How much does this cheap printer owe you now?
Not a cent. This is all because I wanted to CHANGE a working hotend to support the Fang without mixing up my own new base for it. If I had bought a E3, I'd STILL want the Fang to quiet the damned thing down. This would still mean all new fans, and I'd still want to upgrade to the new extruder, Cap tubing & UltraBase. The following figures are all CAD$; divide by 1.34 for USD$. Over this time the exchange rate has varied a bit, but that's a good mean figure.
I paid CAD$280 for the printer off Amazon, with free next-day delivery. It has upgraded socketed 2208 drivers, 4mm glass-backed removable generic Build-tak build plate, yellow die-formed spring upgrade, and touchscreen the E3 doesn't. Add $17 for the E3 backplate, and $5 for the 5/16" ball leadscrew coupler mod or $5 for a rigid CReality 5mm x 8mm coupler to make it a fair comparison.
($305)The cheapest E3 on Amazon.ca is $305 with a non-removable clone Build-tak film; the E3 Pro comes with a magnetic clone removable Build-Tak for CAD$340. Add $30 for 2208s (or $55 for the CReality silent board with integrated drivers), $12 for the yellow springs, $60 for the touchscreen to make it a apples/apples comparison, except the E3 doesn't have a socketed mainboard.
That's
($377-437) depending on how you weight the value of the 4mm glass build surface vs magnetic build-Tak and socketed mainboard vs integrated with 2208s.
I've played with the touchscreen they're selling now as an upgrade for the E3; the UI kindof sucks in comparison and you still have that ugly knob sticking out the front.
I've sent back several items unopened after better equivalents were bought; this is what I'm gonna have to eat because I spent the last week flailing about like a damn foo:
$20 (2) 5015 Fans
$30 - CR10 Rebuild kit/Hotend
$12 - V6 hotend upgrade parts
$ 10 - 2 Formbot T-Rex 2+ Replacement Hot Ends (bought mostly for the SS 0.4 nozzles)
($72)Mods I'd have done/bought even if I'd gotten an E3:
$15 - Random nuts/bolts/metal for Strain-relief Mods
$13 - Zero-Lash Leadscrew Nuts
$13 - Micro-Swiss heat-block
$18 - CReality Extruder upgrade
$24 - Dual-drive Extruder Upgrade (for when I start doing NinjaFlex, etc)
$24 - UltraBase
$28 - Fans for Fang/controller
$16 - Capricorn Bowden Tube
$17 - E3 Upgrade MOSFET boards (I didn't need these; I've reinstalled the heatsink that fell off and everything is awesome. I COULD send them back, but I don't wanna.
)
($168)
Now I'll admit that holding them side by side, the OE Diggro "E3 hotend" is NOT as good quality as the genuine CReality one. But the obverse can be said of some of the Ender 3 kits re: quality of chassis components. This Diggro A3 / Longer LK4 aluminum is absolutely top-notch. Clean cuts, countersunk & chamfered holes, all chips cleaned and carefully packed. For a while there CReality was suffering some QC issues in that area; I read stories similar to my experience with my first Tevo Tarantula of razor sharp edges on cuts, dinged extrusion & chips everywhere that had to be cleaned up. I understand that they've cleaned up their QC act in that regard in the last year or so, but they still don't chamfer their holes or use smooth-one-side extrusion to make the look cleaner.
Just because I'm a wing-nut, doesn't mean the printer isn't a good deal.
mnem
*couch-tuber-time widda boi*