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I have a budget of 250$. I live in california. Which printer should i buy? I am planing to buy tevo from US warehouse but ender 3 is not avaiable in US warehouse. I want to learn about extra taxes if i buy ender 3 from gearbest. Which printer do you prefer. Thanks.

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The Tevo Tarantula is much more of a kit machine that requires hours to put together, while I believe the Ender 3 is more modular and shouldn’t take quite as long to assemble. It’s worth nothing that both of these require doing mains wiring yourself as far as I know, so make sure you’re comfortable with this before buying!

I personally have an Ender-2 (little brother of the newer Ender-3) and it was pretty easy to put together, and prints great. This did require handling mains wiring as well, though.

Best,
Maddie - 3D Hubs

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I bought a Tevo Tarantula fro $180 from eBay when it was on sale, and spent another $45 to upgrade to a 200x280 bed. I love it so far. I did spend over 6 hours building it. I have built one other printer before, so it was not difficult to me. You can learn so much about the 3d printer if you build one yourself, but it is not for everyone. It could be frustrated if you can’t get it to work. Ender 3 looks like a good starter printer.

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With the kind of budget you have, you can visit 3D Printers Bay to get Tevo printers such as:
‱ TEVO 3D Flash Aluminum Extrusion 3D PRINTER KIT
‱ TEVO 3D Michelangelo 3D Printer - Fully Assembled
‱ TEVO 3D Tarantula - Single/Dual Extruder 3D Printer Kit
And you can rest assured to find Tevo 3D printers to be in a reliable quality only.

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I recently bought an ender 3 on gearbest for $179 during a flash sale. Shipping was about $5 an no taxes were added. It took about 15 days to arrive from China, which isn’t bad. I’ve ordered parts for other projects that took over a month. The shipment was trackable via FedEx once it arrived in California.

This is my first 3d printer and taking my time(while watching TV) it only took a couple of hours to put together. The directions we’re ok. Just pictures mostly, but I was able to follow them. The base section was pre assembled. I had to attach the uprights, cross bar, x axis and z axis components. The power supply provided with mine, just screwed on to an upright and had a standard(for America) power cord which plugged in. No wiring was required. It also came with a removable print surface, which from reviews, early versions didn’t.

The base had a slight wobble to it, but with it sitting on a flat surface I just lossened a pair of bolts in one side. Made an adjustment so it was level and retightened.

I’ve had two other problems with things from the factory being too tight. The first was two bolts where the z axis rod passes through the threaded piece of the x axis cross piece. The directions say not to over tighten and they already appeared tight so I didn’t touch them. On first print it was obvious it was too tight as it bound and would allow the z axis to raise the print head and then the nozzle gouged my print surface because it wasn’t high enough. I lossened these bolts slightly and it worked fine. Since then I added a spacer for the z axis motor which aligns the rod correctly allowing me to snug up the bolts. The spacer is available on thingiverse.

The second problem I found later while trying to troubleshoot some weird line patterns in my prints. The rollers on the print head that travel along the x axis arm weren’t rolling smoothly. They were almost like indexed at three pointd along the arm causing 3 lines front to back on my prints. I loosened the blots on these three wheels slightly and the rollers traveled a lot more smoothly. The lines haven’t returned to my prints.

Other than that, I’m really happen with the ender 3. I have nothing else to compare it too, but I believe I made a good choice for my first printer.

Hope this helps.

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The Tevo Tarantula was going to be my first 3D printer purchase but I was reluctant to get a full blown kit because of time. When the Creality Ender 3 showed up with most of it being pre-built, it went to the top of the list for what I wanted to buy.

As in ANY 3D printer, you are buying into a hobby and hours of “stuff” that pops up.

Even with the issues that the Ender 3 brought with it, I would buy it again. I would encourage you to watch all the youtube vids you can on whichever printer you choose.

Here are the issues I encountered with my Ender 3 just in case you get that so you can know ahead of time.

  1. Assembled frame wasn’t square. Very easy fix (just loosen screws and make square) BUT if I had assembled the unit with it not square, all kinds of fun issues could have arisen.

  2. Build plate and Bed was concave. The center of the bed was about ~1mm lower than the edges. This will make adhesion difficult, etc. This was solved by purchasing a piece of glass. Hobby Lobby does custom glass cutting for frames, so I bought a 235mmx235mm glass (the actual size of the bed is not 220mm but rather 235mm, the store will need SAE inches for the cut). I will eventually get something else, but this was a simple fix.

  3. Bowden tube coupling issue. I saw a number of post that dealt with this so I pre-ordered couplings and tube to have on hand. The printer came with an extra coupling. It turns out that wasn’t an issue at all, so I do have on hand extra stuff now for when it does become an issue.

  4. This issue was maddening. The hotend had a 2mm gap between the bowden tube and the metal tip. The screw tube was completely wrong making prints impossible. I ordered a new all metal hotend but in the meanwhile while it is coming by rowboat from China, I completely tore down the hotend and repaired the issue. The tip doesn’t have the insulation tape on it, but it is holding just fine.

For the price, speed of assembly, ease of use and overall introduction to 3D printing (or expanding your 3D printer collection) the Ender 3 is a great little printer. Even with all these issues I am very pleased with this unit.