Mingda Magician X: 3D printer test + promo code

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Mingda is a relatively new Chinese 3D printer brand, with their first machines dating back to 2020. After the Rock series, the Mingda Magician X is their second FDM model. I will introduce you to this 3D printer in this article.

Let’s start with the features of the machine, it is a 3D printer with a print area of 230x230x260mm, which is slightly larger than a classic Ender 3. It is equipped with several interesting options, such as a self-levelling sensor, a direct drive extruder, a glass plate (ultrabase type), a filament end sensor and a dual motor for the Z axis. You can control this Magician X with its 3.5″ touch screen LCD, and load your files using an SD card (large format) or a USB key, there is also a USB-C port on the front for direct connection to a computer.

Mingda Magician X features
– Printing area 230x230x260mm-
Heated platen with glass surface (ultrabase)
– Direct drive extruder-
End of filament sensor-
Self-leveling sensor-
Color touch screen-
Quiet TMC driversUnpacking

and assembly of the Magician X

Upon unpacking, the box is relatively light (lighter than the other Ender3 like), indeed on the technical sheet it is announced a weight of 7kg only (against minimum 8kg for the other machines I could try until now).

This Magician X is a partially assembled machine, which will only take you a few minutes to install, a few screws and it’s done, even the connectivity is also relatively simple, hard to go wrong. Overall this machine seems perfectly suited to a beginner in 3D printing.

The chassis of the printer is made of plastic, which explains this slightly, other manufacturers usually have a metal chassis. There is a handle on the gantry to easily carry the machine, handy if you move your printer often.

Starting and setting up the printer

Before launching the first print, you will have to adjust the plate and in particular check the Z-offset after having made a complete self-levelling of the plate.
This manipulation is quite simple, by going to the “leveling” menu, after the 16 points check, you will be able to define the value of the Baby-Step, with the help of a sheet of paper (thickness to be left between the nozzle and the platen), for my part I had to define a value of -0,30 to have the good nozzle height

Once the tray is set up, you can run a PLA pre-heat and insert your filament spool!

First impression with the Mingda Magician X

Before using your favourite Slicer (slicing software), it is always best to print a sample model provided by the manufacturer, which is good news as there are several models on the SD card supplied with the machine.

Here are the 2 first impressions of the Magician X, with Orange filament from Sunlu. The rendering is clean, and I got a good grip on the plate (maybe even a little too much)

Using Prusa Slicer with the Magician X

You will find in the manual some indications on how to set up Cura for the Magician X, but for this test I will rather use my favorite slicer, i.e. Prusa Slicer!

This brand is not available in the list of pre-configured machines, so I had to create a new profile. Initially I had chosen an Ender 3 S1 profile, but the results were not good (bad shrinkage) so I went with a new blank profile for which I only defined the size of the printer (on a Marlin base).

Here is a slideshow of the different prints I made with this profile

I’ll add more images as I go along, but overall I’m pretty happy with the result! Prints made with geetech red PLA, Arianeplast black metallic PLA, Eryone blue Silk PLA.

To conclude, what is your opinion about this Mingda Magician X?

This printer is very easy to set up, if you are a beginner it is a good starter machine. I was quite surprised by the lightness of this machine, especially with its plastic chassis, it remains to be seen how this plastic will last over time…

When printing, the machine is quiet, much quieter than a classic Ender 3, the ventilation is also quite discreet. The quality of the print “out of the box” is good, I still have some adjustments to make to refine the result, but without having spent more than 5min to set up my profile, the result is already more than adequate.

The platen is very efficient, I had no problem with the clinging, I would even say that the platen tends to cling too much, even when cooled, I will probably have to review my Z-offset value.