# Printer Search: Methodology and coverage

*Data stamp: 2026-09-06. Every figure in this notebook set is generated from the study's data files; 00-source-of-truth.md wins where two files differ.*

## Who this is for, and the rules it was built under

This report answers one person's question. It is not a general ranking, and a different buyer
with different priorities would get a different answer from the same data, which is why the
tool that accompanies it lets you move the weights and watch the order change.

The buyer is a home user in Massachusetts who prints intermittently rather than continuously.
In priority order, he prints functional parts in polyethylene terephthalate glycol (PETG) where dimensional accuracy
and repeatability matter more than speed; parts for foam-dart blasters that need to survive
impact, occasionally in acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) for heat and impact resistance, with multiple colors
for cosmetic pieces; and household fixes and one-off prototypes.

polylactic acid (PLA) and PETG are the bulk of what he prints. acrylonitrile styrene acrylate (ASA) and
acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) are occasional, and specifically ABS reinforced with glass fiber
(glass fiber (GF)). Glass fiber matters more to him than carbon fiber (carbon fiber (CF)),
which an earlier draft of this report had backwards. Fiber is not a someday material: he expects
to use it, so the machine has to print it and the filament magazine has to be able to hold it.

**What he wants from multiple filaments is not multi-color printing.** In his own words: "I'm not
looking to really use multiple colors in the same print necessarily, but it's really about the
convenience of having multiple materials and colors loaded up to just be easily selected in the
slicer so I don't have to mess with feeding and managing a bunch of single rolls."

So the thing being bought is a **filament magazine**: four or more spools that stay loaded and get
picked in the slicer instead of swapped by hand. That changes what counts as good. Purge waste,
which dominates most multi-color comparisons, drops to a minor factor, because he rarely prints
more than one color in a single object. What replaces it is which materials the magazine will
accept, whether it dries them, and whether it jams when loading and unloading. A magazine that
refuses the filament he most wants loaded is failing at the job he is buying it for, however
smoothly it changes colors. He has used a Bambu Lab X1C with an
Automatic Material System (AMS) a couple of times at work, so that workflow is familiar, though not a requirement.

He designs in OpenSCAD and Python, and is not fluent in any programming language. He uses an
Android phone, so companion apps that are iOS-only or iOS-first count against a machine. A web
interface that works in Chrome is a plus, as is a documented
application programming interface (API) or a home-automation integration.

The printer will live in a shared family home rather than a dedicated workshop. Noise, fumes and
footprint are therefore real constraints, not footnotes, and one whole judgment in the rubric
exists to capture them.

He values free and open-source software and self-hosting, but has said plainly that for this
purchase "it just works" outweighs ideological purity. The rubric reflects that: reliability
carries the heaviest weight at 25 out of 100, and openness carries 15.

### The knobs this run used

Every one of these was fixed before research began and never changed mid-run.

| Setting | Value | What it means |
|---|---|---|
| Run date | 2026-09-06 | Every "current" claim in this report is relative to this date. |
| Region | United States | Only products a US consumer can buy new. |
| Budget | $1,300.00 all-in | A hard ceiling on total spend, tax included. |
| Sales tax | 6.25% | Massachusetts. $1,300.00 all-in is about $1,223.53 before tax. |
| Stretch ceiling | $1,600.00 all-in | Captured in full so a near-miss or a sale is never silently dropped. |
| Refurbished | captured, flagged | Manufacturer-refurbished units with a warranty. Used-market listings are never captured. |
| Kits | whole-printer only | A kit sold as one product by an established vendor is scored. A third-party add-on kit bolted to a printer never designed for it is not a qualifying multi-color path. |
| Pre-orders | excluded | Anything that cannot be bought and delivered today gets one line in the timing chapter and nothing more. |

A configuration, not a printer, is the unit of comparison throughout. A configuration is the
printer plus the multi-material unit (Multi Material Unit (MMU)) needed for multi-color plus any accessory the buyer's
stated use actually requires. Comparing bare printers would systematically favor machines that
sell their color capability separately.


## How this was built

### What was searched

The scope was every fused deposition modeling (fused deposition modeling (FDM)) printer sold new to a US
consumer as of 2026-09-06, from any brand, at any price. Price decided how deeply a model was
captured, never whether it was listed. Resin, laser and industrial machines are out of scope but
still appear in the coverage record with a reason, because an omission and an exclusion look
identical to a reader unless you say which one it is.

