Help me pick a printer?

So new to 3d printing. Been trying my best to research but now i feel like im not gaining much ground at this point.

Ive ran across that new prusa i3 mk2 and that looks pretty awesome, except the price tag.

I then ran across the monoprice mini but realized it was 'too' mini for my taste. The larger model for $350 seems more reasonable

Then i seen the tevo tarantula from china, and that seems interesting.


So where i get a little confused is the print 'head' 'nossle' 'extruder' ect as it seems like alot of different names mk8 mk10 ect ect basically same problem with the 'motherboards'

So long story short are the cheaper models good machines? are they going to catch on fire and burn my house down? are the heads on the cheap ones as good as the prusa i3mk2? it says E3d 'novelty' in the picture but im guessing its not as good.

in otherwords am i going to regret the heads, motherboard, ect down the line, or are they going to be just as good? id rather not be limited in regards to the filaments.

ive also read buying the parts seperate can save alot of money, for example the autoleveling sensor on the tevo is like a $3 part, but they charge like 30-50, however do you have to print some parts or something to get it to fit really complicated? can the same thing be done with to make it dual extruder since again they want alot for that upgrade?



so yah probably a bunch of dumb questions youve seen a thousand times but im not really finding the answers anywhere really. Id really like to just build that prusa i3 mk2, for some reason i thought it was open source and the 'plans' were on here somewhere but all im finding is plans for stuff that looks a decade old with nuts and bolts everywhere. like i see the picture for it, click it, and then don't see the plans anywhere or parts list to buy either. But $700 just seems a bit over the top for what your actually getting, i realize its new tech but these are just printers with a few extra axis's and a extruder with takes place of the ink and u can get printers for $50 and full color touch screen lcd's lol....i just don't see the value there at $700 its unrealistic, so basically what i can justify is something around $300-400 and thats pushing it a bit. The really cheap tevo version is like $220 but i really want the bigger bed, dual extruder, and sensor but then its really expensive. i think i read the bed isn't even aluminum so not sure where the cost comes from on that upgrade. Then i read something about there only being 1 motor to run the up/down axis and that could be bad.




anyways someone school me real quick and tell me what i should get, or a different one or what, im burned out on looking/researching i need pro's/con's and concequenses/upgrade problems/board problems/extruder problems ect.

$700 is not a lot for a 3D printer, and you'll probably come to appreciate that when you build one. I'd say do yourself a favour and get a decent kit to begin with. on one of these chinese kits, you will replace almost every part to get good quality. The heat bed will be underpowered and slow to heat up and may not even reach ABS temps. The cheap E3D clones will almost certainly jam and cause problems (that's why its a 'novelty' ). Just check out all the printer problems people have on here, the majority are from cheap Chinese kits.

I made my printer from sturdy aluminium extrusion and bought an official E3D, it probably cost around £400 but I've had very few problems with it. The aluminium extrusion is much easier to work with and align.

Also, don't get dual extruders to begin with. Most recommend you start with one, dial it in, and then get another. Their is a lot more calibration involved in dual extruders set ups.

I would actually recommend you try a chinese kit, I have built several geeetech prusa i3's, and they work fine, but I upgraded the extruder on all of them and changed out the couplers for the z axis as they seem to cause z bending/wobble in the prints. I followed novice experts guide on youtube on how to make couplers that are simple and straight.

i upgraded the extruder to an E3D extruder with a Bowden setup. you just need the E3D kit and a tube clamp. you can print the rest of the parts. just search for it on thingiverse. i printed these parts for mine and bought 2 extra fans. [www.thingiverse.com]
and buy a real E3D, the "clones" on ebay do have a clogging issue and its too much work to get them right.

the mk8 direct drive extruder that comes with the printer works fine but i think its a little to heavy and causes artifacts in high speed prints, but its good enough to print the parts you need for a Bowden setup.

my last build was a geeetech prusa i3 pro x, all acrylic parts, no 3dprinted PLA parts that will bend due to heat from the hotend.

