I finally purchased a 3D printer. After a while researching I decided to go with the PRIMA Creator P120 since i saw some good reviews on forums and youtube. Even though it had been advertised to sell for 200$ I had to pay 300€ to get one but so far I think it was totally worth it.
And here I am going to tell you why:
First some facts:
single extruder (with vent)
0,4mm nozzle diameter
1,75mm filament diameter
operation volume of 120x120x120 [mm] or 4.7x4.7x4.7 ["]
heated bed
retraction function
software included
very compact design with roughly LxWxH 340x230x350 [mm]
My first feeling about this small piece of technology was very positive. The metal sheet design of the housing and base is well made and thought through. Basically all the materials used are reasonable and give the printer a valuable overall impression.
The color display is nothing to watch movies on but it does its job. One down point would be the control knob. Sometimes it happens that the selection jumps one step further so you enter the wrong submenu, or in my case, print the wrong part :(
But let´s talk about if the PRIMA Creator P120 does delivers or not.
To make it short, it does. Even though the test filament that came with the box wasn´t enough to print the entire "chinese-kitty-model" I was pleasantly surprised how accurate the result was.
I made some more test prints and the accuracy is astonishing. The surface turns out to be very consistent and smooth.
One problem that occurs from time to time is that the first layer won´t stick well on the bed. So I need to watch over the first minute of the process and get rid of excess filament in case it didn´t bond.
In conclusion the PRIMA Creator P120 is definitely worth it´s money (Yes even 300€). But you need to consider that good prints won´t just happen. Even though the presets are quiet good, I had to play around with many parameters to find the sweet spot. Basically you need to reconsider the settings for each part depending on its topology. I personally don´t mind about that since it helps to get a basic knowledge of this matter.
3D printing is even more fun than I thought and I can´t wait to print the stepper motor mounts for my CNC project.