Hi folks,
Controversial topic here but I’d like to raise it anyway. We have three printers currently that don’t see much use because maintaining them is time consuming and difficult because they’re either rather old or rather custom.
I’m talking about the Taz 5 and the two CR10 printers.
The Taz has been kicking around a while and has been rebuilt a few times, but there is no real local presence for Aleph Objects/Lulzbot to get parts for it - and it’s a very outdated machine by this point which parts just don’t exist for it now.
The two CR10s are original CR10 models from the first few years of Creality entering the market. The Z axis gantry on them is only supported on one side, which we recently bought BLtouch bed levels to try and mitigate - for CR10 Left this wasn’t possible due to how skewed the Z axis gantry is now. The control boards for them had to be upgraded to even support the BLTouch.
What I’d like to propose is that we sell off these printers to local 3d printing enthusiasts who will have infinitely more time to tinker with them and replace them with printers that are more solid performers. For the CR10 printers we would take the new 32bit control boards out and the BLTouch off as these can be transferred to any of the Creality branded printers no issues and is not a lost investment.
I’m starting this thread to get us thinking about what we would accept for selling them, and what we might replace them with.
I’d suggest the TAZ5 would be worth at least $300, and the CR10 printers around $150-200. We should keep the cost down on these as a community service and offer them to members first.
For replacing them, there’s a few good options out there now, listed below in order of cost+complexity considerations:
- Creality Ender 3 V2 - A number of members have these and they’re a solid performer out of the box. Smaller bed than the CR10, but has a lot of the design flaws fixed out of the box (dual Z axis support for one). Would become a great performer with the BLtouch and 32bit ezboards we bought recently.
- Creality Ender 5/6 - A corexy with a similar sized bed to the Ender 3, the main benefits to it is that it includes its own enclosure.
- Prusa MKS3+ or Clone - Solid performer, but cost puts it further down the list.
- Voron 0 - This is a kit build, with a focus on super fast printing so you can iterate on prototypes fast. Smaller 120x120x120mm bed, but also has its own enclosure for keeping a stable environment inside.
Personally, I’d prefer we went with the printers without an enclosure as we’ll be looking to build standard sized enclosures for all printers with the same featureset and it’d be best to get all of them together.
What’s your thoughts folks?
