Hello everyone! I’m a 3D Prints amateur and I’m willing to get my first 3D printer ASAP. I’ve done some research for weeks and before clicking that “Place Order” button, I thought it wasn’t a bad idea to get some opinions from the experts
My top price is around $800, and I’m about to get a Prusa 12" i3v Kit (V-Slot Extrusion) from MakerFarm [yeah, I want no limits with the size of the print(?)], but I need to know if this is a good decision or if there’s a much better option out there, cheaper or for the same price.
Thank you very much to everyone in advance for your time!!
First of all, Hi! Second, the printer kit is really good, not just as a first printer but as “the main” 3d printer. The ONLY thing that might warrants some attention is the idea of a kit as this depends all to how versed you are, in general, with putting things together so that it ends up smoooth as butter. If the assembly is something you’ll actually enjoy doing, then there is NOTHING holding you back from getting the kit.
My next printer will likely be the Prusa 3 steel, which has superior stiffness to any wooden or aluminium frame, and so should allow much greater print speeds:
I myself own a 12" i3v. I was and still is my first printer. I’ve put it together, taken it back apart, and put it back together again a few times to change thing I didn’t like or to upgrade parts. It prints nicely once dialed in and I don’t regret my purchase. I would also recommend S3D for a slicer (yes it’s $150 but buy once cry once…).
@Adrian_Ciubotariu actually I love assembling stuff and being challenged by machines and technology! I can also learn tons of stuff along the way thank you four your opinion.
Most kit printers will need modifications to get high accuracy prints. I purchased a p3steel and spent months modifying it in order to get it to print at a high quality.
If you buy a wooden frame printer, be sure to seal all of the wood with a paint or lacquer or Moisture in the air will affect it.
After building a Eustathios Spider V2 I concluded that the “bed moves in the Y direction” is not as good as the bed only moves in the Z direction design. But my first printer was a RepRap Mendel. The Prusa is much cheaper in other places like FolgerTech: http://folgertech.com/products/folger-tech-reprap-2020-prusa-i3-full-aluminum-3d-printer-kit ($270) and where I bought my first printer kit from http://reprap.cn: http://www.reprap.cn/reprap-he3d-prusa-xi3-3d-printer-kit-p-122.html $189! Personally, I will not build any more “bed moves in the Y direction” 3D printers- there is too much lost space, they can’t be easily scaled to be larger because the momentum of the bed makes them wavy and inaccurate. So I would skip the bed moves in y designs and build a Eustathios Spider v2. Enjoy- whatever you do because 3D printing is so awesome it’s like your imagination can make any 3D object you dream of- just amazing and wonderful
