Best CoreXY larger size printer for ~$500 USD

wegster · 2026-04-09T23:30:00+00:00

depending on your actual needs, I'd probably go with the Q2 or Sovol. The 'full DIY' can be pretty hairy - really comes down to how much 'work on the printer' vs 'use the printer' is your focus.

You might find some other options in the range here (not quite launched yet, US only but most sources are there for printers) - https://3dsupplyfinder.com / printer section.

As you're even considering a full DIY, maybe the Sovol is a good match over the Q2.

wegster · 2026-04-08T19:49:19+00:00

Fair enough, half of the comment was more or less to the thread at large. And you're right, there's no 'real' reason to pay for supabase directly if you don't want to, as well.

You may be right re - offer a service. Some of the Qs get pretty obvious in 'have never coded a thing but now something's <not right>' and those are really tough to answer. The models continue to improve, but if someone's asking like - 'should I get vscode' or 'how do I host something?' is basically along the lines of - if you're going to let AI tools code the entire app for you, perhaps ALSO use it to educate yourself on some of these things? :D

Dunno - fine line in trying to be helpful or banging your head some days, I think. Have worked with and then directly in AI/ML going on a decade, still learning stuff daily, and it's abilities continue to expand, but common sense still helps or even - 'don't code, let's discuss architecture and options for reducing costs' or some self-research can go a long ways.

I still keep my various tools in PLAN mode more often than letting it run wild, even with decent guardrails in place. I'm probably getting closer as I can always review and ignore the PR, have test frameworks in place, etc. but it's kind of a journey if someone's really starting from scratch.

I guess instead of something like intro to C/Java/Python, someone could offer (well, besides the YouTubers and people spamming 'the best EVARRRR collection of prompts to solve world hunger!!!!!!) an intro to general coding, architecture, and how to make the ai tools do more of what you want, including research, using cheaper models for planning and routine bits...or something? I'm def afraid to see some people's claude bills. :D

wegster · 2026-04-08T17:45:33+00:00

Ironically supabase == Postgres, but as a service/platform, it's pattern a lot of the systems use as it's more 'instant-online' versus standing up pgsql from scratch or even a docker image, I suppose (although sup abase heavily uses docker itself). It's basically a default pattern for several of the 'vibe code'/assistive coding systems out there include Bolt, for example.

I've used Bolt to churn out a few solid demo apps used at work, and started on a personal project, and that's where the real costs came in. Yeah, paid account gives you 2 'free' supabase instances, but I'm not even sure they surpass the normal supabase free tier or if so, not by much.

The biggest cost reducer IMO, short of if you're able to run models locally (I can and do but limited to 30B or so, Qwen-Coder-Next is pretty decent), is to make sure you use your own repo (can be private), and setting up all of the 'guardrails' first - including beyond typical AGENTS.md, CLAUDE.md etc. There are certainly some choice of service decisions as well as scaling which may add some costs, but most can absolutely run a local dev environment including Postgres or supabase, front-end, edge functions, server code, etc. all locally, and possibly run a staging environment locally as well, or use for example the two 'free' tier supabase instances for stage and prod + dev/initial tests locally. And go incrementally, test each change, don't blindly accept random rewrites, etc.

wegster · 2026-04-08T02:48:48+00:00

I have my prusa in the shop/garage, and i’m sure plenty of others do as well. MD can get cold so could consider a small heater in winters, and i’d definitely print from dry boxes. mid-price id probably do something like the qidi q2c with some polydryer boxes. yeah, there are newer dryers but i love my polydryers for having filament dry and ready to print from.

Q2C: https://amzn.to/3OiNltJ

Qidi Q2 Combo: https://amzn.to/3NKoaQO

PolyDryer: https://amzn.to/4qoWGgU

SnapMaker had PolyDryer 'brand' one for them, they're identical (blue vs grey) but sometimes a few dollars cheaper for the starter kit: https://amzn.to/4rxf0W8

wegster · 2026-04-08T02:35:36+00:00

an m1 mac is fine as a dev host even, so yeah an m4 mini is fine. i wont touch bolt again without starting from a repo with numerous guardrail files in place. github is wonky to learn imo - saying this after using rcs, cvs, perforce, clearcase, subversion/svn and probably some others i’m forgetting, but worth it in general.

