Hello, all. Apologies if this post is redundant or goes against any community guidelines or general best practices. I’m looking to buy my first ever 3D printer, and I came across some listings for the Entina Tina2 and its variants. It seems like an attractive option for me because of the price and the minimal setup required. I should also add that I don’t plan on doing any very serious printing; I’m talking about fairly light usage. So I am fully aware that this printer is quite limited and basic. I don’t mind that. What I’m asking is this: is it a complete waste of money? Does it do what it says on the box, or is it all scammy marketing? What red flags am I missing? Thank you in advance for your responses, and again, apologies if this post is inappropriate in some way.
Thank you. I’ll definitely look at the space it offers. Although I’ll probably bite the bullet and spend a little extra on a Creality machine.
I don’t know your budget but if possible, shoot a little higher than Creality. They have a reputation for selling not-quite-working printers that you can get to limp along just enough to print replacement parts for it so you can start the endless cycle of trying to get it working correctly.
You said you’re looking for just light usage, so I assume that you don’t want to spend 3x the amount of effort on the printer as you will spend using it.
Do you mind if I ask what your upper limit is for price?
Sure. If needs must, I can probably spend up to $350 if I wait a month or two. The other issue is that I live in South Korea, and I really don’t want to import. So you can make a suggestion for sure, and I’ll check if it’s available locally.
Is an Elegoo Centauri Carbon an option for you? I have the CC1, and it’s a really nice printer for the cost ($320 USD). They sell refurbished models for a bit less.
Elegoo also makes other models which are also pretty decent but even less expensive such as the Neptune series.
I completely understand not wanting to import, but as I don’t speak Korean unfortunately, I won’t be much help with researching what is available.
I have seen some Elegoo models available here, yes. I have just heard that they aren’t very consumer friendly. Edging towards vendor lock-in, and so on.
A valid concern for sure. On mine, I installed (it was very easy!) a community-modified firmware called OpenCentauri to address those concerns. I completely understand if that isn’t open enough for you though.
There is another effort by that same development team to bring a standard Klipper firmware to the CC1.
Okay, thank you. I will definitely look into OpenCentauri to see if that’s a viable option for me. As I said, it will be a month or two before I am able to afford that, so I have time to research it all. And hey, thank you for being so helpful and responsive in this thread. You have been a great help.
Hey I meant to mention that Sovol is another brand that’s worth consideration. They seem to respect open source licenses better than most, and they were respectful with the Voron open source designs when they released their own version of the Voron 2.4 Core XY printer.
I built a Voron 2.4 from a kit, but I seriously considered the Sovol version since it is much easier to assemble for a decent price.
To me, that is a good indicator that the company isn’t seeking to lock in their users to a closed ecosystem.
Oh, awesome. They weren’t even on my radar. I’ll look into it. Thanks.
You are very welcome, friend! Happy printing!