It has been over a week since I have received my 3D printer and I learned a lot about the intricacies of 3D printing. I had successes but mostly failures but those helped me understand exactly what went wrong and how to fix it.
Ordering
My original plan was to order the printer from either the official https://artillery3d.com/ website or the official? https://www.aliexpress.com/store/4697033 Aliexpress store.
Sadly both options did not work since they dont ship to switzerland directly. There are resellers on Aliexpress but due to me being in switzerland the only ones that were able to ship looked dodgy and had low sales overall. I was also worried about waranty and support if I ordered it from them.
A friend of mine and reviews on reddit led me to https://www.3djake.com/ which sold and shipped it to switzerland at an appropriate price (A bit more expensive than aliexpress options). It shipped out within a couple of days and arrived speedily without issues.
Assembly and Setup
Assembly was straight forward. Remove the parts from the package. Put them together as described in the manual. I learned from youtube videos that some people put a stone slab under the printer to reduce vibrations and noise.
So I headed to the nearest Landi and got myself one of these gardenplates and propped it on top of some sponges.
I leveled the gardenplate as best as I could and then proceeded with the bed leveling process.
HUGE DISCLAIMER:
If you ever need to relevel your bed, DONT FORGET TO HEAT IT UP. This issue took me like 2 days to figure out. If you level your bed while its cold the meassurements wont be correct when you heat it up and actually print something like PLA.
First print
I set up Cura and imported a calibration cube from thingiverse. After a roughly 25 minute print I had a decent looking first print in my hands.
After that I challenged the 3Dbenchy which actually failed to print. The roof got caught on something and the print tipped to the side, generating some PLA spaghettie.
A couple of changes to the temperatures of the nozzle and bed and I could print an assortment of small things without issue.
First impressions
The Sidewinder X2 is surprisingly quiet in standby mode and during printing. I usually have a headset on anyway so I wouldnt hear much anyway but even without the headset the noise is not too distracting except on fast jerky movements.
I believe the complexity and frustration I have experienced as a first time buyer is not based on the Sidewinder X2 itself but it is not 100% plug and play. It takes some time to learn what settings affect what and how to mitigate or fix these issues as they crop up.
The large build plate is something that I could not take advantage of yet, I printed multiple smaller things on the plate (6-12 hour print times) which was a nice feature. I am still looking for something huge to print in the future.
Recommendation
I personally can recommend the Sidewinder X2 as a useful purchase for a beginner. Keep in mind that I have no experience with other 3D printers so if you have the chance to actually test out different models before buying something, use it!
