3D Printer Buyers' Guide | Hacker News Reader

3D Printer Buyers' Guide

3dhubs.com

37 pointsSQL22196 comments

This guide has the Reprap "Prusa Steel" printer listed, and says it is $500, with a 9.1 rating. However, I strongly recommend the acrylic version made by many Chinese electronics companies which sell for $220 for the same print quality.

I have been using one of those for the last few weeks and I couldn't be happier with it. It all works much better than I expected for the price, and has been suitable for printing various home items and custom robotics parts.

You can find them on AliExpress (the consumer-oriented version of Alibaba): http://www.aliexpress.com/wholesale?catId=0&initiative_id=SB...

If you want to get into 3d printing but don't want to drop $1k+ on a printer, try one of these.

I had one of these until the hotend somehow died on me. Unfortunately the most of the chinese printers do not believe in open-source or GPL, so I'm planning on completely replacing the X-carriage and upgrading to an E3D-Lite6.

I would still recommend the printer as it does come with everything. A few kits that do seem nice like that Makerfarm Pegasus (which does come with the Lite6) is missing power supply and glass.

>acrylic version made by many Chinese electronics companies which sell for $220 for the same print quality.

Eh, have you actually done comparisons? That acrylic printer looks pretty iffy - the vertical acrylic supports are in the wrong direction to brace against acceleration from the printhead.

It's hard to compare exactly because they didn't specify a specific kit, but that $500 probably also gets you important items like a genuine hotend. As another comparison point, the Makerfarm i3v kit for $490, although partially wood, is still a much better design and is going to be stiffer. You also get a proper hotend, heated bed, and nice V-slot linear mechanisms.

I understand why it isn't endorsed by the 3D printing community much, but for practical cheap 3D printing I suggest taking a look at the XYZPrinting Da Vinci V1.x models. They are inexpensive (I got one for $400 on sale at Amazon, they are usually closer to $500), fully enclosed, have very well designed bed height calibration and nozzle cleaning systems, have a heated bed, etc.

The only real drawaback is the filament "DRM" which you can sidestep by using 3rd party software (I use Simplify3D, the default printer firmware and a cheap cartridge resetter (which is basically just an arduino programmer) other people use repetier host setups where they flash the firmware so the cartridge DRM is just never even run, which gives you even more control but at the cost of being in something of an arms race with the manufacturer where they occasionally change the host board to be incompatible with new firmware).

My first couple of 3D printers were RepRap Prusa i3 models that I built, and I wouldn't trade that experience since it gives you a great idea of how these things work (and an appreciation for how simple the hardware side of them really is), but they were so much more fiddly and a pain-in-the-ass to calibrate than the Da Vincis, if you just want to print and not fiddle they are great options in terms of price/value if you're willing to sidestep the DRM.

There also is this 3D-Printer spec comparison chart, that is kept up to date by a HN user:

http://www.productchart.com/3d_printers/

The UP Mini is a great little printer ($600 on Amazon). It prints ABS and it JUST WORKS. Highly recommended. And it does have a heated build platform.

http://www.amazon.com/Assembled-Printer-Maximum-Dimensions-R...

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