The Entina Tina2S 3D printer is easy to use right out of the box! I’ve wanted to 3D printer forever, so when my son said he was going to save his money for one, I told him to save half and I’d pay for the rest. One birthday later he was ready, so we went for the very affordable Tina2S on Amazon, costing just $199 with free shipping. (*post contains Amazon affiliate links)

Getting Started with the Entina Tina2S 3D Printer

First, you can find the model we got here: Entina Tina2S

I chose the $199 model over the $159 one because it had some good upgrades and the option to use wi-fi and connect to an app on my phone. If you go with the cheaper version, you will just use the micro SD card to print, which also works fine! It already comes loaded with a bunch of designs to choose from.

First Step: Make sure you got a new one and not a return!

Our 3D Printer journey got off to a rough start when we opened the box and couldn’t locate a bunch of the accessories. And then I noticed there was no packing foam on the inside on the printer. I got very frustrated because the instructions weren’t lining up with what I was seeing, so I messaged the company.

They got back to me in less than 24 hours and let me know I got somebody’s return from Amazon and that they’ve been trying to get Amazon to stop doing that! My box was missing all the accessories and the filament to print with. It also hadn’t been secured during packaging. They told me to return it to Amazon, which I did right away with Amazon’s super easy returns.

After that I ordered another one and hoped they would be sending a nice new one this time. And they did! Our new one arrived with all the accessories and filament ready to load and print.

Set-up and Print

The instructions that come with the machine are very simple. So simple that I had to look a few things up! There is a more detailed instruction manual on the TF card included, but it still wasn’t very thorough.

First thing you’ll do is connect the tube to where the filament loads. This is easy and covered in the instructions. However, none of them say how to put the filament on! To do that, you’ll pull down the little lever on the side and just hang it. It doesn’t snap on or get secured in any way. It just hangs there.

Then you’ll stick the filament up into the tube part. It was so easy that I wasn’t sure I did it right. Next the instructions say to insert the TF card, turn it on and print. But wait!!

If you just go right to printing, like we did, the filament won’t be loaded all the way in. So go through the filament prepping steps in the instructions and do a test print first. Otherwise, it will start “printing” and nothing will be coming out, so by the time the filament is all the way loaded, it is printing in the air, and it ends up a big tangled mess.

So once you’ve loaded the filament all the way and done a successful test print, you can scroll through all the neat things already loaded on the TF card. We printed a boat first and then a dinosaur!

Once your print is done, let it cool and then you can pop it off the magnetic print bed. Apparently with some prints there is a problem with it adhering to the base. As we’ve only done two small prints, we haven’t run into that yet.

But that explains the mysterious glue stick that was included with the accessories. I looked it up and found out you apply a thin layer to the print bed, let it dry and then do the printing. This is supposed to help your print stick better, so it doesn’t move around and mess up the print.

Overall Great First 3D Printer

It was so neat to watch in it action and so easy to get started. I highly recommend this printer to anyone looking for a first time, simple, 3D printer. It’s not just for kids!

The only other thing you might want to order is more filament. We added a 4 pack filament bundle onto our order for $35. There are so many neat colors to choose from, including ones that change colors as they print!

I’m just as excited as my son about our new adventures in 3D printing! I’ll be updating this post as I learn things about the printer.

Click here to check out the Entina 3D Printer on Amazon!