Selecting a printer can be daunting. The major question to ask is if you’re looking for a tool or a project.

Everything on this site is designed for use with Fused Deposition Modeling (FDM) 3D printers. Essentially a CNC hot glue gun.

Tools:
Prusa Printers
Prusa Printers are well supported and have a large user base. Even building from kit, you’ll end up with a machine that’ll just work with minimum fuss. Being built from commonly available hardware, Prusa printers are also easy to service should something break.

Sovol SV05
The Sovol SV05 is a somewhat less expensive and somewhat higher quality printer than the Ender 5 pro. It has the same print volume and comes from the factory with fixes to the weaknesses in the Ender 5’s design. The parts are sourced from the same suppliers as the Creality machines, so some calibration is advisable. An overview of the differences and specs can be found here.

Sovol SV06
The Sovol SV06 is an inexpensive bed slinger with dual z axis screws, and mesh bed compensation. Somewhat unique among inexpensive printers, this printer has two z axis stepper motors and firmware to actually keep them in sync. In addition, the printer has an all metal hotend alleviating the issues PTFE lined heatbreaks have with most materials. At roughly the same cost as an Ender 3 the SV06 is hard to beat.

As inexpensive printers go, the SV06 is my pick for best first 3D printer.

BambuLab
If you have a larger budget, the Bambu Lab printers are fantastic tools. Inspired by Voron and other DIY kits, the X1Carbon and P1P printers are built for speed printing out of the box.

The major liability of the Bambu Lab printers is that they exist in a mostly closed ecosystem. Many of the critical hardware components are proprietary. That being said, they don’t gouge for replacement parts and the software is published under an opensource license.

At the time of writing, expensive as they are, they are better than any competitor in the price range. Maybe not a great choice for a first printer for someone new to printing. For someone wanting rapid prototypes, the X1Carbon with AMS is a fantastic choice.

Projects:
Creality Ender 3 Variants
Fundamentally decent machines that have really pushed down the price point for the consumer desktop 3D printer. As much as Creality likes to crank out new models the cheapest base model tends to be the best simply due to being more easily modded and repaired by the end user. There is a huge user base around the Ender 3 Printers that often provides most of the user support.

AVOID ANY MODEL WITH A GLASS BED.
The carborundum coating either works wonders or sticks about as well as Teflon. If your prints aren’t sticking to one of these beds, flip it over and print on the bare glass.

Creality Ender 5 Pro
The Ender 5 is at its core an upgraded Ender 3. While a bit more expensive than the Ender 3, it eliminates a number of issues that come up with bedslingers like the Ender 3.
Most mods designed for the Ender 3 will also work with the Ender 5.
Most of my printers are modified Ender 5 printers. As a result, I tend to design around the print volume of this printer.

AS WITH THE ENDER 3, AVOID ANY MODEL WITH A GLASS BED.
The Ender 5 Plus is too large and lacks the rigidity to work well.

Voron Printers
Voron Printers are definitely not a beginner project. They’re well designed, but some knowledge of how printers work and fit together is recommended before building one. A number of companies sell kits for the various Voron printers, but the Voron printers are all built of standard widely available parts.

A well-built Voron is a fantastic printer. Building it is quite a task though.

A Note on Factory Klipper Printers
Klipper runs on a full capability Linux computer. While many of these printers are fast and relatively good out of the box, security is a potential concern if they are connected to your network. These printers can potentially share all of the internet of things root password vulnerabilities. If you can’t modify the root password or even ssh into the Linux installation, you might want to consider a Marlin device instead and upgrade that to Klipper yourself.

There are a lot of fantastic resources for care, feeding and operation of 3D printers.

Getting Started:
CTRLPew’s Getting Started Guide
While this is focused primarily on the exercise of the US Second Amendment using additive manufacturing, his getting started guide is an excellent starting point for anyone new to 3D printing.

Coming to Terms
HP Tech Takes Glossary
3D printing has a lot of jargon. This HP Tech Take offers a brief explanation of some of the common terms in 3D Printing. This link was recommended by the Lyndhurst STEM Club in New Jersey.