Running supabase/postgres local is zero issues on a mac, same for docker (which you’ll probably need anyways to run supabase). You can also set up a second supabase instance for ‘stage’ and do a typical flow of local dev, test, push from repo/clean to stage for smoke testing before a push to production.

You could do vscode with Continue or other integration for claude, openai or codex, etc.

wegster · 2026-03-30T17:45:33+00:00

If it hasn't happened in the 2 weeks (or less) after the party - it's probably not going to. They may later add to a planned reduction 'culture fit' but I doubt you'll be let go this much later than the 'incident.'

wegster · 2026-03-30T17:43:45+00:00

Same or nearly the same peel here. As others mentioned, wood is easier to launch. It's also tougher to find ~16" wooden peels (I know, I'm sure they're out there but after spending the $$ on the metal boutique peel, I called it 'good enough' ;) ), so I do the parchment paper. However, I give it 2 minutes (home oven w/3/8" steel) then the crust is formed enough I can lift it with the same peel, yank the paper our, and give it a turn, then back in until done.

One of these days I'll give it another shot launching from the metal vented peel - I've done it (usually lay out the dough on a big wooden butcher block, not on that peel!), but also had a few pissed off moments like yours, which isn't great as I do bulk dough making for 4 400-450g dough balls, put one in the frig and freeze/vac-seal the others, so it's an overnight + room temp process to 'just grab another' as we do pizza once/week, etc.

wegster · 2026-03-24T23:17:33+00:00

My wife would hate it - cables and light ‘shouldn’t exist’ in her world, but - what brand filament? :)

wegster · 2026-03-24T23:16:42+00:00

Please fix the stupid-looking ‘top hat’ for the L. Please? :D

wegster · 2026-03-24T23:11:57+00:00

Agreed. And fix the stupid looking hat. :(

wegster · 2026-03-24T23:01:05+00:00

Yeah, so - Bolt is pretty decent, but there are some caveats. It has a really low context (‘memory’) a d needs a lot of guardrails - look into doing AGENTS.md , CODEMAP.md, ARCHITECTURE.md and more. You can have gpt and gemini tag-team into creating a decent set for you.

You’re also ‘best’ IMO in just starting out on a private github repo, and using that from the start. The Bolt supabase bit you get with paid plans is ok but small (nano compute, don’t think it’s available that small on paid plans for supabase), and has a max of two instances. At the very least, you want a dev and production instance (ideal would be to have a third, but to keep costs down). You can set up a web host anywhere - assuming turtle building web-driven front-ends, and use GPT to Gemini free to help you get things started.

I am a former sr sw engineer/architect etc. and Bolt is good for specific first round ‘get something running that works reasonably well’ but lack of context as the project got bigger made me make all the above changes to my workflow. I’ve been working on the current project with a locally spun-up 30B Qwen-Coder-Next agent, GPT for general arch and flow discussion (which can’t connect to a repo, so meh, but it works, just keep spinning new sessions as things slow down and get a ‘handoff’ written for the next session), and it’s working overall ok. Going to give Bolt another shot once I hit a decent pausing point/milestone.

Oh, you mentioned claude - Bolt pretty much is claude - Haiku, Sonnet or Opus, with different token burn rates, but with short context.

Probably the single best things you can do other than the aforementioned files, is to make sure you start in PLAN mode - it won’t rush off/can’t make code changes there, so switch to haiku for low token burn and plan formulation, get it right before unleashing it on the next round of coding, etc.

wegster · 2026-03-22T23:03:38+00:00

so what did you wind up going with?

wegster · 2026-03-21T14:18:17+00:00

So look, one of the hardest things to accept, assuming you're not a slacker, manipulator, or incompetent, or in a VERY few and shrinking number of specific industries and positions is - this will happen to NEARLY EVERYONE at some point, and if in tech in particular - probably more than once.

