Our Favorite 3D Printers: A Review of Flashforge Adventurer 3 Pro and 5M

Updated Feb, 2024:

Our Background with 3D Printing:

We did a lot of research on 3D printers in 2021 because we would be investing in a new set. We have previously owned or worked with Ender, Afinia, Makerbot, and Zortrax 3D Printers. Our criteria were quiet, enclosed, and plug-and-play 3D Printers that are safe for the kids to be around. For our new ones, we landed on FlashForge. We got the Adventurer 3 Pro model on Black Friday 2021. We have four Adventurer 3 Pros, two of the larger Adventurer 4 Lights, and just added in 2023, 5M models (see more on that below). They all come fully built and ready to go, which was also important to us! **I will note below 30 minutes of unbox and setup time for 5M models.

We have chatted in person with and written many emails to parents wanting to buy their first 3D printer for their family or kiddo. So we compiled our general recommendations and thoughts below:

We finally have an affiliate link:

One parent asked if we had an affiliate link, so we decided to finally get one! The links in this post are affiliate links. We get a small kickback if you click them and then buy from FlashForge. Thanks for supporting Nerding!

We are very happy we went with FlashForge! They’ve done really well for us, but always keep in mind, no printer is going to run perfectly all of the time. We’ve already had to do one minor repair to most of these machines. We replaced the Bowden tube, the tube that the filament feeds through. This is a quick and easy fix, and most suggest doing it anyway. The support in the online community, specifically Reddit and Facebook groups, has been really helpful to help us solve problems and just learn more about 3D printing in general. Your kiddo will probably need help from you when an issue arises. Every 3D printer will have issues eventually. I feel like we eternally tinker with print settings in the software too, especially when printing something complicated, though the default settings in the software are great for most things.

Overall, we’ve found our FlashForge Adventurers to be cost-effective and reliable, and at this point, we have easily run 500 prints on each of them, or about 900-1300 hours of print time on each machine. Oh, and another thing we love about these machines is that they are QUIET! We sometimes have all six of them running in our front living room (our Nerding office) and for the most part can’t hear them in the rest of the house.

How to Order:

It is best to order directly through the FlashForge site, not Amazon.

Also see the “2023 Christmas Sale” coupon codes on this main page. The website says these are available Dec 1-Jan 5, $20 off $300 FPP1, $50 off $500 FPP2, and $90 off $800 FPP3 if you checkout using PayPal.

Current prices as of Dec 2023:

Our older and cheaper models, but still great little printers:

• Adventurer 3 – $279 (150*150*150mm build volume.) Still a great option but… consider the Pro.

• Adventurer 3 Pro (We own 4 of these) – $299 (150*150*150mm build volume.) Exactly the same machine as the Adventurer 3 but comes with $80 worth of upgrades. We think this is WORTH THE $20 MORE if it’s available. It was out of stock in the US last week, but seems to be back. It comes with a glass print bed ($42 to buy separately) and an extra nozzle ($39). The glass bed works great for us and the print sticks really well to it if you keep it clean with 91% isopropyl alcohol and a lint free wipe. Let the print cool when it’s done printing and your print will pop right off. Don’t pry the finished print off with a tool or the glass bed will scratch.

**For both of the Adventurer 3s, you can print a quick spool holder extension so it can hold a full-size spool (1kg) of filament. Without it they only hold .5kg spools, which are silly and expensive. Here is the link to a Thingiverse file I printed had good luck with.

• Adventurer 4 Lite (We own 2 of these but they seem to be discontinued in favor of new models.) $469 when we bought them – (220*200*250mm build volume) We loved this model and the Adventurer 4 and 4 Pro still exist, but if you are in this price range, I would look at the 5Ms.

Brand new models for Winter 2023 and… wow.

• NEW Adventurer 5M – $399 reg (ON SALE FOR $349! as of 2/24/24) (220*220*220mm build volume) This one is brand new and this version is not an enclosed printer. I have thoroughly tested this in the last month and I must be honest that I did not believe the claims of 4x faster prints, but… IT’S TRUE. I have run a ton of kids’ prints over the last few weeks, a few even tested side by side in my lower model Adventurers, and it’s literally 4x faster with the same quality settings. I know. I was shocked too. I also like that this one has a PEI build plate, so when it’s done, you lift the sheet off the magnetic bed, flex the PEI sheet to snap off the print, and you’re good to go and don’t have to wait for things to cool to remove. This has a slightly different filament feed assembly that than the previous models, and I find it faster and easier to change filament. It also has true self-leveling. Push the button, walk away, and its done in a few minutes. This machine did have about 30 minutes of setup though. There are some screws that you need to remove from shipping, you attach the cable ribbon to the screen yourself and clip into place, and you need to screw in the filament spool holder on the back. All quick and easy and comes with instructions in the booklet. Do know that these print fast and that means the nozzle zipps around fast! So put it on a steady table. As with all printers remind the kiddos to keep their hand away from the printer!
• NEW Adventurer 5M Pro – $599 (ON SALE FOR $499 as of 2/24/24). (220*220*220mm build volume) We have ordered 3 of these machines and they are en route. I’ll report back when they have been tested, but we expect them to work the same as the 5M – super fast and reliable. These are fully enclosed and are quieter (most important factors for Nerding), but also has a built in camera and HEPA filter. The air filter isn’t as important to me because we only print in PLA plastic that does not have harmful fumes, but still nice to have regardless. This one is also supposed to be quieter than the regular 5M.

**One more thing to note on the 5M models: They print so fast, they shake the table. I tried to set these up on my 3D printing desks on casters (photo above) but it couldn’t handle it. I had to move it to a heavier console table in my office to prevent the shaking. The 5Ms also come with a built in “Vibration Test” that I’m guessing helps account for that as it prints, but I also can’t have it shaking my other machines, so consider your space.

More 3D Printing Tips:

Use Good Filament

Or “3D Printer food” as one clever kid called it! Our last recommendation is to use good filament. Our go to brand and type is Hatchbox PLA, which is available on Amazon and at this point, we just don’t want to even mess with any other brands or fancy stuff unless we have time to play with settings and risk clogging something. Wait until you have some success at printing before getting any tricky filament that is mixed with another medium like sparkle (glitter) filament because of the risk of clogging your nozzle. Always use a separate nozzle for “fun” filament.

Software

Slicer: We have been using the Flasforge slicer software called Flashprint 5. I’ve read that you can use other open-source softwares like Cura with Flashforge machines, though I have not done this myself. Flashprint 5 works well for our purposes.

3D Design: For kids we love TinkerCAD. We even love this for most adults. More advanced software for older nerds – Blender

Free 3D models to download: Thingiverse.com Be careful turning kids loose in here. It’s user submitted files and some are inappropriate.