 So I asked the community what they thought was the most important thing to a beginner in 3d printing Well, the response was amazing. My name's Jim and this is the edge of tech So a couple days ago, I posted a question on the community tab here on YouTube the question said this I'm working on a video for beginners about what options are important to consider when buying a 3d printer Please comment below what options you think beginners need to know and why While I was really going for what physical options would be good on a 3d printer for beginners I actually got several comments I did not expect was some really great feedback for beginners in 3d printing today I'm gonna take a look at some of those comments and I have them right here on my cheat sheet We'll start out with a comment from Ukrainian 3d maker this comment was very long and detailed But they made a very good point also in the description below There'll be a link to the community post so you can see all the comments that were made as well I may not read the full comment But I'm gonna pull out the parts of the comment that I like and I want to react to the Ukrainian 3d maker starts out by saying there is very little information shared about safety and Goes on to talk about the safety of 3d printers and lasers and how they feel that you should have a Smoke alarm and a fire extinguisher next to any of the machines while you're using them and I couldn't agree more that is 100% true get a fire extinguisher get a smoke alarm and put that near the area that you're working that you make your spaces in Because you never know what's gonna happen. Another thing they mentioned is how toxic the Plastics are and the chemicals and anything you're burning with lasers and that's true, too You're melting hot plastic or you're burning wood or something like that on your laser So just be safe use these in open-air environments or places where there's very large area Or you have ventilation to the outside you never know what you're gonna inhale and you just want to be safe around these machines Next we have consuming fire and design they say I'm also very new into 3d printing and something I kind of learned the hard way is credibility if you're new get a machine That's proven itself has a great community and an excellent slicer. I agree We all want the newest shiniest thing the brand new printer The fastest printer whatever it is But you definitely want to look into the company that you're gonna buy from and make sure they're credible Do they produce good products? What are people saying about their products? Check YouTube my channel and a ton of channels out there We'll go through all of the different reviews for the products that you're looking for and see what multiple people say A lot of them will have community Facebook groups or discord or something like that Go see what people are saying about these printers because you don't want to get stuck with one that's garbage Especially when you're brand new another thing is if you don't find any groups for a printer You're looking at and you don't see any reviews. Maybe there's nothing on YouTube. That could be a red flag I'm not saying it is but it could be because you just never know I mean if nobody has this machine and it's not being talked about and there's nothing out there on it I might be leery of buying it especially for my very first 3d printer Next Nick says part availability because we have all broke something trying to learn also community I eat community support for the printer. I couldn't agree more Nick I think part availability is very important especially knowing that everybody's gonna break something something's gonna break Something's gonna happen to the printer and you're gonna want parts or something to fix it Most of the big companies out there are open source and you can find parts Pretty much everywhere for different 3d printers if you know what you're looking for some companies for instance like bamboo lab Have their parts readily available from their website, which is great as well The other cool thing is that a lot of printers offer aftermarket parts so you can upgrade or change parts Maybe it's a different color. Maybe it's a stiffer bed spring something like that and it's really cool to have those options And as Nick brings up don't forget about the community part. I've said it in other videos I've said it here today Community is huge in 3d printing the 3d printing community is amazing and once you dive into one of those groups It allows you to share the successes you've had it allows you to ask questions if you're having issues And you don't know what something's called it allows you to work with a group of like-minded people And that is what the community is about Next we have a comment from John. John says size and where you intend to have it work Also the level of noise that it makes you definitely want to make sure you have a big enough workspace for Anything you're gonna do if you're gonna get a little printer. That's fine Just make sure you have the space to use it The other thing is once you have the space to use it make sure you have room to work around it because if you Don't have the room to work around it You're gonna need another table or something else and you're just gonna kind of be fumbling I know some people don't have a lot of space and they make very small spaces work But just remember if you're getting into this brand new even a folding table Will be awesome because you could set the printer on one side and work on the other side So that's something to think about and the second part that John brings up is the noise Absolutely, you don't want to put this maybe next to your bed in your room and then run it all night or something like that They can be very loud and noisy some of them are very quiet But you still don't want that like in a living area where you're gonna have to live with that noise all the time Maybe it doesn't bother you But I can tell you this a lot of significant others get bothered by the noise of 3d printers And you don't want to have to deal with that Next we have David David says I'm getting my first 3d printer, which is a bamboo lab x1 carbon great choice By the way and things to consider for beginners at least for him was ease of use out of the box Quality and speed of the printer Diversity of filaments without modifications of the printer and the ease of use of the slicer These are all excellent points for beginners like you David There are some people who love to tinker and for those people Less expensive a cheaper printer without all the bells and whistles is probably gonna be the way to go Because you're gonna have fun upgrading them and learning how to upgrade them and putting those upgrades on That's how I started my channel and I love it And there's some people that just want their printers to work right out of the box and that's okay too Those people are just as entitled to get the printer They want then the person who likes to tinker and it doesn't matter where you start if you started tinkering Or you started with one that you don't have to tinker with but for the person that just wants something great That works out of the box you want to go something a little higher and save your money up and grab Something prosumer maybe like a bamboo lab printer or a Prusa or something like that They offer like out of the box printing with a great ecosystem That is very simple to use from everything from filaments to slicers and the