Amazon Return 3D printers. Are they worth it? 

I bought an Amazon returned Ender 3 once for $100 and it said "may be damaged as indicated from box damage." Box had maybe a crumpled corner but it looked like nothing inside had ever been taken out. Assembled and it worked perfectly.

A 3D-printer for $50 is worth it even if it's just for the 5 stepper motors.

Nice topic. I prefer to buy off of eBay and I buy “for parts only” I do look to see how many parts are missing. I’ve bought 5 printers this way. 2 Lulzbot TAZ 5, 2 Snapmaker 2.0 350’s and a Dobot Mooz 3. They mostly suffered from people putting them together wrong or taking apart for some reason or not knowing how to bed level, z-offset or use a slicer. I paid, combined around $700 and $500 in parts and I have easily over $5000 in machines. Some time was spent and time is money so maybe 40hrs in total getting these working. But they work as new and I learned a whole lot.

I’ve been buying longer lk5 printers that were returned off eBay for 160$ or less and they all have been the upgraded version and work perfectly fine even tho they were advertised as untested Only problem I’ve have was changing the Bowden tube end and fitting because it slipped out after a couple months of use And what I love about this printer is it’s 300x300x400 print size and you can buy cr10 parts for it like bl touch

I've just found that mine had bad bearings, replaced most them with ones I had laying around. Heard the stock slicer sucks so I got the thingiverse Cura plugin and it was perfect. that was my experience, great video!

I've bought 2 returned printers. One Ender 3 max that was tested and arrived in perfect condition. And a Mono X that had touchscreen issues. It still has touchscreen issues but I've been able to get it to work.

i picked up a very good condition ender 3 v2 neo for 190 and it was basically brand new no defects or scratches

I can SAVE YOU 9 MINUTES. In fact, this is way more a discussion about the experience buying 2 printers this way, than a discussion about the overall process as the title suggests. In fact, it doesn't even cover the MOST IMPORTANT TIPS: 1. How to FIND these, 2, How to GUARANTEE THEY WILL WORK (or you can get them working) Bottom line: they ABSOLUTELY ARE worth it, if you can do ANY troubleshooting, or, watch RU-vid videos or read Reddit on HOW TO TROUBLESHOOT A 3D PRINTER. And I'm not talking about soldering on a replacement chip, but rather swapping out boards and making screwdriver connections on the worst end of the electronics scale, or troubleshooting a hotend. If you're NEW to 3D printers, you want to watch enough assembly videos to be a Jedi Master before you even ORDER your 1st printer (you'll even learn from videos about printers OTHER than the model you bought). The best ones don't just cover the BASIC STEPS OF ASSEMBLY, but instead lots of other things to know you a) got a GOOD PRINTER and b) ENSURE it does go together properly. Those things include making sure it sets level and doesn't tilt, checking the Y axis stands as close to a perfect 90 degrees to the bed as possible, etc. Watching lots for different models may even help confirm what MODEL would be best for you. My opinion is the spring steel magnetic beds with auto leveling, like a Anycubic Kobra are a great 1st printer, however, with a glass bed, like an Aquila has, you can easily level it and likely not touch it for months on end if you aren't moving it around or trying to jerk prints off the plate before they cool and self release (pro tip: shut down your heated bed around 4 minutes before the print finishes and it will self release a minute or two on its own after the print complete, someone needs to make this a Cura add-on to just build the Gcode to do this into any print as an option). First off, to FIND THEM, you use the words "UNREPAIR 3D PRINTER" on Ebay. Most of the offerings will suggest LOTS of units for sale: "more than 10 sold" or "10 available, 393 sold" Secondly, to GUARANTEE IT WILL WORK (or that you can fix it, or worst case that you're not really out any significant money from a total trainwreck), all you have to do is BUY THE ALLSTATE WARRANTY, at $5.99 - YES $6 --, and IT GUARANTEES YOU A WORKING PRINTER for a YEAR OR YOUR FULL PURCHASE PRICE BACK (because there is NO economics on the trying to service a $119 product that is expensive to ship somewhere to get fixed, since there isn't 3d Printer troubleshooting in every 7-11 store). I KNOW this for a fact after purchasing 4 printers this way. 3 were MINT or almost (Ender 2 Pro, $69 delivered, Anycubic Mega X, $119 delivered, Anycubic Kobra $119 delivered), 2 of those likely never taken out of the box ("Oh, Timmy, that looks DANGEROUS! or "Oh Timmy, you'll never be able to put that together!"), the Mega X needed an electronic end stop adjusted that was making contact, and lastly out of the 4, 1 had serious problems, an Aquila bought for a nephew: they had ripped off the mainboard and the cable to the LCD. Guess what? The refund PAID for those items brand new with money left over. Nothing like getting a printer with a BRAND NEW mainboard, at the price you expected to pay for one with a USED ONE. There has NEVER been a better time to get into 3D printing.

Great video. I know a lot of people who were buying up these returned Fokoos printers.

Nice video. I took a chance one just recently, only to find the unit i ended up with abused before it was returned. I found the limit switch in the back of the unit under the bed was broken in two pieces.

