I don’t know if lost PLA casting is useful to you? http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:82176
Either way I want a cheap 3d printer to learn on, for other stuff. Will probably upgrade later, but need my first one to start on, unless I can find someone willing to share and use some time in theirs
Just want to learn the concepts of good design, and operating the equipment
If you want to make a minimal cash investment and are willing to put in time and possibly being frustrated a lot (but also likely to learn a lot), minimal kit printers like the printrbot simple or the QU-BD One Up that is about to close its Kickstarter round is worth looking at. But make sure you understand the feature limits of printing with 50-300 um layers (versus 10-50 um layers that the resin printers can do).
Well I just need to learn enough about the equipment to reduce the learning curve when I get a more fancy unit
I’m sure some things will transfer regardless of hardware “brand”
You can custom build about as fancy as any. I recommend a ultimaker or ultimaker style unit. I’m the builder of the ultislot derivative of the ultimaker and based off @Tim_Rastall 's ingentis, sublime’s tantillus and goopyplastic’s t-slot tantillus. I also have a mendel 90/ prusa I3 hybrid mendel style has a heavy y axis and this reduces acceleration speeds and the speed you can print. The low weight gantry (due to Bowden design) makes all the weight on the z which doesn’t need to be fast so it’s cool. To start I bet the tantillus would meet your needs. It vac achieve awesome resolution as well speeds. If you want bigger check @Tim_Rastall s photos and test prints.
There have been a number of people who have done pla burn out, it just requires some work and planning, for belt buckets and such you could use pla, but for rings and pendants the ridge lines are quite large, every printer will have ridges, it is the nature of the game. If you would like I could print something and show you what I mean. Heck of it is small I could send you something to try out.
Here is a good pic of a SMALL print off an Ultimaker2 from @Paul_Chander
https://plus.google.com/109855661722495312523/posts/VK4v5GKbUT8
I can learn in printbot and upgrade later
Printer wise, I would say YES.