Every Broken Print Taught Me Something… A 3D Printer Tier List for the Rest of Us

A coworker stopped by a desk and asked one simple question: "What printer should I get?" That question cracked open years of hard-won wisdom... from a box of loose parts that became a first printer, to machines that bricked themselves, to the ones that finally just work.

The Box of Parts That Started Everything

The first printer on this list is the Tevo Tarantula Pro. It showed up as a box of just... parts. No automatic bed leveling. No removable build sheet. None of the things we take for granted now. But here's the thing about building something from scratch... you learn it in your bones.

That printer still lives with a friend. Still kicking. Still printing.

Would I buy it again? No. But the scars from assembling it? Those paid dividends on every single machine that came after. C tier. Earned, not given.

The Workhorse That Never Quit

The Prusa MK3S is what happens when someone builds a printer that just... works. Kit build again, but this time the assembly felt familiar. Say what you want about Prusa Research... structurally, that machine is as solid today as the day it was built. Years of service. Never a structural failure.

The Prusa MK4 exists now, so the MK3S is a dated design. But respect where it's due. A tier. That printer earned its keep.

The Joy of Watching Deltas Dance

Three FLSUN machines made this list. The FLSUN QQ-S, the FLSUN Super Racer, and the FLSUN V400. Each one an evolution. Each one a little better than the last.

Delta printers are fascinating to watch. There's something almost alive about the way they move. The QQ-S was a solid entry point... easy to assemble, no real issues, currently sitting with a brother who still uses it. B tier.

The Super Racer upgraded the formula... bigger, taller, faster. Only gripe? No direct drive extruder, which matters when you're pushing speed on a Delta. B tier.

Then the V400 arrived and ticked every box. Direct drive. Removable build plate. Delta, because they're just cool. A tier... though at $849, I'd love to see it closer to $600.

The Forgettable Middle

Here's where honesty gets uncomfortable.

The BIQU B1, the Labists ET4, the Anet ET4... these all landed in D tier. Not because they were terrible. Because they were unremarkable. Every company under the sun was blasting out emails, pushing printers that were essentially Prusa clones with nothing to differentiate them. They had bed leveling. They had removable build sheets. They printed okay.

But "okay" doesn't earn shelf space in your memory or your workshop. The BIQU B1 had drivers so loud the extruder was almost unacceptable. The Anet ET4 never even got opened... rumors of printers catching fire will do that. A friend at work still uses it. Never caught fire. But I wasn't rolling those dice.

The WEEDO Tina2? Essentially a toy. If you had a small kid curious about 3D printing, fine. D tier with grace.

The One That Burned a Bridge

The Creality Ender 7. This one touches a nerve.

Built well. Printed well. No automatic bed leveling out of the box, which felt like a crime. But Creality promised firmware for a BLTouch upgrade. When it finally dropped, the installation followed their documentation exactly... and the printer bricked itself in the most absurd way imaginable. The build plate split into imaginary fourths. Prints scaled down to one corner. Automatic bed leveling only worked in that corner.

Weeks of troubleshooting. Requests for help from Creality. Less than helpful responses. Eventually... silence.

That printer still sits behind a door. Broken. Can't even give it away.

F tier. And honestly? That experience soured the relationship with the entire brand. When they reached out about new printers later... no response. Customer support isn't a nice-to-have. It's the foundation. When it fails, everything built on top of it crumbles. 💔

The $60,000 Lesson

The Stratasys Fortus 250mc is the oddball. A commercial machine. Roughly $60,000 when purchased around 2014. At the time, it was impressive... dual extruders, automatic bed leveling, proprietary dissolvable support material.

Fast forward. Belts dry rotted. Stratasys response? "We can install a new gantry. $15,000." For belts.

After negotiation, they sold just the belts. But refused to provide documentation on disassembly. So the machine got taken apart, belts figured out, new ones installed.

The lesson: proprietary ecosystems in hardware carry enormous hidden costs. When the manufacturer decides your machine is no longer worth supporting, you're on your own with a very expensive paperweight... unless you're willing to figure it out yourself.

The New Standard

The Bambu Lab X1C and Bambu Lab P1S sit at the top of this list. They've set a standard in consumer FDM printing that no other brand currently matches. Features, print quality, and the experience of just sending a file and getting a great print back.

That's the dream, right? Not endless tinkering with profiles. Not praying the firmware update doesn't brick your machine. Just... printing.

For resin printing, the Elegoo Jupiter leads the pack.

What This List Really Teaches

Every printer on this list taught something. The box of parts taught patience and mechanics. The workhorse taught what reliability looks like. The forgettable middle taught that "good enough" doesn't survive. The bricked Ender taught that support matters more than specs. The $60,000 machine taught that proprietary lock-in is a trap.

And the ones at the top? They taught that the best tool is the one that gets out of your way and lets you create.

So when someone asks "what printer should I get?"... the answer isn't really about printers. It's about what you're willing to learn from the broken ones, the boring ones, and the ones that finally just work. Every machine on this list was a teacher. Some taught gently. Some taught the hard way. All of them mattered. 🛠️✨

If you're standing at the starting line... start. The first one doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to get you building.