Brands were enumerated first from a manifest, then a discovery pass went looking for what the
manifest had missed: retailer catalogs at Micro Center, MatterHackers, B&H, Amazon, Newegg and
Walmart; editorial roundups from All3DP, Tom's Hardware, PCMag, Wirecutter and TechRadar published
within twelve months; the vendor lists inside the OrcaSlicer and Klipper source repositories;
community discussion; and trade coverage. Discovery found 62 brand names that were not in the
original manifest. Almost all turned out to be children's printers, industrial machines, defunct
companies or brands with no US channel, but they are all recorded rather than dropped.

### What counts as evidence

Every non-null fact in the underlying data carries a source, a retrieval date and an evidence
tier. There are 629 sources behind this report.

| Tier | What it is | Count |
|---|---|---|
| T1 | evidence tier 1 | 327 |
| T2 | evidence tier 2 | 70 |
| T3 | T3 | 55 |
| T4 | evidence tier 4 | 176 |
| T5 | T5 | 1 |

Specifications and prices require tier 1. Reliability, noise, purge waste and support claims
require at least one tier 2 plus one tier 4, or two tier 2. A manufacturer's own claim about how
quiet or how reliable its machine is was never sufficient on its own, and marketing figures for
speed and acceleration never moved a score by themselves.

### How the scoring works

Each configuration is scored 0 to 10 on eight judgments against written anchors. Each judgment
carries a weight; the total is the sum of score times weight, divided by the full weight sum.

| Judgment | Weight | Capped for insufficient evidence |
|---|---|---|
| Just-works reliability and support | 25 | 4 |
| Filament magazine: what it holds and how well | 15 | 0 |
| Value within budget | 15 | 4 |
| Openness and longevity | 15 | 4 |
| Room to grow (chamber, magazine, harder materials later) | 5 | 1 |
| Materials now (PLA, PETG, ASA, ABS and ABS-GF) | 15 | 2 |
| Software and ecosystem UX | 5 | 4 |
| Practicalities for a shared home | 5 | 33 |

The rule in that last column is the most important one in this report. **A judgment whose evidence
does not meet the bar is capped at 3.0 out of 10, and the denominator is always
the full weight sum.** A gap always costs; it never helps.

That sounds obvious and it is not. The previous version of this study divided by the number of
judgments it could score, which is arithmetically identical to filling each gap in at the machine's
own average. The result was a ranking that correlated negatively with how well documented a machine
was, and whose top pick was a machine the same study's own research said to avoid. The rule exists
because of that failure, and a test in the build fails if anyone reintroduces it.

That rule has a second-order trap of its own, and this study fell into it once. The first scoring
pass capped 23 of 67 configurations on reliability, including every Bambu Lab P1S, a
machine three years on sale with an enormous published record. That cap was measuring this
study's own reading, not the printers. A second research pass went and gathered the missing
evidence under an explicit instruction to look for evidence rather than for good news, adding 165
sources and 85 defect records; both affected judgments were then re-scored from scratch. Scores
moved in both directions, which is the only reason to trust the exercise: the P1S rose sharply, and
the QIDI Q2 fell from about 7 to 4.0 once its documented requirement to run with the enclosure open
came to light.

### What was excluded, and why

Pre-order, crowdfunded and announced-but-unshipped machines were excluded outright rather than
scored and flagged. A machine that cannot be delivered cannot be the answer to "what should I buy
right now", and chasing them consumed a great deal of effort in the previous version of this study
for nothing. They appear once each in the timing chapter so the question "should I wait?" can still
be answered honestly.

Third-party bolt-on multi-material unit (Multi Material Unit (MMU)) kits do not count as a multi-color path. Fitting a color
system to a printer whose manufacturer never designed for one is a soldering-and-configuration
project, which is the opposite of this buyer's stated primary criterion. Machines whose only color
option is such a kit remain visible in the unranked section with the kit named, so the exclusion is
legible rather than a silent gap. Whole-printer kits from an established vendor are a different
thing and are scored normally.


## What was covered, and what was not

The point of this chapter is that you can tell the difference between a machine this study rejected
and a machine it never looked at. The previous version could not, and silently missed several
brands.

