WxDxH)
The popularity of home 3D printers has rocketed in the last handful of years and, as a consequence of that, the price of entry into this brave new world of imagineering – as I probably shan’t call it again – has plummeted. This is why you can now snap up the massively popular (over 800,000 sold) Creality Ender 3 Pro for less than £200.
One for the more confident creator, the Ender 3 Pro comes in kit form, meaning you’ll have to build it yourself, but given it’s only an eight-piece kit, even the DIY-averse shouldn’t have too much trouble assembling it.
Once ready to play this sturdily structured printer connects to your PC via USB or can accept designs on SD cards and can have its hotbed up to 110°C in just five minutes, letting you get to the business of 3D building in next to no time.
A safe power supply protects your precious printer from surges and – another massive pro – should your Ender 3 Pro be struck by an electricity outage due to a blackout during the ongoing energy crisis, the Creality can simply resume printing from the last recorded extruder position, thus saving your latest creation from ending up in that wastepaper bin you printed last week.
At 25cm tall by 22cm wide and utilising a magnetic bed, the Ender 3 Pro offers ample room to print larger designs. And, yes, that does mean you can print your own head.
Buy now £150.00, Creality
AnyCubic Photon M3
Best for: Brilliant detail at a bargain price
Weight: 7kg
Dimensions: 425 x 269 x 256mm
A simply brilliant entry into the world of resin 3D printing, the Photon M3 from AnyCubic delivers incredibly detailed results from your modelling designs with much finer aspects, thanks to its high-precision engineering and printing accuracy of 4096 x 2560 pixels (4K+) and high 400:1 contrast ratio.
Boasting a print volume of 6.41 x 4.01 x 7.08 inches, there’s amply space for more ambitious creations, and its extremely rapid work rate means it can churn out a 12cm high model in as little as 2.5 hours, which considerably cuts down on impatient time-frittery.
With a sizable 7.6-inch monochrome LCD touchscreen for clear control, a USB-A interface for your PC and a natty new aluminium bass-plate complete with texturised chequering for added stability during printing, if you’re aiming at fine 4K-detail models but are both time-poor and spend-wary, then you really can’t go wrong with the AnyCubic Photon M3.
Buy now £899.99, Amazon
WEEFUN Upgraded Tina2 3D Printer
Best for: 3D printing on a budget
Weight: 3kg
Dimensions: 19.99 x 21.01 x 27cm
Claiming the mantle as Amazon's number one best-selling 3D printer, the WEEFUN Upgraded Tina2 is undeniably low in price, but it’s far from low in value.
Firstly, it comes complete; built that is, without any need for you to lend your shaky hand towards its construction, which is a massive plus-point for those not to be trusted with DIY tasks. Not only that, it comes fully calibrated too, so that’s two things not to have to faff about with. But there’s more! One-touch auto-levelling makes for more simple and more precise printing, meaning it’s the ideal pick for beginners and children.
Arriving with everything you need in the box, including PLA filament and a Micro SD card that has multiple model files, if you’re looking for affordable and immediate access to the ever-expanding arena of 3D printing, then look no further.
Buy now £139.40, Amazon
Dremel DigiLab 3D45
Best for: High-end 3D printing performance
Weight: 19.4kg
Dimensions: 580 x 470 x 470mm
Having looked at some entry and mid-range level options so far, now it’s finally time to throw caution to the wind, crack open the bank account and put full confidence in your future in 3D printing. Yes, this is the DigiLab 3D45 from Dremel – the best part of £1700’s worth of boxed-in printing beast. A great choice for those perhaps considering a small business start-up, the Dremel can print PLA, Nylon, Eco ABS and PETG filaments and automatically adjusts to each to deliver optimal results.
With a 3D print volume of up to 254 x 152 x 170mm and fully enclosed to keep your work and wandering fingers safe from harm, the Dremel DigiLab 3D45 connects via USB or Wi-Fi/ethernet and even features a built-in HD camera which allows you to monitor printer progress while you’re out and about getting on with non-print 3D life.
Expensive? Yes. But for those serious about refined and enormously well-defined 3D printing for either an elite hobby or even to turn into a home-run side hustle, the Dremel is an excellent investment.
Buy now £1831.02, Amazon
Original Prusa MINI+
Best for: Starters with smaller spaces
Weight: 4.5kg
Dimensions: 180 x 180 x 180mm
A compact 3D creation option for those for whom space comes at a premium, the Original Prusa MINI+ may cost twice the price of the Creality Ender 3 Pro, but then it does give you more flexibility over the thermoplastics you can work with, including PLA, PETG, ASA, ABS, PC (Polycarbonate), CPE, PVA/BVOH, PVB, HIPS, PP (Polypropylene), Flex, nGen, Nylon, Woodfill and other filled materials, and it packs in a whole wealth of features.
Available in semi- or full self-assembly kits (the latter taking up to six hours), the Prusa MINI+ features a 7 x 7 x 7-inch build volume, fully automatic Mesh Bed levelling, network connectivity, USB printing and a 2.8-inch LCD screen capable of displaying 65,000 colours. Also, removable spring steel sheets help make the process of removing your finished model ultra-easy – just bend and pop off.
Connectable via ethernet with an optional Wi-Fi upgrade available, Prusa even offers those who purchase the MINI+ semi-assembled kit free access to its online course ‘3D Printing and Modelling for Beginners’, so even with all the gear and no idea, you can get gratis guidance to pursue your 3D print dreams from the moment you’ve managed assembly.
Buy now £406.80, Prusa
Verdict
Budget, personal free time and overall level of interest will be the three factors that determine if and how you take your first tentative paddle into the eventually all-money/time/life-consuming ocean of 3D printing. And, trust me, it will become that.
While practice with the differing software available, filament materials and techniques make perfect when it comes to producing all manner of largely plastic-based madness, from cute figurines to handy vases to, well, anything legal and within the boundaries of good taste that you can conceive to design, for me the Flashforge Adventurer 4 represents just the right balance of performance against price.
