What printer?

So I am about to pull the trigger and buy a 3dprinter. and have some basic questions.. Sorry to be such a noob!

Okay so I want to build my first printer and I would like to print at least 10x10x10x I can go 8x8x8x if need be.

Questions:

1. What is the best bang for my buck I would like to stay at the $300 to $500 range?
2. Am I better off buying a solidoodle as my first printer?(Would really like to build mine so I understand it all)
3. Does anyone have any links to good kits?


Thank you!

your country?

United States.

The 'Prusa i3 rework' is probably in your price range.
Prints pretty good. But you have to shop around for the best price.

1. What is the best bang for my buck I would like to stay at the $300 to $500 range?

Smartrap, Prusa i3, Griffin Delta printer...


2. Am I better off buying a solidoodle as my first printer?(Would really like to build mine so I understand it all)

I was in your boat about 3 months ago, looking at kits and almost pulling the trigger on prebuilt printers and kits until I found the reprap community and decided to build my own. It also turned out that all of the kits that I was looking at were just repraps, so I would've been paying someone just to assemble all of the parts for me. Solidoodle has some nice machines, but you will need to learn every inch of it to do maintenance. If you choose to build from scratch, you should look to make sure that you have adequate tools (wrenches, saws, drills, etc.) because if not, it may be cheaper to just buy a kit that has everything precut, or buy a prebuilt machine if you are not handy. Regardless, it is important to learn the in's and out's of the firmware, hot end, extruder at the very least. I myself choose to build a Rostock Delta printer and at first I had doubts about my decision when I was struggling to get the machine working, but now that it is fully functional I love my decision because it works great and I have a large build capacity (8x8x17). If I would have bought a pre made printer, I would have been printing faster, but I would be completely ignorant of the inner workings of the machine, and in order to get it to work correctly you must have an intimate knowledge of the machine or at least hope that it comes with a generous warranty, so you don't have to care until the warranty/support runs out.

3. Does anyone have any links to good kits?

From your dimensions, I am assuming that you are looking at Cartesian printers, but I'll throw out a delta robot that meets the criteria. Griffin pro: 11.8x11.8x10

[www.griffinprinter.org]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 09/03/2014 10:46AM by Wildcard.