RTD Glossary Page
An overview of the different Printing Technologies and supporting terms.

Printer Calibration and Troubleshooting:
The3DPrintGeneral
Reviews of 3D printers and Author of one of the most comprehensive troubleshooting guides available. His book is worth picking up. He ran afoul of the censors and is no longer available on YouTube. Everything is still in one place on Playeur or on Rumble.

TeachingTech
A font of how to guides for 3DPrinting. His calibration tools are freely available for everyone to use here. Each tool is accompanied by a text and video guide to usage.

CHEP
Chuck Hellebuyck creates easy to follow guides and printer reviews.

LostInTech
A good source for somewhat advanced users detailing slicer quirks and how to print challenging materials such as Thermoplastic Elastomers (TPU/TPE).

Materials Science and Engineering:
CNCKitchen
Stefan of CNC Kitchen has made many videos on the material properties of 3D printed plastics and investigated how to get the most out of 3D printed parts.

SuperSlicer
Everything on this site was sliced using SuperSlicer. SuperSlicer is a fork of PrusaSlicer which in turn is a fork of Slic3r. SuperSlicer exposes a lot more settings providing the utmost control over the G-code generated.

PrusaSlicer
Easy to use and bright orange. While PrusaSlicer is optimized for use with Prusa printers, it will work for most printers with a bit of tinkering of the included presets.

Ultimaker Cura
Much like SuperSlicer Cura offers a very fine control over slicing parameters. At the time of writing this, the major limitation of Cura is that support distances MUST be a multiple of the layer height. Often this leads to welded supports or poor dimensions.

FreeCAD
Free as in liberty, though in this case, free as in free beer too. FreeCAD is a Free Open-Source Software (FOSS) project. A bit clunky compared to the paid suites, but you retain control of your data, and all processing is done locally on your machine.

Fusion360
Fusion 360 is probably the most used CAD suite amongst hobbyists. As a result, there are a lot of guides available. Fusion 360 is free or paid depending on your circumstances. Projects under most circumstances are saved to AutoDesk’s servers. For most hobbyist applications the somewhat reduced capabilites of the free version should suffice. Pay close attention to the license terms. The paid version runs about 550USD per year.

OnShape
OnShape is an entirely cloud-based CAD suite with a free version for non-commercial use. The software is device agnostic.
The Paid version runs about 1500USD per year.

FreeCAD
MangoJellySolutions
The most comprehensive collection of tutorials using FreeCAD for 3D design. Most videos are answering viewer questions. Ask nicely and your question could get a video guide too.

Fusion360
YouTube, and SkillShare both have a huge number of video guides on 3D design in Fusion 360. No single personality comes to mind for tutorials.

OnShape
Teaching Tech
Teaching Tech has created a series of videos covering the basics of working with OnShape with a focus on 3D printing.

There are a number of repositories of free 3D models on the internet.

Thangs
Thangs provides hosting for people creating 3D designs and provides a way to search other services like Thingiverse or Prusa’s Printables.

I host some free files here.

Thingiverse
Development and maintenance on Thingiverse have only recently resumed. It is not recommended to host files there due to security breaches, but there are still a lot of models available for free on the site.

Printables
Prusa’s attempt to create a successor to Thingiverse. This site is actively being developed and can be expected to actually function properly.

TheGatalog
Deterrence Dispensed has hosted all manner of firearms receiver models, and technical data packages on Odysee. TheGatalog is an index of affiliated packages. Check your local laws before printing.

Odysee
File hosting implementing aspects of crypto to make it difficult to cover up censorship. There are all sorts of files hosted on the site but searching for them can be difficult without knowing exactly what you’re looking for.

MyMiniFactory
MyMiniFactory tends to be focused around miniature figures for the many tabletop role playing games with better options for monetization than Thingiverse or Printables. Not everything on MyMiniFactory is available for free, but many things are.