I have enjoyed my Ender 3v2 but my extruder and hot end are acting up and I am ready for a more reliable printer. I like the simplicity of Bambu but it seems to come at the cost of customization. Prusa seems to be more open and extendable, but at the cost of increased complexity. What would you recommend?
I can only speak from the perspective of US available parts. The trident is a much closer ‘competetor’ to Bambu’s offerings, so I will use that as the comparison. Since Bambu’s offerings are 256mm^3 I’ll compare against the 250mm^3 trident.
Note that there are some sales going on for the various offerings below, but the trident is only somewhat more expensive once you factor in things like ASA/ABS for the printed parts.
Bambu’s X1c is $1,200
Bambu’s B1B is $600
A LDO bom-in-a-box trident is $1,200
A Formbot bom-in-a-box trident is $650
I was able to print functional prints on my old i3 clone with two spools of ASA, so add $70 there. All I did to my i3 clone was tape together a couple of cardboard boxes to make a quick/dirty enclosure.