Thoughts on the Crealty Ender 3 V2 after a few years.

Several years ago I was given a 3d printer by my wife at Christmas. It was a Ender 3 V2, that at the time was a newer upgrade to the older Ender 3's that were running around in the world. I didn't know a lot about 3d printing then and the main thing that grabbed my eye was that the price of the device was low enough to make it possible to get into 3d printing.

Over the next several years I spent a lot of time fiddling with and getting that device setup in so that I could get decent prints out of the thing. Give that this device didn't have the option to automatically level the bed and required a lot of manual fiddling it gave me a good understanding of how these things work and what needs to be done to make sure that the prints were functional. It was however a lot of work and the printer is finicky as hell.

Overall from a learning standpoint having the Ender 3 V2 was key in learning how these things work, however given the current state of things people starting out have it way simpler. Shortly after I bought my printer Bambu Labs hit the scene with a high end printer that levels itself automatically, and after a couple of years that functionality started rolling down everybody's product stacks. 

Case in point is the Ender 3 V3 SE that I picked up as a replacement. Turns out eventually the hot end on a printer needs to be replaced and I found the SE on sale for nearly the cost of a upgraded hot end for my existing printer. Didn't hurt that it's also able to automatically level itself, since that's one of my biggest pet peeves about using the thing.

If you are just starting out do yourself a favour and spend the money to get something that can automatically level the bed and handle a lot of the adjustments on it's own. Use the time that you save to learn the 3d modelling tools better since the speed that the printers are improving at it's going to get to a point where they are basically plug and play so hopefully soon there won't be much babysitting needed. However being able to design the object that you need to print from scratch, that's going to be a key skill.

Overall I was happy with my Ender 3 when I got it. If I was starting over now however it would probably be a Bambu A1, or the equivalent from Crealty and invest time in other skills.