3D Printer for less than $400

#1

Post by yink » Thu, May 30, 2013, 4:32 PM UTC

3D Printer for less than $400
kickstarter.com

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#2

Post by michael_h » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:06 PM UTC

This sounds a lot like the solidoodle, minus $125,(http://store.solidoodle.com/index.php?route=product/product&...). Smaller build dimensions though.

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#3

Post by masonhensley » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:09 PM UTC

From what I understand, margins are pretty good right now for ~$1k+ printers. This however looks looks too polished for the price they are trying to deliver. Reliable wifi connectivity, air filtration, fancy box, mobile apps, cloud software, scale to weigh amount of filament in the hopper... hmmmm.

Existing sub $400 printers[see below] havent shipped in mass quantities yet (well, besides the printrbot jr). Whoever gets it right first will become the market leader for entry level printers.

If these guys ship all their preorders I'll buy one from them. Until then, based on the research i've done, im planning on buying a printrbot jr to build the parts for deltabot like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34146

Also, it is a little disingenuous for them to compare it to the makerbot replitor which has ~4x the build volume[1].

================================

Makibox: $200-400 + shipping from asia (has only shipped a few beta units)

http://makibox.com/products

Printrbot simple: $299 + s/h

http://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-simple-beta/

Printrbot Jr: $399 + s/h

http://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-jr/

================================

[1]: Build area (28.515.315.5)/ (151012) = 3.75

*Sorry I keep editing as I read more.

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#4

Post by nakedrobot2 » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:16 PM UTC

"If you want to use your own filament, you may do so without the cartridges"

GOOD! I dismiss other 3d printers immediately if they require some proprietary filament cartridge.

Nice to see the price dropping on 3d printers. :-)

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#5

Post by grannyg00se » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:24 PM UTC

"Best layer resolution: 100microns"

So 0.1mm in z, but what about x and y? Or does the above imply that they are all 0.1mm? Is that for the final product output or is that a nozzle head movement resolution?

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#6

Post by masonhensley » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:24 PM UTC

nakedrobot2 wrote: post #4

"If you want to use your own filament, you may do so without the cartridges" GOOD! I dismiss other 3d printers immediately if they require some proprietary filament cartridge. Nice to see the price dropping on 3d printers. :-)

It looks like it is just a hopper instead of a proprietary spool[1]. I would imagine you can use any 1.75mm filament in it.

[1] Example of a proprietary spool: http://cubify.com/cube/store_parts.aspx

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#7

Post by yoster » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:24 PM UTC

I would order this, but I have already heard about people getting ripped off from kickstarter. I know that most of these people actually deliver what they are supposed to on their end, but one bad apple can cause hesitation when it comes to my hard earned cash.

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#8

Post by iandanforth » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:29 PM UTC

Does the market need a cheaper printer, or a better one?

I've used 6 types of 3D printers. (Extrusion type, ABS or PLA) 3 from the 'consumer' grade and 3 from the 'pro' grade. Each of the consumer grade printers was an exercise in frustration.

All the printers had ugly, clunky software, but the pro printers would almost always make the thing I wanted.

The consumer printers I've tried take 3 or 4 failures to get 'set up' then a few more tries to find the bugs most of the way through a build, and eventually you might get one nice print. (After 4-6 hours)

The difficulty of getting a good print scales dramatically with the initial footprint, and not as much with height.

I have no intention of actually buying a printer until I've seen one work that I can afford. I can't manage the cost of most pro machines, but I can't accept the headache of 'consumer' printers today.

I'm glad 3D printing is taking off, but I think we've reached an inflection point where we need to go from possible to easy.

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#9

Post by grannyg00se » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:34 PM UTC

michael_h wrote: post #2

This sounds a lot like the solidoodle, minus $125,( http://store.solidoodle.com/index.php?route=product/product&... ). Smaller build dimensions though.

Thanks for that link. They have a better description of the output resolution. By the sounds of things, these are going to provide pretty good output. I'm still not sure I need one, but if I had one beside me right now, I'd be using it.

Re: 3D Printer for less than $400

#10

Post by nickpinkston » Thu, May 30, 2013, 5:36 PM UTC

iandanforth wrote: post #8

Does the market need a cheaper printer, or a better one? I've used 6 types of 3D printers. (Extrusion type, ABS or PLA) 3 from the 'consumer' grade and 3 from the 'pro' grade. Each of the consumer grade printers was an exercise in frustration. All the printers had ugly, clunky software, but the pro printers would almost always make the thing I wanted. The consumer printers I've tried take 3 or 4 failures to get 'set…

Yea, I think the major players know this, and it's a race to make the best machine for both consumer and commercial-grade.

For machine price, it's a race to the bottom. These are actually easier to manufacture than ink jets, so I can easily see $100 machines.

Hardware -> $0 as software is the real differentiator for simple 3DP. Then, on the top-end, there's Objet with ~$300K for a multi-material machine.