is there a guide somewhere preferably with pictures or video showing how to build a more modern 3dprinter from scratch, basically so it looks like these machines ive mentioned but with high quality parts? like i said all the ones ive found on this website are built with hundreds of little rods and nuts and bolts it all just seems outdated. i guess one problem is it would most likely require a 3d printer to build anyway

i feel like a really easy way to build the 'frame' would be with wood and then use a router to put slots in it, would basically be the aluminium extrusion in function and only cost $5, those router stores sell metal inserts too which make the slots metal if durability ended up being an issue. but all the rest i have bits and pieces on how to build but not really enough to do it. i also have a bunch of old scanners and printers so im sure i have a bunch of metal rods and glass for a heat bed. i just want a real guide to a really modern printer so i know if thats an option

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2016 06:08PM by The Borg.

Click the link in my sig, below to see one scratch built printer that works extremely well.

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Ultra MegaMax Dominator 3D printer: [drmrehorst.blogspot.com]

There's a number of arguments and you'll get all of them in response to this question.
1) Buy a cheap chinese kit to learn on and tune/improve/develop/replace completely with decent parts - its cheap (at first), seriously time consuming but you learn a lot.
2) Buy an expensive printer to begin with, not time consuming but there will be very little learning about 3d printing until it goes wrong which is inevitable given what we're actually doing and the fact that this technology is fairly new - unless you're talking about $30000 industrial machines which have been around a long time.
3) Build a serious printer from scratch, it can be done I am told, even by non-engineers, it will be expensive and time consuming but at the end of it, assuming you stay the course, you learned a lot and have a really good printer (which you built) to show for it.
4) The route I took, buy a ready built second hand printer, and fix it up, this was time consuming but I learned a lot (I'd say more than I would building a good kit, maybe the same as building a bad kit), then build a kit from scratch, then heavily modify or enlarge a kit printer. My next step might be to design and build my own printer. This will almost certainly be the expensive, high quality type that many people who've built them say is the only printer worth having. They are often engineers, or did a lot of research and are fast learners and are generally very competent and skilled individuals. The only issue is unless you're fully committed at the start and don't give up easily the costs and time involved might be too much and you end up not having a 3d printer and experiencing the joy (and pain) that 3d printing has to offer.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Watch this guys videos an you will learn alot and probobly feel more informed about different printers. [m.youtube.com]?

Both kits and pre-built printers, what works and what dosent.

Quote
DjDemonD
There's a number of arguments and you'll get all of them in response to this question.
1) Buy a cheap chinese kit to learn on and tune/improve/develop/replace completely with decent parts - its cheap (at first), seriously time consuming but you learn a lot.
2) Buy an expensive printer to begin with, not time consuming but there will be very little learning about 3d printing until it goes wrong which is inevitable given what we're actually doing and the fact that this technology is fairly new - unless you're talking about $30000 industrial machines which have been around a long time.
3) Build a serious printer from scratch, it can be done I am told, even by non-engineers, it will be expensive and time consuming but at the end of it, assuming you stay the course, you learned a lot and have a really good printer (which you built) to show for it.
4) The route I took, buy a ready built second hand printer, and fix it up, this was time consuming but I learned a lot (I'd say more than I would building a good kit, maybe the same as building a bad kit), then build a kit from scratch, then heavily modify or enlarge a kit printer. My next step might be to design and build my own printer. This will almost certainly be the expensive, high quality type that many people who've built them say is the only printer worth having. They are often engineers, or did a lot of research and are fast learners and are generally very competent and skilled individuals. The only issue is unless you're fully committed at the start and don't give up easily the costs and time involved might be too much and you end up not having a 3d printer and experiencing the joy (and pain) that 3d printing has to offer.

