re: Getting started in 3D printing

Depends on how good you are at tinkering with things and what kind of quality you want out of it. Creality Enders are decent and cheap (<$300), but take a lot of tinkering to get running well in my experience. Lots of people love them and there are plenty of mods/files available for them online. They CAN be great printers.

I started with one, ended up putting about $300-400 of upgrades to get it how I wanted, but I would still have to constantly adjust things and tinker with it to keep it running right

I eventually just got a Bambu Lab X1 Carbon ($1500 so a little over your budget) but man it’s amazing not having to ever mess with it. Literally a click and print printer that I never have to touch otherwise.

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Also looking into a cnc machine and think I could use the printer to make sure tools to use

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Why not just 3D print parts to make a CNC

That’s what I did. Made this 2’x4’ CNC using 3D printed parts and buying the rest. Actually have a 3D model file of the entire CNC when I was designing it. (Ignore all the junk, in the middle of cleaning out my garage )


Probably have about $1400 in the CNC but I already had some of the electronics and stepper motors from other projects.