Which Prusa Kit

I want to get into 3d printing this summer and am looking for a prusa kit under 500 usd. For the most part I have narrowed it down between the Wilson II and the Folger Tech I3. Is the Wilson worth the extra money over the Folgertech? Are there any other kits out there that will compete with these within my price range? Would a Delta design function better for the price?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 05/10/2016 03:39PM by Yakantosh.

I will go for the Wilson II over the folger tech. There is a lot of better printers than those 2 in the 500 range.

What printers would you recommend looking at in that price range?

I have the Reprap Pruse i3 DIY kit. It was fairly simple to put together, although it was pretty much just picture instructions. I think I paid about $275 for it and it prints really well. I attached a pic of my setup and the box I built around it. The only problem that I have found is the heatbed will not get hot enough for ABS.

Sorry for the late response, but check this two:

Me creator 2 and the smartfriendz alu coreXY.

If you haven't bougth a kit yet I suggest you get a Wilson II. It's the same as a Prusa i3 but much more sturdy. I have a regular I3 steel but I'm building a Wilson at the moment.

I even find it easier to build.

[reprap.org]

I just followed the BOM and started ordering the part M. Rice did a wonderfull job describing how to build it. If would have to do it again I would have orderd the kit on his website.

The Prusa I3 is a solid design, but many kits are not so solid. Some cheap kits have plastic or wooden frames. I would stay away from these. They may contort to the strains caused by imperfections in your threaded rod and lead to artifacts such as z-wobble. Instead, opt for kits which have metal frames. Some kits are made of aluminum frames and other kits are based on the P3Steel frame. The advantage and disadvantage of aluminum frames is that they are light and can be moved around easily, while also being more sensitive to the inertia of your x-axis and y-axis. The P3steel can weigh up to 3x that of an aluminum frame but is less affected by vibrations caused by inertia. Also the P3Steel frame is closer to the Prusa I3 standard as opposed to some of the aluminum kits such as the Geeetech kit and thus upgrade parts are more likely to fit a kit based on the P3Steel frame than a Geeetech kit or one that is based on a "proprietary" frame.

Be careful in that some cheap kits are made from cheap parts which may prematurely fail.

One full P3Steel framed printer kit can be found at :

[www.ebay.com]

[www.hta3d.com]

This is a full kit for a 200 X 200mm bed printer.

If you want a larger printer you can buy a frame from:

[www.ebay.com]

This is for a 200 X 300 bed FRAME for which you will need to purchase the remaining parts separately. If you go this route, you can by the parts you want at the quality/price you want. The negative side of this route is that if you forget to purchase something in the beginning, you may have to wait up to a month to get an item from Europe or China. You can get most of your proteins and vitamins from:

[www.ebay.com]

but you still will have to buy your stepper motors and rods, and electronics. For your electronics, I would stay with a Mega 2560 board mated with a RAMPS 1.4 board. This will give greater upgradability than many other options. You will also need a bed heater with springs, Mechanical endstops, LCD 2004 Display Controller, power supply,a wide variety of M3 & M4 Screws and nuts. I may have still forgotten a few things so look at the packing list and assembly instructions found on:

[www.geeetech.com]

to see what I left out.

I would stay away from Delta printers in that many of them have small build plates. I feel quite limited with my 200X200mm build plate on my Prusa I3 and thus I have no interest in a Delta printer. From what I have heard, Delta printers are more finicky than Prusa Printers, and are not as good for one's first printer.

Stuart.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 06/16/2016 07:23PM by Lymphomaniac1.