As often happens, I'm having difficulty making up my mind about which direction I want to go for building a 3D printer. My initial thought was a MendelMax kit from Utilbots, but I got to thinking about how to self-source to keep costs low. I ran across the Prusa i3 at MakerFarm, and the price seemed right, but I couldn't shake the idea that I was really looking for a MendelMax.
Alas, my dog decided to do some serious damage to our carpet, and so funds are a bit tighter...so that got me looking at a Prusa i2. I've seen how it could potentially be self-sourced for just a few hundred dollars, and that's quite appealing...but again, I keep thinking about the MendelMax.
At this point I have a couple of big hangups:
- The MendelMax build instructions, at least the "complete" ones, all seem to focus on kits, or at least on builds that have the linear rail car for the Y axis, but don't indicate how to self-source this.
- Additionally, the info on the X carriage is ambiguous; it almost seems to presume you've build a Prusa i2 before.
- As for the the i2, I've read that it's prone to shaking itself out of alignment, and isn't as stable as (say) the MendelMax.
So for a fellow like me, who's got some experience doing builds with a Makerbot Replicator and little else, which path should I take? And if I go with a MendelMax 1.5, should I ignore the "+" part of it for now, and do an upgrade later? The upgrade kits I've seen are awfully pricy...
Any suggestions are most welcome. If it matters, I've printed most of the parts for the MendelMax already, but I've not yet bought any vitamins or electronics.