printer You'll be up and working very quickly and if you're the type of person who doesn't like to tinker You're gonna be much more happy The next one comes to us from Norbert Norbert says Understanding what can realistically be done as a beginner and what it might take to learn the more complex stuff and Realizing how long things take to print. I couldn't agree with Norbert more on this Something to know when you're first starting out is that you're probably gonna start out with Files that other people have made you're gonna go out and get the free files. You're gonna go pay for files and that's okay Get to know your printer print a bunch of cool stuff that other people have developed And when you get further into the hobby, you may start even modeling stuff yourself and that's cool, too I suck at modeling. I'm gonna throw it out there right here I am not good mostly because I haven't taken the time to learn to be good But you might be and that's cool The other part of that is the time it takes don't forget 3d printing does take time in the last year We have seen amazing steps forward in machines that can print 3 to 4 times faster than we have been printing for the last forever And that's awesome But you're talking about prints that could take hours and even days to print in the end It is so worth it when you take that model something you didn't have before and you pull it off the bed for the first time Or for the hundredth time and you see that print is something that you did you made it on the machine You have and now you have something that that feeling is just awesome that feeling. There's nothing else like it It is so exciting. It is worth it 100% real quick If you are getting value from today's video, please smash that like button It really helps push the video out into the community further so more people can see it Also, if you want to see more great videos on 3d printing lasers or CNC, please consider hitting that subscribe button I'm on my way to 100,000 subscribers this year And I would love it if you were a part of that. So if you haven't already, please consider smashing that subscribe button now back to your comments Toby your comment next was one of my favorite Toby says things will go wrong But don't let that demotivate you at one point my prints had big layer shifts for seemingly no reason It turned out that my filament spool had tingles in it somehow and that was causing it This is something to think about for sure, especially if you're just getting into 3d printing You are going to have print fails. It happens to everybody. It doesn't matter what machine you're on It's gonna happen. You're gonna have machines that break or acting up But don't let that get you down. It is so frustrating when it happens But just remember to turn to the community ask for help take pictures of video Whatever it is and there's somebody out there that's going to help you get through this And once you get through this your 3d printing isn't going to be even better. That's why this community is so awesome Everybody helps everybody. There may be some smarty pants in there that make dumb comments There may be some people that don't want to help you But there always is somebody that's willing to help and really that's what makes this community amazing The more you learn about 3d printing and the process of 3d printing through your fails The better off you're gonna be so keep that in mind Don't let it get you down just know that you're gonna get through it and you're gonna get some amazing prints Even if it takes some help of the community Josh you had another great Really long answer and I really appreciate the time you took to write that long answer one of the things that Josh says is The cost of printing materials 3d printer upgrades additional items for example a uv cure Filament dryers that kind of thing it is very important to know the budget when you go into 3d printing and especially when you're buying your very first 3d printer There's a lot of things you need to think about not just the 3d printer But the filament you need to run the 3d printer with do you have a table? Do you have something to put the 3d printer on if not? That's another cost and while most of the time you can actually get by with the tools that come with the 3d printer Especially your first one Eventually you're gonna want to get some new tools that are better to use or you make it easier to use that kind of thing And while you might want to use the tools that came with your 3d printer at first You're gonna want to upgrade and get some better tools and more tools for your new hobby all of those are expenses It can easily turn your say $200 printer into $400 very quickly So know your budget if your budget is $700 for say don't spend it all on the printer because you're not gonna have the money You need to get the other stuff you might need so keep that in mind when you're buying your very first printer and Josh Thank you again for that long comment Last but not least for this video is what I believe is the longest most detailed post award and that goes to CD makes stuff They go through three main points and they talk a lot about it and they believe that there's a mechanical a Technical and a computer Competence that you need to bring in when you get into any of these hobbies whether it's 3d printing or lasers or cnc Well, I do believe that you can teach somebody that has no idea what they're doing How to 3d print how to use that slicer put the file on the printer and let it print There is some know-how that you need to bring into this You might need that mechanical Aptitude to put your printer together or break it when it fails because that's gonna happen It's not like a microwave yet where you can just throw your food in there hit some buttons and tell it to cook It is close. It's getting closer every year, but it's not like that You also need to know about computers a little bit You need to know how to get on them and use a program called a slicer Which takes your model and gives it the settings that needs for the printer to recognize it and run You're also gonna use your computer to go out and find those models to find whatever you want to print and jump into Those communities and we talked about earlier in the video to share your progress to share your project Ask for help and all of that you're gonna need that computer know how to do those things all these things together Should help you determine what 3d printer to get and if you even want one Some people might know that and just say never mind I want out but know where you're at in those groups and that's gonna help you a lot further in your 3d printing journey Because if you hate building something don't buy an ender 3 where it takes you an hour to build if you're good at it You know don't buy that if you love mechanical love the computer stuff But you don't want to build it buy something that's ready to go like we talked about earlier But know that before you go and do it and cd make stuff has some really good points about that in his comment So I just wanted to take this time to thank everybody who made comments on that post and all of the posts on my community tab If you want to read what everybody wrote and some of the great advice that's still out there check out the link That's in the description. It'll shoot you right over to that post Also, if you're brand new into 3d printing and you need to know where to start check this video out right here It'll help you out