Quote Originally Posted by Chaz View Post
We used to do the DIY 3D printing kits a few years ago. We did the MendelMax design, then did our own design. Played with Rostock too. I was thinking to look at this again, now that I know more about cnc and have better tools available.

The extruder for me is the key thing to get right, then the bed / heating setup. The movement (XYZ) is almost the easy part.

The Ultimaker 3 shows what can be done in the 'DIY' market but I cant see the value in the cost of that.


The bed is easy. The extruder/hotend is difficult as needs lot of experiments and tiny adjustments. Thats why most go with established combos. You say the linear motion and frame is easy, but then where are the good designs? I dont see any, and if i see some they are >1500euro

There is growing market even with the cheap Chinese printers. Many people will buy one only to upgrade at a later time when they find they can not make money with it.

I did not enter earlier as they seemed quite under developed and funny. Material was expensive, hot ends were ugly. In other words- unreliable expensive toy with no real world purpose / at least to me/.



I think-- how to combine all this is the key and offer sth reliable, well supported and most of all easy. Even now i find all not so easy. Easy to me after designing a couple of machines and building them and being in the CNC world a couple of years. But things still are not "push and play", i would say far from it.

Right now i am into a couple of Facebook groups where printer guys speak, i see many real life problems with the machines priced 1000-3000$, that are ridiculous especially for the lack of support and warranty. To me its speaks: not well designed robust product.