FlashForge Finder 3D Printer with Cloud & Wi-Fi Connectivity - Easy-to-Use USB Printing for Beginners, Schools & Home DIY Projects (Light Blue) | Perfect for STEM Education, Kids Learning & Creative Hobbies

Bought this as a gift for our 8 year old son's birthday, we also have a 10 y.o. and 6 y.o. Neither of us parents is tech-savvy or had ever done 3D printing before. It was easy to set up, and after a quick google search we found plenty of fun things to print.Would definitely recommend for all families and beginners!I have 9 of these as of now. Very easy to use. You still need to level manually, which takes some getting use to if you are not use to 3D printing. Doesn't take long to learn. You can not print from a folder, which caused some confusion as the sample files are in folders and I could not get them to print. Tech support helped me figure that out. They have been very good about getting back to me on a few issues. Out of the nine I have two suspect cooling fans that might need to be replaced and one filament run out sensor that may need to be swapped out as well. Overall great printers that are easy to use. They do use Flashprint 5 as a slicer. Would have been nice to be able to run the older versions on it, but not a deal breaker. All that said, 3d printers are not magic and you still need to understand how they work and what certain settings do to make any of them work well. I plan on getting more in the future.It’s quiet, prints fantastic, and is extremely reliable.Terrible item. Power cable in for Europe not for US or Canada. After three months of use, printing head became defective and impossible to change it because it is a 12V and they don't serve that model anymore (I bought it three months ago...incredible). On top of that, customer service doesn't speak english so they send you url of web pages from amateur websites...incredible but true. Stay away from them!Dem Release hatte ich schon etwas entgegengefiebert. Ich habe einige Adventurer 3 und 4 bei mir und fand den Finder3 allein preislich schon sehr interessant. Er kommt gut verpackt mit umfassendem Zubehör und sieht/fühlt sich wertig aus/an.Trotz Hilfestellung durch den deutschen UND den englischen Support war ich nicht in der Lage den Drucker mit unserem WLan zu verbinden.Ich vermute, dass hier minderwertige Wifi-Chips verbaut wurden. Selbst die alten Adventurer3 haben kein Problem mit dem W-Lan hier. Tipp des Herstellers: Keine komplexen Passwörter - genial! Dazu ließen sich auch Probleme mit WPA3-Verschlüsselung und dem 5Ghz-Signal reproduzieren. Absolut schlecht, das schaffen 6 Jahre alte Drucker aus dem Hause schon besser....Zudem das bescheuertste überhaupt: Die Ethernet-Buchse wurde wegrationalisiert! Die Lösung für mich hieß dann also: Alles per USB-Stick zum Drucker bringen und dort dann den Druck starten....Ohne mich!Zudem stieß ich bei meinen Testdrucken noch auf ein Problem mit dem Filamenteinzug. Nach 3-5h Druckzeit kam plötzlich einfach kein Filament mehr aus dem Extruder. Es war noch reichlich auf der Rolle, das Filament saß auch fest im Einzug - Es passierte nur einfach nichts. Hier gab es schlicht gar keinen Lösungsvorschlag.Sehr schade! Bei allen mit ungesicherten W-Lans bestimmt ein toller Drucker zu einem super Preis. Für mich so leider absolut unbrauchbar!Bought this printer 2 weeks ago after having done a lot of research on 3D printers. First of all the shipping was super fast! Ordered it a like 10AM and received it the next day at around lunch time.PROS:Installation and leveling:-When you receive the printer, the installation could not be more easy. The printer is already built and you don't have to screw things in or assemble anything except put the filament in. Then once the printer is ready you have to level the print bed. Again, SO easy! I've seen a lot of reviews of other printers where leveling the bed is one of the cons of the printer. With this one all you have to do is unscrew the 3 screws ( with your hands) and let the machine go to each of the 3 screws and rescrew until you hear a beep. Thats it, you do it for the 3 screws and you're done.Print quality:-Now about the print quality. I've been printing a tone of stuff and the quality is absolutly wonderful! I am a 3D artist so I printed a highly detailed 13 inch statue I've sculpted in ZBrush. Since the print size is only 5,5 Inches I had to cut the statue in multiple sections but that wasn't a problem. All the details came out super well. I discovered though that for my next Sculpts maybe some details should be exaggerated on the computer so they come out even more. The printer is super good if you want to print little gadgets from sites like thingiverse but just know that if you are an artist and want to print your art, this printer will print them almost as good as you see them in ZBrush or Maya or Max. But be ready to sacrifice time for quality. I printed my parts at the Hyper Settings ( 0,08 mm sometimes 0,05 mm Layer heights) which will take around 16H per parts. But as of now the printer seems ok with working long times ( I even printed a part that took 27H) as long as you give it time to rest in between prints.) The print lines dont really show so that is a big plus!Free and simple Slicer:-The Slicer program that comes with the printer is also mostly good. It's simple if you want (Beginner Mode) but can become more complex and give you more control if you want ( Expert Mode). For now I will stick with it since it's free but maybe one day I will move on to popular slicers like Simplify3D. I said mostly good because of the supports but I will talk about that below.Noise:-Also the printer is really quiet and can easily run in the same room as you without it being a problem. I don't hear the printer at night eventhough it's on the wall next to my bed room.CONS :- Print size could be a problem for some people. If you know ZBrush, 3D Coat or any other 3D Programs, you can slice your model in more parts and print them separately but will require you to glue them together and hide the seems. Actually, you can even slice the model very easily in Flashprint, the slicer that comes with the printer.- In Flashprint, don't always trust the auto supports they make. They're a good start but I had a couple prints where the support they had put just fell mid print so I had to stop the print. Make sure to go and reinforce the supports you see could fall over or are too weak to stay up until they finally connect to the model.- The filament is also a problem. Let me explain: It comes with a super good 0,6KG Filament spool. But the spool itself is a lot smaller than a normal 1KG 3rd party spool. That means that for there filament it will fit in the little drawer in the back of the printer but if you plan on buying 3rd party filament you will have to find a Spool holder adaptor online ( Which is quite easy actually) and print yourself a holder for when you switch to another filament.Conclusion:This printer is perfect for someone looking to buy there first printer but can also be interesting for the more experienced. Its cheap at 700$, Its super easy to use and install, the print quality is wonderful. But if you want to print more complex stuff like statues or figurines don't be scared to boost the settings up and take the time it takes. you'll see its gonna be worth it.There are some small cons but nothing that is a dealbreaker! Actually all my cons have a solution so there's nothing that can't be done with this printer!Here's a photo of one of the part of my statue so you can see the quality.I got my Flash Forge Finder about 1 year ago. When I did my first print, it was amazing! A few months in, the motherboard broke because I left my computer plugged into it and some prints froze due to that. Called tech support and got a new motherboard, same problem happened again which caused the wifi to shut off (didn't need it anyway). I then decided to print fast at 200 mm/s at 240 c but the steppers kept skipping so I made a custom light weight shell and some other lightweight replacement parts. Only had about 4 clogs that were easy to remove and they were all caused by me. After that, I started to have warping issues for large prints so I got a heated bed off ali express and a new magnetic bed which cost me about $120, but that was fine because I got the printer for $80 discount. But, when I used the auto level it didn't compensate for offset and the servo broke so I removed that and did manual leveling which wasn't bad. Now I have a very reliable and no issue printer and I am not happy with my purchase. Get a better printer though, this needs a heated bed.