I purchased my acrylic Sunhokey Prusa 3 clone 3D printer over 4 years ago. I have not done a lot of mods to it but it has been a work horse. I purchased a new MB to update the firmware but never got around to installing it. It needs some other tweaks to make it a better printer but by the time I purchase and install what I need, the cost is almost a new printer. I thought about building my own from scratch to my own specs but again after pricing out the parts and factoring in my time, purchasing one become more appealing. I was focused on the lower end of the price range because I am still contemplating purchasing a 3018 CNC. (not really sure why yet, but I am obsessed with finding one that is reasonably priced!) After some research, it was a choice between the Geeetech and Creality A10 model. I ended up ordering the Geeetech on Amazon since it is the latest version. Time will tell if I made the right choice.
For the money I probably would have gone with:
[US$259.00 24% OFF] Creality 3D® Ender-3 V2 Upgraded DIY 3D Printer Kit 220x220x250mm Printing Size Ultra-silent TMC2208/Silent 32-bit Mainboard/Carborundum Glass Platform/Mean Well Power Supply/New Color Screen Support Resume After a Power Outage Office Equipment from Computers & Office on banggood.com
But really all of these machines are similar enough that you should be able to get them all printing about the same.
The Greeetech is a lot more hacker friendly. The MB has more memory, you can upgrade the drivers and it has a bootloader for easy updates.
http://www.geeetech.com/wiki/index.php/GT2560 says it supports trinamic drivers, though it doesn’t integrate the DIAG lines; you would have to run the separately if you wanted sensorless homing, and it’s not clear to me from a quick read whether it supports UART mode on trinamic drivers.
It’s still using an 8-bit processor. If it dies, consider a 32-bit board which are now cheap. I spent $39 on mine, which included 4 trinamic drivers on the board (better for temp management) which might be similar in cost to just buying 4 separate trinamic stepsticks with worse thermal performance.
Yup, and now they have the V2 of that board with two pwm fan ports and better heat sinking in the board:
Oooh, and it also has jumpers for sensorless homing now! Even better!
(Also, I vaguely recall learning that the previous version apparently dies if the thermistor shorts, and this version protects against that. Don’t remember where I saw that though.)
They also moved the bed heater triac off the main board so it does not cause issues.
That looks like a very nice board!
Well I finally got around to getting the new printer put together and running. It was packaged very well but the Heat Bed level nuts had come loose and the bent the screws.
A quick trip to the hardware store took care of the problem. As everyone complains, instructions are terrible but I was able to figure it out. There is an awful lot of spare screws. Not really sure why. The bed has a custom layer that was destroyed after the first print would not release! It is removable so off it came and I will replace it with a piece of glass. I like the way glass gives the first layer a nice flat smooth finish.
I like that the display is a simple Marlin display and not custom. I will be able to write my own information screen. The test print came out great on the first try without any tweaking. Time will tell if it holds up but for the price of admission, I am not worried. I am going to beef up my old printer and replace the bearings with quality parts. I also have a new MB for it that supports the newer firmware. I did not want to tear it down and have problems without having a backup.
Bottom line, you get what you pay for and I did not pay a lot! It will suit my needs for now without breaking the bank.
For these type of printers, I like the upgraded springs that you can get pretty cheap online from most of the usual places. Having a little stiffer spring rate seems to make the leveling reliability higher. You don’t want to go too stiff of course or it can artificially put a bow into the bed if one of the screws is set imbalanced from the rest. I also add a phenolic washer on the top of the spring for these PCB heated beds so that way the metal spring will never potentially be in contact with one of the heated bed traces on the underside.
If the printer isn’t perfect now, the nice thing is there’s so many upgrade paths on these style of printers that you can always customize it to suit your needs. For example my Ender 3 has a direct drive setup now with a bontech BMG, Skr Mini E3 board, and noctua fans, and realistically is one of my best workhorse printers. My favorite part of having printers is upgrading and modding them, just using the printer gets boring after a while. Then again I’m in it more for the hobby than using them as a tool. That’s probably why I have seven 
I am with you, I can never leave well enough alone. That is the reason I picked this one, it can be played with. It is also why I purchased a second one so I can refurbish my first one.
Geeetech responded last night to my Amazon message. They said to send pics and they would replace the the bad part. I am glad to see they support their product. This was one of the reasons I went this route.
For stepsticks? I would only get trinamic. After experiencing them, I don’t want to go back to anything else.
For higher torque applications where you would have to run the TMC drivers in spread cycle vs stealth chop, the lv8729 can be a good option. They are not as quiet as TMC, and Vref is manual via a trimpot. On my Eustathios I damaged my TMC 5160 doing something stupid while wiring so I did a temporary replacement with the LV8729. But they’ve printed so well and my printer runs in the garage anyway So noisy isn’t a problem. I haven’t bothered switching them.
But I agree if you look at the 2209 or 5160 they are better all around choice.
Checking out the options, the MB supports the TMC2208 drivers. The 2209 handle more current and have UART mode but cannot find out if they are backwards compatible. Also an attractive option is to swap out the motherboard with the one Eric linked to above. I think I will swap the driver’s first and then look for a replacement motherboard.
EDIT
I think I found my answer here. Just go with the 2208.
https://www.th3dstudio.com/2019/12/11/ezboard-lite-why-do-you-use-the-tmc-2208-instead-of-tmc-2209-drivers/#:~:text=They%20both%20are%20running%20StealthChop,A%20(2.8A%20Peak).
Note that the MB that @Eclsnowman linked to has the drivers on the board, not on stepsticks, so buying 2208s isn’t a step on the way to using that board. On-board stepper drivers is really a good idea for heat management overall; the drivers were never meant for stepsticks in the first place and so they are more reliable on the board where there’s a lot more surface area to help dissipate heat.
Just don’t run the mechanism by hand quickly; stepper motors are generators and you’ll cook the drivers if you do that, and when they are on the board it’s harder to replace them.
Thanks for the input. I ordered some 2208 drivers and like I said, I am still doing homework on a replacement motherboard. I would definitely like to find one that does not have the drivers soldered in place. I’m all about choice.
To have modular drivers the best bang for your buck out there right now is the SKR v1.4 turbo or SKR pro. And for a higher quality board with most all the same features it’s the Azteeg X5 GT. That is if you want to stay on Marlin. I would say the SKR has the most community momentum right now.