It also has cold corner compensation to avoid warping regardless of the material. With a heated bed and auto leveling feature, the mk3 guarantees great bed adhesion. The i3 has a build volume of 250x210x210mm. This is the smallest build volume of the three printers, but you can’t beat the out of box quality or features from the i3. If you don’t mind a little DIY you can also save a couple hundred dollars ordering the kit and building it yourself. You can set up and start printing amazing prints right away. The assembled Prusa i3 comes fully built, tested, and calibrated from the factory. Want to print large buildings in a single print? This printer can easily accommodate large models. The Sidewinder also boasts a 400mm printing height. With the build volume of the Sidewinder I can fit 25 dungeon tiles on one print! That is a 36% increase over the Ender 3. If you are interested in using OctoPi check out my guide to installing OctoPrint here. Using an OctoPi setup, you can network your printer and transfer files over a network without an SD card. The USB connection allows you to run your printer from an OctoPi setup. Running from the SD card will allow you to resume prints after short power failures. The printer can print from either a flash card or USB. No more ruined multi-day prints due to running out of filament! If you want to load the printer up with extra filament for those long runs it can support up to a 3kg roll! The printer also comes 90% pre-assembled making setup easier than a kit-built printer. The sensor detects if you run out of filament and pauses the print. It comes with a filament run out sensor that will ensure you never ruin a print. This is critical when printing large terrain pieces. The 300 x 300mm heated bed will ensure that your prints stick to the bed and don’t lift or curl. It comes loaded with features and is an excellent printer for the price. If you are looking for even more build volume the Artillery Sidewinder X1 has it! This printer has a massive 300x300x400mm build area. No problem, the Ender 3 can resume where the print left off! No more worries about losing hours or even days of printing if the power goes off. This is helpful as most terrain pieces will take many hours to print. The printer also can resume a print in the event of a power failure. Using a heated bed ensures the plastic stays adhered to the bed until the print is done. When printing large pieces, the edges can peel up from the build plate as it cools. The Creality has a heated bed which keeps prints from curling off the bed during printing. Would you rather print large buildings? No problem! The Ender 3 has plenty of build volume for larger prints. For the price point of this printer, that is an excellent build size! With a build plate of that size you can print 16 dungeon tiles at one time! But maybe dungeon tiles aren’t your thing. The printer itself measured 440 x 410 x 465mm. The Ender 3 is an open frame FDM printer with a build volume of 220 x 220 x 250mm. Once you prime and paint your pieces it’s harder to tell that they were 3D printed! If someone does complain that the game isn’t realistic enough because they can see print lines, kick them out of your group. The good news is this is not a big issue. Some fine details will be lost even printing at 0.1mm layer heights. All your terrain pieces will have print lines on the outside of the model.

With an FDM printer, you will not get the same level of detail and smoothness that you can with an SLA printer. While you could print terrain on an SLA printer it will take longer and cost more in the long run. The Elegoo Mars has a build volume of 120 x 68x 155mm. For comparison the Ender 3 has a build volume of 220 x 220 x 250. You are also limited to much smaller print volumes in an SLA printer than with FDM. Even hollowing out the models prints will still use a good deal of resin. Most of the files you download, and print will be large and take many hours to print.

Resin is more expensive to print with than filament. While you may not get details as crisp as a resin printer you will save money. When printing terrain using an FDM printer makes the most financial sense.

3d print terrain