None of the manufacturers have been great with open source, other than Prusa, to my knowledge.
You can get a heck of a lot more capable printer than an ender3 at that price point, even with multi material. If you want to keep waste down though you would need at least a dual head machine, or a toolhead switching machine which I think goes above your price range.
If you don’t need a big printer, and can pass on multilateral (unless you want to get a small INDX system for it later… for a bunch more money), at that price I’d spring for a Voron v0. Doesn’t get more open source than that.
None of the manufacturers have been great with open source, other than Prusa, to my knowledge.
You can get a heck of a lot more capable printer than an ender3 at that price point, even with multi material. If you want to keep waste down though you would need at least a dual head machine, or a toolhead switching machine which I think goes above your price range.
If you don’t need a big printer, and can pass on multilateral (unless you want to get a small INDX system for it later… for a bunch more money), at that price I’d spring for a Voron v0. Doesn’t get more open source than that.