Every brand encountered, whether in the manifest, in a retailer's catalog, in an editorial roundup, in a
slicer's vendor list, or anywhere else, has a row in the coverage record with a status and at least
one source. There are 78 such rows: 10 mainstream brands,
21 secondary and niche brands, 5 adjacent brands confirmed out of scope, and
42 rows for brands that discovery turned up and the manifest had not listed.

| Category | Count |
|---|---|
| Brands with a coverage row | 78 |
| Brands fully captured | 24 |
| Printers recorded in detail | 102 |
| Configurations priced | 128 |
| Configurations scored and ranked | 67 |
| Configurations visible but not ranked | 61 |

The 61 unranked configurations are not hidden. They appear in the tool with the reason
they are set aside, which is almost always that the manufacturer sells no multi-color path for
them, or that they cost more than the $1,600.00 stretch ceiling.

### Where the fetching failed

Nine sources of information could not be read directly and are declared rather than papered over:
Adorama's catalog refused two URL variants; Reddit and YouTube refuse direct page fetches, so
search results and a structured video interface were used instead; the listing pages at Kickstarter,
Indiegogo and the Formnext exhibitor directory are JavaScript applications that returned nothing;
and the Zortrax, Voxelab, Siboor and US Phrozen storefronts each refused repeatedly. Where an
equivalent existed (a reseller page, a global storefront, a structured interface) it was used and labeled as such.

### Where the first pass was wrong

Sixteen prices captured in the first pass turned out to be wrong, and all sixteen are recorded in
the conflicts log with both values. Two mistakes explain nearly all of them. A product page's
default-selected variant is frequently not the base product, so a bundle price gets recorded against
a bare machine. That is how the Bambu P2S Combo was first recorded at $780 when it is $749. And
several manufacturers run a separate US storefront from their global one at different prices, which
is how six Anycubic machines and the entire Phrozen line were mispriced.

Two of those corrections removed a candidate that had looked affordable. The UltiMaker S3 is $2,999,
not the $1,095 first captured; that figure belonged to a different product in the same page's
related-items carousel. The Rat Rig V-Core 4.1 needs a separate $768.56 electronics kit that its
headline price does not include, putting its cheapest working build at $1,916.17. One correction
went the other way: the Phrozen Arco is in stock in the US at $840, verified by adding it to a cart
and requesting a live shipping quote to a Massachusetts postcode.


### The coverage audit, brand by brand

Counts: 10 mainstream brands, 21 secondary and niche brands, 5 adjacent brands
confirmed out of scope, and 42 brands discovery turned up that the manifest had not
listed. Every brand encountered has a row here, so an omission and an exclusion cannot look alike.