Don’t get that sort of deal in the UK - returns are sold at a discount through Amazon Warehouse but the discounts are often quite trivial and in my opinion are not usually worth the risk of fault, damage or the reduced warranty. For example, the printers that you show are £270 new but the returns in Amazon Warehouse are £225 - just £45 discount, simply not worth the risk in my opinion.

might have to keep an eye on their website now in case these amazon return printers come back in stock. I want to try 3d printing (both filament and resin) and am a bit of a tinkerer so a "project" printer like this might be up my alley (doesn't hurt that I already have the drill bits and taps for screws just in case!)

For everybody in the comments asking where he got the printers, the link is in the description. But they're currently unavailable.

I have bought a flashforge adventurer 4 and it had a broken door and an intermittent issue with a stuck y max sensor. had to dig through the activity logs to ensure that was what was going on as the motor on the y-axis would only go in one direction at times and this would result in banging against the door of the machine. cost about $35 in parts to fix both of those which made it well worth saving the $600 more a retail one would have cost. 3d printing is a diy thing anyway and it is good to get a feel for the 3d printer itself since it will malfunction at some point.

I never bought on Amazon. I buy brand new from the main website/brand. Bought printers from 299€ at 149€. Last buy was a Neptune 3 for 179€. Amazon the same printer was for 320€.

I'm not seeing any deals that low at the moment but maybe with a tool like Camel camel camel or similar I can set up tracking and notifications when some of these super cheap deals pop up. I'm fine with gambling on these since I build printers from scratch all the time and most of the troubleshooting required is well within my wheelhouse. The only real losses are if I need to buy a bunch of missing parts. Fortunately, at the moment, I'm flush with plenty of spares for most machines as well. Just need to find some of these super deep discounted deals. Thanks for sharing.

my first printer was a returned ender 3, only thing i seen wrong was it was missing 1 screw and the spatula looked slightly used. other than that it works perfectly.

Where on 3d printer websites would you purchase the returns?

How do you find the “returns” on the websites? Do you have to email them or something?

Thanks for the Fokoos discount code in the description! Did you get a retroactive sponsorship?

I currently work at an Amazon returns center and yeaaa buy at your own risk lol depending on the person who inspects the return they might think it's fine but someone who knows about 3d printing might flag it as unsellable and send it off to liquidation or even straight up trash it. We can't exactly take our time to fully inspect every aspect of the printer too which is unfortunate.

I have bought several returns and usually they're a great deal. One time, however, I received a printer that looked like it had been run over by a truck. It had been assembled and then returned but the original owner managed to fit it all back in the original box without disassembling it. I had a good, but expensive, laugh.

Hiw do you get the used printers?

$47? You'd be out that or more after buying just the stepper motors and power supply, not to mention the board and screen. It's worth it to not only fix but also if you want to scrap it for a new build. I bought a broken Tina 2 S and I'm completely overhauling it, (new board, hotend, extruder etc) the electronics I'll salvage to make a 2nd PET pultrusion machine.

I bought 4 printers once and 2 of them became daily drivers and the other 2 are still stuck in repair hell so yeah its a mixed bag. I think I have tried everything on it

how'd you find them? I go to amazon warehouse and look up printers and non show up unless its practically NEW price...

Any links?

So no thermal runaway protection?

Where do you go to buy stuff like that ?

fokoos was my first printer never had any trouble.

I bought heavily used cr 10 smart pro for 60$ turned out it was a cr10 V3 with all parts but l wrenches and micro SD

Damn I thought I did good with my Aquilas for $50 shipped off ebay. They were amazon returns sent back to voxelabs. Seen some horror stories though of half the printer or worse with the auction being sold as is no return you might have a fight or a win. Better odds then playing lotto though IMO.

How do you find these returned items on Amazon?

where you buy amazon return items???????

How often do the ribbon cables fail with this design I wonder...

The link in the description is getting a 404 response; can you confirm that the link is written correctly there?

Links?

Links?????

Good day, where do i buy these kinds of really cheap returned printers? Any suggestion, im from Asian country though? 😅 I wanted to buy to start and learn 3d printing.

Your video killed the link! 👍

Odd i get this video recommended after looking at some returned 3D printers on Amazon. Wasn't worth the whopping £4 discount on a £350 printer.

How do you find the returned printers. All I see on Amazon are new. I seen people mentioning pallets but I'm not trying to do that. Do I get them on ebay?

8k resin is a scam anyway

Where can we find these used printers? I want something to practice my wiring on or maybe just parts.

what about where to buy? that is really the info I was hoping to get from the video.

Printer already selling for $75 so much for 45

where do you go to buy these returned printers?

I'm not seeing any deals there that would be worth the risk. Saving 5-10% isn't worth getting something unusable or requiring work to repair.

It's us made, what's not to like... 😳👍

The pom wheels on the odins are garbo.

What a wonderful video. I really wish RU-vid would promote stuff like this. Can you advise how to find deals like this?

how do You find those returned items, is there a subcatagory I am not aware of?

If your new at 3d printing no.

Just get a Prusa, you will be happy you did

not worth it if you bought mine xD xD

This is an informative video and I'm thinking about subbing but the intermittent background music is so out of tune it makes it unwatchable.