That’s it. I’m out. I can’t make printers this inexpensively. Dual extruders, enclosed build area, heated bed. PLA or ABS. On Sale, $800.
Makes me want to go home and kick both printers…the working one with the broken endstop and the half-upgraded one thats…half upgraded.
You can’t make it cheaper, but you can make it better.
Agreed. Cheaper isn’t better.
Maybe this analogy is weak, but who dreams of buying a $8000 car? People don’t WANT today’s sub $10000 cars… They want a nice (moderately expensive) car that is reliable from a brand they trust.
There is room here for lots of price points and brands and styles.
If there’s one thing I’ve noticed about the builders in this community it’s that their machines all have individuality and reflect their builders’s needs.
Off-the-shelf printers can’t compete with that even if they work out cheaper.
Take a breath and continue doing what you are. Everything you achieve is a contribution to the community. Commercial printers mostly just make money without consideration for the greater good.
@Stephanie_A mine currently isn’t better. 
I think it’s a bout of frustration at constantly being in tuning mode.
Even if you buy one like that it’s going to have cheap components. Think about the margins they have to make their printers… That means that their cost is pretty low and I can tell you from looking at those printers in person that costs are cut. It doesn’t print poorly but I wouldn’t purchase that over spending s couple hundred more and get something of serious quality.
once you made yourself a name or just got a little known, you can always sell. Look at bq. They brought out Prusa i3 Hephestos 2 printer. It is better from frame and still has no heated bed. And it costs more than the predecessor. But people buy it although they could buy for the same price 3 pieces of an i3 printer from aliexpress.
@Hakan_Evirgen I don’t agree with you on the last part. Yeah you can buy 3 $200 printers but they are still gonna have crap components. You will just have 3 that work ok. I don’t think the hephestos 2 is amazing and I wouldn’t buy one but it has quality components on it and is thought through. Not just some Chinese company that decided to use Josef’s design and make a kit from the absolute cheapest parts around. I mean just take the linear motion for example… Cheap LM8UU which aren’t even that costly for good ones but they don’t buy them, vs linear slides
@Nathan_Walkner
I’m under the impression that there still is something to be said for quality differences. Not just boards but also mechanical parts. Sure, many of them come off the same line, but if you don’t throw out the ones that run rough or just kinda meet the spec… (Speaking as someone who found a 50% infant mortality rate in a bunch of cheapjack 40mm fans)
@Griffin_Paquette search for Tarantula printer on aliexpress. That one is made from metal. I did not start to compare with cheap acrylic printers.
As for Hephestos 2: I never said that it is amazing although the X and Z axis are made better than on some printers costing double. But in my opinion it would be the best i3 printer out there if it had a heated bed. It prints with 100mm/s very accurate and gets at 0.1mm layer height results like from a Zortrax printer (that is what I can compare from my own experience) - you do not really see the layers anymore on the print. And this is a very good result for an i3 printer.
@Nathan_Walkner there are quality differences on used parts. And there are also other countries manufacturing besides china (e. g. Board from Hephestos is made in Spain, linear bearings made in Germany etc.). Mostly it is small differences but in total on a machine these small differences sum up to big quality difference.
@Nathan_Walkner
I agree. But. If I can pay someone higher up in my supply chain to buy those extras and weed out the lower end, that’s probably a win for me.
I got tired of tuning and fixing and not printing, so I bought a Stratasys.
@Nathan_Walkner it was $500.
@Nathan_Walkner the difference is I fixed it once and it will run for years without screwing with settings and chasing breaking parts and “upgrades”. If you want to hate on an industrial printer, be my guest. While you’re upgrading and troubleshooting, I’ll be printing.
My 2 printers cost me around $400 a piece and they run just as good as a $2000 printer.