Hello,
I do not really have a specific budget. Around 1500 dollars is the maximum I would be willing to spend. I love the hobby, and am not against spending some more money in order to get a printer that will perform well. I like the vz-bot because of its design. However, has anyone ever used abl on this machine? Or is it simply not necessary.
Thank you for your time,
Blake
I too would love the vzbot 330 AWD. Simon has done some great things with it. I think it is a bit more expensive than other options. Also I think Mellow are pretty good to deal with even on Ali. I have only got some bits & pieces from them & no issues at all.
I think the new Neptune 4 pro is great value , $299 pre order - discount for first time buyer, for a fairly fast printer. You could have a smallmprint farm of these for $1500.
My preference would be:
RatRig V-Core 500x500 - purely as I like the size.
Vzbot 330 AWD. I love what Simon has done with his.
Voron 2.4 - best community I have come across for support, ideas & there are āhughā user mod libraries out there.
As for probes what about the Beacon3D surface scanner? It looks great & does a bed mesh super fast.
Good luck with the hunting 
Hi Blake,
maybe you could use some first hand information about the RatRig. I have the V-Core 3.1 300 mm and all things considered, I am very happy with the machine. I bought it about nine month ago and have done not excessive, but quite a bit of printing since (maybe around 6ā¦10 kg of plastic through the nozzle). So far I had to do zero maintenance. No loose or damaged belts, no defective bearings, no problems with the rails. It is build like a tank and simply works.
I bought the configurable kit from the official site, because I liked the idea of customizing it by myselft to my needs, but still getting everything from the same source without gathering the BOM from a dozend different online shops. I bought it with the printed parts bundle, which was very well spend 45 ā¬. The quality was good and you may have some trouble to even buy the raw filament for this price, let alone the time it would take to print them all. Assembling the kit was a pleasure in its own, as all parts fit very well and the instructions are well made (reminded me about my Lego days when I was a child).
I preferred it to the Voron because I liked the accessibility of the electronics. In the Voron they are mounted in the bottom compartment and as far as I know, when you have or want to do some work on it, you have to flip the printer upside down. On the V-Core everything is mounted in the back, so you simply have to turn the printer around, what was a huge advantage for me. Besides that I like the mounting of the print bed more. In the Voron you have four motors aligning the gantry to the bed, in the V-Core only three. Since a plane is fully defined by three points, a fourth point can only mean trouble in my opinion.
When it comes to ABL you have quite some options, since the EVA print head is designed very modular. I used a BLTouch with no problems at all (at least not with the sensor itself) and switched over to a Super Pinda Probe recently. All I had to do was to print out a new holder for the new sensor. So if you donāt like the BLTouch, you can use any other inductive or capacitive probe which is 8 or 12 mm in diameter.
Of course I cannot know if other printers are even better than the V-Core, because I have no other coreXY printer (yet), but it definitely has a lot to offer. Actually, I am in a similar position to you at the moment, because I want to build a second coreXY printer and am thinking back and forth which one it should be. I would like to design one by myself, because I allready designed and build an i3 style printer which works very well and would like to have a new challenge. The āproblemā is, that the result would probably look an awfull lot like the V-Core in the end, because I cannot think of a lot of things to improve on it. Therefore I am seriously considering to just buy a second V-Core kit, this time the 200 mm model.
So, I hope my long-winded text held some usefull information for you. If you have further questions on any details, just ask.
Hello,
I agree, I like the fact that Ratrig is mounted on the back, and the only printer that does not have this capability is the Voron, which is the lowest on my list. I think I am still leaning toward the vz-bot as when it is fully enclosed it will easily fit into my space I have for it.
Thank you for all the information!
Blake
I have a 2.4 also. I certainly agree that it is not an easy machine to get tuned in perfectly. I havent foujd the belts particilarly difficult to swap out though, I did a full belt swap in about an hour. It took me much longer than that to do the belts on my older qidi x one, which isnt even corexy. It does help that I use removable panel clips.
Youāre okay with spending an hour replacing the X/Y belts? As part of the time, I found that I had to disassemble the stepper/pulley assemblies as well as the front tensioners.
Thatās why when I designed my own CoreXY, I spent a lot of time working on guides so that belt replacement wasnāt so much of a chore:
On these printers, I can do a single belt replacement (including tensioning) in less than two minutes - five minutes for both is being generous.
I found the way the belts were implemented to be a real failing of the 2.4.
I didnt need to take anything apart to get the belts on besides the toolhead. I think the attachment to the toolhead is really where the improvement could be made.
Started with the original CR10 as a hobby and modded it so much that by the end only the extrusions were original.
Then built a Voron 2.4r2 for work.
A few months ago I added the Bambu X1C with AMS and I cannot recommend it enough. It just works. The Voron is great, quieter and a larger build plate but I find that Bambu is way more reliable and slightly better quality at higher speeds. The AMS means that I can add multiple spools of the same filament, so if one runs out it automatically swaps to the next compatible filament. No more splicing or waste.
Lastly, the Bambu checks the first layer using lidar and warns you of 1st layer defects. Wish the Voron had this (might as obicos self hosted spaghetti detective).
I put on a print before bed a few days ago and all looked well half way through the first layer. Then woke up too this
Can you share the model? Iām a big fan of modern art 
Lolā¦ Letās pretend it was meant to be this and not a bunch of gears!
Hi Blake,
surely Iām a bit late with my recommendation - last, but not least.
If you like to tinker I might have an interesting option:
Have a look at the HevORT.
I have built one (which Iām completely redesigning at the moment - well, having it just running isnāt enough 
). This machine has an awesome potential in any direction you want to goā¦
I love free choice of size (mine has build space of 340x370x510 mm), the precision and the clear and straightforward but completely open design (why I make a redesign then? Just have some things I like to have solved another way and Iām transferring the design into openSCAD).
If you have a look at the forum you may find this:
So if size is your concern, you will be served here.
Hello,
I have not build the printer at all yet in fact, I am thinking about either the HevORT, or simply building my own printer, its all up in the air though.
Thanks so much,
Blake
Itās pretty much like anything else in life, every variation has trade offs in one way or another. It all depends on the decision matrix of your final goals.
Do you want to print as fast as possible, and are okay with less reliability and possibly higher upkeep? There are printers for that.
Do you want a huge build volume at the cost of speed and increased cost? There are printers for that.
Do you want to be on the bleeding edge of new 3d printer technologies with a community of like minded people at the cost of pretty much having a project and not an actually functioning 3d printer? There are printers for that
Do you just want to click a button and print reliably, with okayish speeds and proven, reliable hardware (no fancy new shiny things here)? There are printers for that.
Itās like the old engineering triangle of
I feel like everyone will disagree with me on this but I have found fast good and decent expense with the Ender 3 on Klipper. I have OrbiterV2 but V3 is shown.
Ender3, Skr E3V3, BTT Eddy, BTT42 canbus, Orbiter v3 runout, XY Linear, Dual z, and wobble x.
Used 50, 35, 25,17, 80, 20, 140, 40, 16 =423 plus tax
I already 100% disagree with you.
You call THAT fast, good and decently cheap???
Just kiddingā¦
But to add to my previous comments.
Itās always worth keeping an mind that concepts like 'fast, cheap, good" are subjective and different for everyone.
Makes any real sort judgement very vague unless there is some baseline comparison.
āCheap thanā¦ā āFaster thanā¦ā āBetter thanā¦ā
