Welcome back to ZDNet's DIY-IT project lab, where I'm testing 3D printers for your entertainment and edification. Today, we'll be looking at the Biqu B1[1], a relatively inexpensive direct drive FDM (fused deposition modeling) printer that competes with the popular Ender 3.
In the accompanying video, we're assembling and testing the Biqu B1 from BigTreeTech. This is a fairly workable, under $300 printer, but there are a few issues in setup and usage that may not make it a top choice.
The Biqu B1 has a build area is 235 x 235 x 270mm. It's not huge, but it's also not small. For a 3D printer, I'd put this build size right in the Goldilocks region: it's just about right. You can build reasonably sized objects, but the print surface isn't so large that heating it evenly is that much of an issue.
- Under $300
- Flexible heated bed
- Extruder light
- Inconsistent print quality
- Time-consuming setup
- Wacky dual-OS interface
The bed is one of the high points of this printer. It's a heated bed, and the surface is magnetically attached spring steel. So assuming you can get the objects you're printing to stick (and yes, this was an issue), removing them is quite straightforward.
There are a couple of helpful features on this machine, beyond the spring steel build plate. The printer comes with a filament run-out sensor, so if your filament runs out before your print finishes, the printing will stop and you can replace the filament and get back to work without losing all the printing you've already done.
The printer also has an RGB light on the bottom of the extruder. At first, I thought this was a silly gimmick (I'm not a big RGB fan). But I really liked having