first 3d printer

hi
im interested in starting with 3d printing

which printer offers the most accurate print ?

which printer offers the smallest layer thickness ? can reprap get close to ultimaker 2 20 microns print ? [www.technologysupplies.co.uk]

im a mechanical engineer so hopefully building a kit should be fairly easy

any help or advice would be appreciated

If you are a mechanical engineer, don't buy a kit, design and build your own, you will find a lot of different options here on the forum, my advice would be do the research first, all the mistakes have been made by the guys building the repraps, all you need to know and want to know is here.
For a first printer go Cartesian, XYZ, they are easy to set up and get going, as far as accuracy goes, your wallet and the tool you have available will define this by the choice of mechanical components you wish to base your printer on, one word of advice use the prusa calculator to help you select your Z mechanics this is key as your layer height is tied to your steppers and the pitch of the drive mechanics.
Good luck.

Well the 3d printer is just the first step. Once you find something that meets your needs your going to have to make sure you find a quality filament supplier. Alot of times people purchase nice expensive 3d printers and go online and purchase filament from e bay or amazon and wonder why their prints didnt come out good. It would be equivalent to buying a Lamborghini and riding it on Empty. Not going to get the desired performance. I used to make the mistake of buying whatever was cheap. After getting burned a few times on bad spools i did some research and found cheap3dfilaments. They offer free shipping and their prices aren't too bad. Just dont do what i did and actually pay attention to what your using with your printer. If i could go back and save myself the headaches and money i would. HOpe this helps. Welcome to 3d printing.

Quote
Paul4865
If you are a mechanical engineer, don't buy a kit, design and build your own.

Alternatively, buy and build an inexpensive kit, and then design and build your own (or just improve the one you already have). You will understand 3D printing a lot better when you do your own design, and be able to use the printer you built from the kit to print plastic parts for your own design.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].