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Best 3D Printers for 2024 [CNET]
A 3D printer can help you bring your ideas and creations to life. The technology used to be quite costly and complex, but as more 3D printers hit the market, they’re slowly becoming more affordable and convenient for the average hobbyist or aspiring inventor. But, as with anything, it also becomes difficult to know which ones are truly worth the money. To get one of the best 3D printers, you’ll want one that’s quick and accurate, and to get a few extra features, you may look for things like the ability to print in multiple colors or with multiple materials.
With so many options to choose from, picking the best 3D printer for you can be difficult. After spending hundreds of hours printing on a wide range of machines, we’ve put together this list. Our recommendations include options across several categories. Whether you want a resin 3D printer to make miniatures for your Dungeons and Dragons game or a large-format printer to make cosplay armor, we have the right 3D printer for you.
I’ve spent almost a decade and countless hours testing 3D printers in as many ways as possible to bring you the best 3D printers in every class. Right now, the Bambu Lab A1 Combo is our front-runner: It’s fast, can produce excellent detail and it’s well-priced at $489. It also comes with an excellent color system so you can print in four different colors.
This list includes both small and large 3D printers, with attention paid to print speed, the size of the build plate, the cost of materials, the kind of print head included and other important details. Once you’ve decided to take the plunge into additive manufacturing — that’s what 3D printing essentially is — there’s also an FAQ below.
Should I wait for a deal to buy a 3D printer?
3D printers are often available throughout the year at a discount price. Special days like Prime Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday are great occasions to pick yourself up a new machine, but there are still plenty of deals to be had throughout the year. Make sure you stay fluid and choose your 3D printer deal based on the availability of the machine and what your research has told you is the best.
What am I 3D printing?
When deciding on what 3D printer to buy, you first have to know what type of things you want to print. Resin 3D printing is good for highly detailed models such as character busts, dental work or tabletop miniatures. Even jewelry can be made using a resin 3D printer.
For almost every other application, an FDM (aka filament) 3D printer, is likely the best choice. Filament 3D printing is versatile in the types of material you can use and offers much larger build volumes to work on models. Cosplay armor and helmets, practical parts and large-scale models are best printed on an FDM printer.
Read more: What Is 3D Printing?
What is build volume?
Build volume is the amount of space a printer has to produce a model. Often calculated in millimeters cubed, it is the combination of the width, height and depth that your printer’s nozzle can reach. This is not always the same as the internal volume of a 3D printer because the wiring and other mechanical parts can get in the way of the nozzle, reducing the area available.
Most FDM printers have a build area of around 220 by 220 by 250mm, although some of the best 3D printers have larger areas, while a few of the best budget 3D printers have smaller ones. I think the 220 by 220mm build plate is a good size for starting out, as it has room for large, practical pieces or several smaller models at once.
Testing 3D printers is an in-depth process. Printers often don’t use the same materials, or even the same process to create models. I test SLA, 3D printers that use resin and light to print, and FDM, printers that melt plastic onto a plate. Each has a unique methodology. Core qualifiers I look at include:
- Hardware quality
- Ease of setup
- Bundled software
- Appearance and accuracy of prints
- Repairability
- Company and community support
A key test print, representing the (now old) CNET logo, is used to assess how a printer bridges gaps, creates accurate shapes and deals with overhangs. It even has little towers to help measure how well the 3D printer deals with temperature ranges.
When testing speed we slice the model using the standard slicer the machine is shipped with on its standard settings then compare the real-world duration of the print to the statement completion time on the slicer. 3D printers often use different slicers, and those slicers can vary wildly on what they believe the completion time to be.
We then use PrusaSlicer to determine how much material the print should use and divide that number by the real-world time it took to print to give us a more accurate number for the speed in millimeters per second (mm/s) the printer can run at.
Every build plate is supposed to heat up to a certain temperature so we use the InfiRay thermal imaging camera for Android to check how well they do. We set the build plate to 60 degrees Celsius — the most used temperature for build plates — waited 5 minutes for the temperature to stabilize, and then measured it in six separate locations. We then took the average temperature to see how close the 3D printer got to the advertised temperature.
Testing resin requires different criteria so I use the Ameralabs standard test: printing out a small resin model that looks like a tiny town. This helps determine how accurate the printer is, how it deals with small parts and how well the UV exposure works at different points in the model.
Many other anecdotal test prints, using different 3D models, are also run on each printer to test the longevity of the parts and how well the machine copes with various shapes.
For the other criteria, I researched the company to see how well it responds to support queries from customers and how easy it is to order replacement parts and install them yourself. Kits (printers that come only semi-assembled) are judged by how long and difficult the assembly process is and how clear the instructions are.
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