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You’ll need minimal post-processing, and you will not have to worry about rejoining several small pieces of your object. Large 3D printers come with a large enough build area you can use to 3D print big models at once. This is a hassle and increases the post-processing costs and time. Printing large models on a small 3D printer is cumbersome because models typically need to be split into smaller parts that fit on the build plate. A few pointers can help you decide if a big 3D printer suits you. Using a giant 3D printer comes down to your 3D printing requirements and the kinds of models you want to 3D print most often. For example, most 3D printers under $1000 also fit in the medium category. That does not mean that all expensive 3D printers have a large print area, however. Needless to say, large 3D printers cost more than smaller ones. The most well-known large format 3D printers are the ones in the Creality CR-series. We consider anything above 27 liters of build volume (or 300x300x300 mm print area) a large 3D printer. They have a great volume for general-purpose 3D printing, so it’s no wonder that 3D printer manufacturers center their design around this category. Most 3D printers under $300 and 3D printers under $500 fall in the medium size category. Popular choices in this category are the Ender 3 S1, Prusa i3 MK3S+, and the Phrozen Sonic Mighty 4K. The upper limit of build volume here is 300x300x300 mm. Medium-size 3D printers can be classified as ones with build areas between 8 and 27 liters. Examples are the Flashforge Finder 3, Monoprice Mini Delta V2, and the Snapmaker 2.0 A150. In practice, this means maximum print dimensions of 200x200x200 mm. Small 3D printers typically have a build area of 8 liters or less. These categories aren’t hard-coded anywhere, it’s just what we use to categorize the different print volumes.
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We can roughly classify 3D printers based on their print volume into three major categories – small, medium, and large 3D printers. Conclusion What Constitutes a Large 3D Printer?
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