You forgot the 5th option... Do your research, and buy the components to make a decent printer from scratch. Many people have published detailed guides online for making amazing 3D printers, and if you're savvy it's not too much more expensive than buying a Chinese kit. I paid around £400ish for the parts to make a v-slot based printer (the Voxel Ox made by Marshall Peck at Openbuilds). I had it up and running in about a week, and I had none of the problems associated with Chinese kits. I might have missed out on the 'learning opportunities' of nozzle jams and bad parts, but i still know my printer inside and out, and have no problems when it comes to repairs / upgrades etc.

for some reason i thought there wasn't any customs duty from china, but now i read there is 'vat' and if it gets 'stored' for some reason i could end up with huge storage fee's............so now im not nearly as confident in ordering from aliexpress. i was trying to find something similar on amazon instead but all im seeing is plastic machines around the price i was looking at, and 1 metal one for $400. I did find this [www.amazon.com]

however upon further inspection it appears to be in china, kinda strange they don't make that a bit 'clearer' being amazon and all. I almost bought that one too, seemed like a pretty soild machine for $300. i almost pulled the trigger on the monoprice one because of a coupon i found but they are all sold out for a couple weeks and the coupons will most likely be gone when they are instock, kind of a trend ive been seeing with them if there coupons they don't have the machines. seems like that model isn't as open with the software u can use either from what i can tell.

anyways i actually just happened to stumble onto that openbuilds site right before i came back to check this thread and that is what ive been wanting, good clear walkthroughs on DIY. I was previous sourcing parts on aliexpress seeing how much it would cost to buy the stuff seperate, and it looks like i can get everything except frame/rail/bearings for around $200 prices are about the same on amazon for parts suprizingly but again its tricky cuss some are shipping from china. the only way i can actually tell is by going to the 'stores page' and looking at shipping which is like 20days for usa.




anywayssssssssssss going to surf that openbuilds for a few days and if i feel confident enough ill do something out of plywood most likely, unless i can find the aluminum stuff on amazon havn't looked yet, i just doubt ill find anything like that from say menards.

only thing im worried about is i seen this [openbuilds.org]

and i just hope when im done i don't end up with a machine that shits out parts like that lol, its all melted and banding everywhere, he mentions having already spent millions of hours tuning it so........thats scary if he still gets parts looking like that. is he just bad at tuning or is it all the weight from the wood and it just won't ever print good?

also another quick question with extruder heads like the e3d v6 is that one of the best heads to get? i want something that can basically print everything, but i also read if it has a ptfe insert or whatever then u can't because it will start to melt at higher temps and form what i can tell only the 'bowden' version of that head in 3mm filement is ptfe free, so confused.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2016 04:53AM by The Borg.

The wooden contraption you linked to doesnt appear to have any open build stuff, I'm sure the proper stuff will make a far better printer.
but it might make more sense for the Borg to assimilate a nice aluminium cube

An e3d v6 is probably for the money the best hot end you can buy. All metal allows for 260 deg C and above but thermistors stop working at around 300 so you'd need a thermocouple for anything above that. Abs and pla which you will be most likely to be printing with don't need these temperatures.

However pla does stick to the all metal heatbreak if you retract too far too often. So unless you want to print nylon/pet/polycarbonate try the e3d v6 lite save a few $ and enjoy it has a ptfe liner. These do breakdown eventually but they give you much less trouble when printing, they are $10 genuine and $3 cloned so just swap it out when it dies.

The wooden printer looks like fun but you are not going to make something to your own design out of wood o a shoestring and get super sharp prints out of it without a lot of time spent.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/20/2016 07:32AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

That machine has a lot of basic problems... Like the belts arn't straight. This means they will get tighter towards the pulleys, and loose in the center. Also, using thin wood for a frame is bad as it bends and warps. Using open builds aluminium extrusion will make a very rigid printer, my open builds machine is capable of 40 microns resolution easily, and i achieved this within a few weeks of setting it up.

Aluminium extrusion is great to work with, it produces rigid strong frames easily, which if you get extrusion with milled ends is also very straight and true, making set up and calibration easier. It's also highly modular, you can change pieces and experiment or add new parts relatively easily.