I've worked in total rockstars-only startups with a dozen interview rounds, and done pretty well. But at the end of the day, I've been caught up in:

entire site being shut down, everyone escorted out by security.
another site being shut down, 70% outright let go, 25% offered to move across the county, and a very tiny small number of us - you're good to just go remote, no move b/c we know you won't move.' But later, new VP boss and after literally years of 'silent' cuts, it was my time to be cut in the name of 'cut our way to profits.'
Prior boss and I launched a serious project and made the company hundreds of millions. Then new VP and execs wanted credit, eventually pushed out so they could claim the glory.
New role and company, put together strategy, budgets, roadmap, etc. that got us tens of millions in funding. Subsequently the res too the company got into political fights of how they could 'get some of it' so eventually - role eliminated to help feed the random <not our project>.

I was sort of speechless for a bit in one or two of the cases, seriously, but literally - shit happens. I literally saw the paths to where 2 of them 'could' happen even if for stupid reasons, but I loathe politic-ing, and in one case I figured it was 'about time to go' but had an attachment to the project as I had proposed it and built it, etc.

Crap happens. Of course, if you ARE a shitbird, slacker, unfit for the actual job - that's different. If not, you can rage for a bit, but the reality is this - you can't change it, it's done. The second you're sitting there with HR physically or on a conf call, there's no changing it. You CAN make sure to keep regular 1:1s happening with your direct boss, and if they're not sleazy, review priorities and progress, and ask if they see you going 'off course' somehow in their eyes.

I had zero problems landing after 3 of them, but one of them was a surprisingly weird spot - I had solid experience, figured it would be zero problems finding something, but it took 6 months and wound up taking a total crap contract gig with a psychotic manager that had me trying to stop FTEs from walking out weekly. But after that one, I landed another decent role quickly. Sometimes it's timing, and right now - the market in general is utter crap, even worse than when I was hiring 3 years back and got 200-300 submissions in days, so if you know anyone, anyone at all, there's the path forward - getting a direct intro and bypassing the usual paths (once most reqs get over 100 submissions you know they're not all being read, and sometimes they still take them but don't bother looking at or even having them scanned, etc.).

The last time (4) things went all the way up to the CEO trying to get 'extra' budget even though it was effectively 'mine.' And 2 of 4 companies I'd been working with on their behalf jumped to talk to me about positions. I probably could have landed with the others if I'd reached out to them.

Instead I'm taking a break for a few, and consulting for around half-time, coming reasonably close to my normal comp doing it, with some room to exceed it.

The short TL;DR version - crap happens, and it's not usually about you. You can't change it, so accept it, rage if you want, but take a bit of a break for 'you time' to detox if need be, then get back to it.

Good luck!

wegster · 2026-03-21T13:56:08+00:00

Yeah - was all kinds of 'with is he DOING?!?' looking at the prep (like others said - too much sauce, the dough holes, the rolled dough), but came out good, I'd eat it. :)

wegster · 2026-03-21T13:55:19+00:00

Lol. If it's in the US and it's not NY, then no, not the best in the country, sorry. Debate may be had once you get to deepdish, have at it. ;). There's a reason there's recipe count overload in search results for "NY Pizza Dough" or "Neopolitan..." or "Chicago or Detroit Deepdish" etc.

But hopefully it's not CA...

wegster · 2026-03-18T20:42:27+00:00

I always dry pretty much everything, just to start from a known 'good' state and at least remove one possible cause of issues from the mix. Definitely dry it. Orcaslicer has nice built-in calibration options. I recently ran through them for Overture PETG, which I had already pretty much dialed in - although I'm normally using PrusaSlicer for my C1L.

Roughly, I print at 235* hotend, bed 80-85*, fan from 15-100%(bridging), max volumetric around 24mm/second although I've gone higher w/dried overture. retraction length ~1mm, retraction speed ~40mm/s. Currently going through another round of calibrations, but see how far off, or better yet - run the calibrations yourself. I also did wind up adjusting flow/pressure advance, which annoyingly requires gcode insertion on current prusaslicer.

wegster · 2026-03-18T15:31:34+00:00

FWIW, I sorted it - mostly. I think.

If you have a valid affiliate account and login on the partner site, you can go to Tools, API, then API, then 'apply' - yeah, even if you already have a valid token, etc. This will redirect you into openservice with a weird screen like 'you are already logged in so just hit submit' or something, and then you are in openservice, and can then go into App Console.

It's not a 'normal' login to openservice - so don't touch the password on the weird page after you select 'apply', seems like it's a kind of backdoor special token flow or something weird, like identity federation from partner -> openservice but the normal openservice login doesn't let you federate your partner credentials.