| Brand | Tier | Status | Models recorded |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anycubic | A | fully captured | 14 |
| Bambu Lab | A | fully captured | 11 |
| Creality | A | fully captured | 16 |
| Elegoo | A | fully captured | 13 |
| Flashforge | A | fully captured | 9 |
| Prusa Research | A | fully captured | 13 |
| QIDI | A | fully captured | 7 |
| Snapmaker | A | fully captured | 2 |
| Sovol | A | fully captured | 8 |
| UltiMaker (incl. MakerBot) | A | partially captured (S3 possibly in STRETCH on sale; rest over STRETCH / no MM path) | 8 |
| Anker (AnkerMake / eufyMake) | B | defunct for FDM | 0 |
| Artillery | B | partially captured | 3 |
| Comgrow | B | fully captured (reseller + own brand, no MM path) | 2 |
| FLSUN | B | fully captured (no MM path) | 5 |
| Geeetech | B | fully captured (no MM path) | 2 |
| Inland (Micro Center house brand) | B | no FDM printers | 0 |
| Kingroon | B | partially captured (lineup listed; nothing purchasable new) | 6 |
| Longer | B | fully captured (no MM path) | 5 |
| LulzBot (FAME 3D) | B | fully captured (over STRETCH / no MM path) | 7 |
| Mingda | B | out of scope (over STRETCH; consumer line discontinued) | 3 |
| Peopoly | B | fully captured (FDM line) | 1 |
| Phrozen | B | partially captured (US availability unverified) | 2 |
| Positron (LDO Positron V3.2 kit) | B | fully captured (kit, no MM path) | 1 |
| Raise3D | B | out of scope (over STRETCH) | 5 |
| Rat Rig | B | fully captured (kit category) | 3 |
| Sunlu | B | no current FDM printers for sale | 0 |
| Tronxy | B | partially captured | 15 |
| Two Trees | B | no current FDM printers for sale | 0 |
| Voron kit vendors (LDO, Formbot, Siboor, Fysetc) | B | partially captured (kit category) | 5 |
| Voxelab (Flashforge sub-brand) | B | partially captured (official site unreachable) | 1 |
| Zortrax | B | out of scope (over STRETCH) | 1 |
| Formlabs | C | out of scope (resin / SLS only) | 0 |
| Markforged | C | out of scope (industrial) | 0 |
| Stratasys | C | out of scope (industrial) | 0 |
| Uniz | C | out of scope (resin) | 0 |
| xTool | C | out of scope (laser only) | 0 |
| AOSEED | discovered | fully captured (no MM path) | 2 |
| Afinia | discovered | fully captured (no MM path) | 2 |
| Anet | discovered | partially captured (retailer only) | 1 |
| AtomForm | discovered | out of scope — pre-order / crowdfunded / announced (INCLUDE_PREORDER excluded by Rob 2026-09-06); timing chapter only | 1 |
| BIQU / BigTreeTech | discovered | fully captured (printer no MM path; addon vendor) | 2 |
| Blocks / Construct3D / Volumic / Hiprecy / Velleman / Z-Bolt / WEMAKE3D | discovered | no US availability | 0 |
| CMYKForge | discovered | out of scope (accessory) | 0 |
| Co Print | discovered | captured, not a qualifying path (third-party bolt-on kits) | 0 |
| CoLiDo | discovered | no US availability | 0 |
| Cubicon | discovered | no US availability | 0 |
| Defunct / no current product (Alfawise, Tevo, M3D, MagicMaker, Micromake, MTW, Folgertech, Adimlab, Fokoos) | discovered | defunct | 0 |
| DeltaMaker | discovered | out of scope (over STRETCH) | 2 |
| Dremel DigiLab | discovered | out of scope (over STRETCH, no MM path) | 1 |
| Easythreed | discovered | partially captured (site navigation only) | 1 |
| Entina | discovered | fully captured (no MM path) | 4 |
| Eryone | discovered | out of scope | 2 |
| FlyingBear | discovered | partially captured (US shipping unverified) | 3 |
| Ginger Additive | discovered | out of scope (pellet industrial) | 0 |
| HeyGears (G1 series) | discovered | out of scope — pre-order / crowdfunded / announced (INCLUDE_PREORDER excluded by Rob 2026-09-06); timing chapter only | 1 |
| InfiMech | discovered | partially captured (US shipping unverified) | 2 |
| JGMaker (JGAurora) | discovered | partially captured (MM path and US shipping unverified) | 6 |
| Kidoodle | discovered | fully captured (no MM path) | 1 |
| Kodak | discovered | defunct | 0 |
| MakerGear | discovered | nothing purchasable new | 4 |
| Makertech (ProForge 5) | discovered | out of scope — pre-order / crowdfunded / announced (INCLUDE_PREORDER excluded by Rob 2026-09-06); timing chapter only | 1 |
| Modix | discovered | out of scope (large-format professional) | 1 |
| Monoprice | discovered | partially captured (prices not extracted) | 3 |
| Open designs / self-source kits (Vzbot-Mellow, SecKit, RH3D E3NG, Rolohaun Rook, ZAV3D) | discovered | kit designs without a captured US vendor | 1 |
| Robo 3D | discovered | fully captured (no MM path) | 1 |
| SainSmart (PrintyGo) | discovered | partially captured (retailer source only) | 1 |
| SeeMeCNC | discovered | partially captured (mostly sold out) | 4 |
| Sindoh | discovered | no US availability (new) | 0 |
| TOP.E | discovered | out of scope — pre-order / crowdfunded / announced (INCLUDE_PREORDER excluded by Rob 2026-09-06); timing chapter only | 1 |
| Tiertime (UP) | discovered | partially captured (reseller page unreadable) | 1 |
| TinyMaker | discovered | out of scope — pre-order / crowdfunded / announced (INCLUDE_PREORDER excluded by Rob 2026-09-06); timing chapter only | 1 |
| Toybox | discovered | fully captured (no MM path) | 1 |
| Unidentified OrcaSlicer profile vendors (Chuanying, OpenEYE, iQ, LH) | discovered | unknown - no identifiable US consumer product | 0 |
| Wanhao | discovered | partially captured (reseller page unreadable) | 1 |
| WonderMaker | discovered | out of scope — pre-order / crowdfunded / announced (INCLUDE_PREORDER excluded by Rob 2026-09-06); timing chapter only | 1 |
| XYZprinting | discovered | defunct / no US consumer sales | 0 |
| Yumi | discovered | out of scope — pre-order / crowdfunded / announced (INCLUDE_PREORDER excluded by Rob 2026-09-06); timing chapter only | 1 |
| re:3D (Gigabot) | discovered | out of scope (industrial) | 1 |