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This is meant as a guide to those who are new to 3d printing and are interested in purchasing their first printer. 3d printers are divided into two categories, fused deposition modeling (FDM), and stereolithography (SLA). FDM is your typical 3d printer that melts plastic and deposits it on a heated plate. SLA is resin printing, resin liquid is poured into a chamber and light is used to cure the resin into hardened plastic. FDM is better for structural parts, while SLA is better for high precision parts. FDM is much cheaper and simpler to operate, while SLA is more complex.

I currently am using a Bambu Labs X1 Carbon (with the AMS) as my FDM printer. Bambu Labs is the first company to create a true "plug and play" 3d printer. With typical printers there is a lot of configuration that you need to do to get high quality prints. I had a Creality printer before that was very frustrating because more than half of the prints would fail. The X1C has LiDAR sensors, auto leveling, multiple material printing, and is extremely fast. I rarely get failed prints, and the WiFi printing is extremely convenient. The heated enclosed allows you to use just about any filament and keeps foul odors inside. The 256mm x 256mm x256mm build size is large enough for almost all my use cases. If you're not limited by budget, I would recommend going with the X1C. Other more expensive printers such as the Ultimaker are significantly more expensive with no significant gain in functionality. I've printed more than 10KG of filament through my X1C with no need for maintenance.

If you are on a budget, the other Bambu Labs printers are quite good (from what I hear). The P1S, P1P, and A1 have the same print size as the X1C and are a bit cheaper. The P1P and A1 are missing and enclosure, but you can just print one later if you need it. The other downsides are they are missing a few sensors, and they don't have the large touch screen which I don't really use much anymore as I use WiFi to print. However only the X1C streams a video feed that I can monitor from my phone or laptop.

The A1 mini is the absolute cheapest printer I would buy. It is around $250, with a 180mm x 180mm x 180mm print volume, and no enclosure. From what I heard, it just works, and it could be great for printing most things. You'd probably make back your investment after just a few prints.

I currently do not have a SLA printer, but I am looking into getting an Egloo Saturn for making optics with transparent resin. I will write another blog post about that when I get to that.