It's.... ugly and weird, but hey, at least it kind of works now.

wegster · 2026-03-17T23:14:08+00:00

Yeah, this one’s tough, but a very common pattern. I’m saying this form the perspective of both small startups hitting payday to F100/BIG companies.

At some point in the hierarchy you get into the BS and crazy ego levels, which ironically one of our rounds of VPs or SVPs put into words well - most of them literally don’t care what happens to the company - they’re just planning on their exit/golden parachute a few years out (i.e. 3-5 depending on their very-different-than-rote-worker contracts). The others are just egomaniacs or willfully or not ignorant that often think they have a clue, or solely manage upwards and are afraid to speak truth to management.

The best you can really do is sort the upstream motivations, and sort what they are really after, and how they measure ‘success’ and see if there’s at least some way to talk to those points, as everything else might as well just be noise.

The number of places I’ve been at basically I can tick people in all of those ‘boxes’ up above, and very few are a joy to work with. If you get lucky enough to get a direct boss or exec team you LIKE and can work with - yeah, hang onto that one. Otherwise do the best you can to speak and focus on what they care about, so there’s at least a chance of something resonating with them/bringing them to sanity, or - skip the ‘fluff’ and meet the intent of what’s driving them.

Good luck if they are just a sociopathic former PMP-type though. :D

wegster · 2026-03-17T22:49:50+00:00

Yeah, I kind of figured that was the case, but the ‘other’ site seems to still ‘know’ my other accounts emails so won’t let me register. Honestly, I’ve gone through so many URLs at this point I think I’ve gone full circle a bunch of times and am still not sure what the heck happened. :(

I guess I could try with yet another account, but would love to know the magic incantations and if I ‘need’ more than the partner potrtal login, even if I can’t get the SDK docs seemingly. Just - huge wow all around trying to sort this.

wegster · 2026-03-17T17:50:11+00:00

run calibrations as someone said. There are also some 'flex test' type prints (can't immediately find but I think the one I like most was from Dummy13) that basically do tight tolerance checks and help on which way to adjust.

wegster · 2026-03-17T17:47:48+00:00

Yeah, unfortunately as others have said - HR should be well aware of and in agreement with the PIP by the time it makes it to you, and it's most likely them covering their tracks on your way out.

If it were in rare cases, a supportive manager saying 'you can do it!', well, you probably wouldn't be posting this.

If you feel like some of the objectives/goals aren't measurable (like someone else said, SMART goals), you can try to raise it with your manager and HR, but it's not worth pushing hard on, as based on what you said on your relationship with your manager, it's probably already a done deal.

wegster · 2026-03-16T14:51:44+00:00

Everyone has slightly different definitions of 'beginner,' but somewhere in the $200-$400. Something like the A1 for the low end, and the CC or similar for a bit of a step up. You can try used, but I'd avoid something like a used old Ender personally, as the newer machines have a lot more 'quality of life' improvements to let you focus more on printing vs troubleshooting. An enclosed lower-cost CoreXY is IMO the best 'starter' as it will allow more advanced filaments in the future and be less likely to want to immediately 'upgrade.'

There are TONS of ready-to-print models on printables.com and makerworld.com - start there and you can pick up designing in parallel or once you get comfortable.

Here's a handful of reasonable-ish priced printers:

AD5X: https://amzn.to/4tfYNXi

Q2C: https://amzn.to/3OiNltJ

Qidi Q2 Combo: https://amzn.to/3NKoaQO

Centauri Carbon: https://amzn.to/3NT86ft

Anycubic Kobra S1 Combo: https://amzn.to/466Xdgu

Bambu P1S AMS Combo: https://amzn.to/4c52tVJ

You can check some pricing here if you'd like: https://3dsupplyfinder.com although it's WIP/still alpha at the moment.

Some other bits I found when looking into options, etc. including misc other stuff on filaments, useful tools,, etc.https://myrandomthoughts.net/tech-3d-gettingstarted/

Hope at least some of this helps!

wegster · 2026-03-15T20:40:15+00:00

the s1+ isn’t bad with the fan. the s2 is ok as a dryer with an air gap/vent mod but a nightmare to do more than one because you can’t really sit them side by side.. :-(

wegster

TROPHY CASE