3D Printer Owner's Network Puts Together Buyer's Guide

Lucas123 writes: Thousands of 3D printer owners who are part of a distributed online network were tapped for a buyer's guide, rating dozens of machines from tiny startups to major manufacturers. Surprisingly, the big-name 3D printer makers were nowhere to be found in the top picks. More obscure companies, like Makergear, a 12-person start-up in Ohio, or Zortrax, a Polish company that began as a Kickstarter project, took top spots in the reviews. The buyer's guide, put together by 3D Hubs, contains five different categories: Enthusiast Printers, Plug-n-Play Printers, Kit/DIY Printers, Budget Printers and Resin Printers. In all, 18 models made it to the top of the user communities' list, and only printers with more than 10 reviews were included in the buyer's guide. 3D Hubs also added a secondary "Printer Index" that includes 58 3D Printers that didn't make it to the top of their categories. Printers with more than five reviews are displayed in the index.

Jesus.

[azav]

Those guys really need an editor to spell check their article. It's simply painful English with missing words, misspelled words.

They take the time to make a great looking page and don't bother to proof their English. WTF?

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[NoNonAlphaCharsHere]

Agreed. Wake me when they're called "matter compilers".

Mod article informative

[Anonymous Coward]

This is exactly the kind of resource I want when starting a new hobby; And it just so happens to be one I was considering.

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[mythosaz]

A pretty well done site. +1 to the guys at 3dhubs.com for putting it together. Very informative.

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[houstonbofh]

It is kinda odd to see a traditional slashdot article on slashdot these days...

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[jythie]

There is an opportunity cost here though. 3D printers have been around for decades and have just gone through a massive price drop relative to their capabilities. This will probably continue, but if one has an actual use (even if it is a hobby) and can get something out of having one, well, every year you spend waiting for something better to come along is a year that you are losing out on that capability. Given that human lifespans are pretty damn finite, the tradeoff may or may not be worth it.

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[Archangel Michael]

The correct formula is a cost / opportunity cost model. Of course, you'll never know what opportunity costs are, because you miss them. IF you can get to a point where you can MEASURE a break even point, there is usually unforeseen opportunities you'll also capture that will get you beyond break even.

Back in the day, when I sold $3000 computers, I used this model all the time. Could you justify, breaking even, on a $3000 computer (25 years ago), verses not having a computer at all. Most people understood th

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[jandrese]

The big reason for the huge price drops in the past couple of years is a whole bunch of the patents expiring. At this point the primary limitations to making them cheaper are technical, not legal. This means we shouldn't expect to see the same magnitude of price reduction going forward that we've seen in the recent past. The only area where I expect to see significant movement is on the filament, which still strikes me as overpriced for what it is. It's only a matter of time till some factory in China i

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[ArcadeMan]

The Chinese already are spitting that stuff by the ton and undercutting everybody. Except that this time, they seem to understand and are not undercutting themselves as well. Why sell something for 90% less when you can still sell for only 10% less?

Re:And the #1 option is...

[Dracos]

Chinese factories already do spit that stuff out by the ton. It is outrageous that 1kg of filament costs $35 to $50, when 1kg of plastic pellets costs $4 to $8.

One of the first things the hackerspace I belong to bought was a FilaStruder [filastruder.com] so we can make our own filament. We figure it'll pay for itself after 10 spools.

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[ArcadeMan]

What's the reliability of that FilaStruder, the tolerances of the extruded filament and what types of plastics have you extruded so far?

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[Dracos]

So far we've only run ABS in it. The tolerances with the 1.75mm nozzle are pretty tight, no less than 1.63mm. This is very dependent on how stable the filament is between coming out of the nozzle and resolidifying. We got a FilaWinder to take care of that.

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[jythie]

It is also possible that since we are closer to mass (as opposed to specialized) demand, more R&D will go into finding new combinations of materials. Plastics are an area where a fairly small amount of tweaking (and a REALLY large search space) in process and ingredients can result in really different capabilities and price points. So that is an area I really could see a significant shift in the near future.

Re:gimme any Normal Example what can i print on it

[Archangel Michael]

Perhaps not yet. But since you can print anything, the value isn't what you can pick up at Walmart, but rather printing the thing you can't pick up there. Printing the 3D plastic clip you just broke on some older thing you own, and having it that day, instead of throwing the old broken thing away is worth something, even to you. I can't tell you how many plastic clips I've broken and tossed the old broken thing away, that I now can fix and have it remain useful.

Not to mention, the creative types who are prototyping new and interesting inventions that weren't cost effective if sent to milling houses.

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[bws111]

It seems the main proponents of 3D printing are people that break a lot of stuff. OK, everybody breaks stuff, but most people just tape (or glue) the broken thing back on, which is way cheaper and quicker than printing a new one will ever be.

I am still waiting for the 'killer' 3D printing idea, that would make ordinary people care at all about 3D printing.

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[thegarbz]

What about repairing other broken stuff? I don't break things myself, but I do fix a lot of things. My current coffee grinder was a commercial unit gifted to me because the indexing pin went missing so you couldn't lock the grind at a specific setting. A $1 spring and a 3D printed index pin later and I just paid off my 3D printer in not having to buy a coffee grinder (at least I would have if I had a 3D printer rather than asking a friend to print it).

But the 'killer' idea is not just the ability to replace

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[serviscope_minor]

Not to mention, the creative types who are prototyping new and interesting inventions that weren't cost effective if sent to milling houses.

This is the use I'm most interested in. I have a couple of dual head Printrbot 2.1's. personally I rather like dual head printers since I'm no contsrained to print shapes where support material can easily be picked off. I favour ABS and HIPS as the latter dissolves easily.

I'm part of a startup. We're going through a rapid ieration phase for a wearable medical device. We

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[ShanghaiBill]

what Normal, Usable thing can be produced by 3d printer? and less expencive than the same thing from Walmart ?

My daughter uses mine to make furniture for her dollhouse.

gimme any Normal Example what can i print on it?

[Barlo_Mung_42]

I play D&D and plan to get one to print custom game pieces / figures. Maybe even dice.

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[ArcadeMan]

Here's another idea:
www.Dungeonstone.com

I'm sure someone already has an open-source version of this idea for 3D printers somewhere on the Internet.

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[ebh]

Yeah, going to Maker Faire makes you think the only thing anyone ever prints are tchotchkes from Thingverse.

One application is to reproduce plastic parts that are otherwise unobtainable. Example:

I have a turntable microwave oven that was built almost 25 years ago. There's a piece of plastic about the size of a pair of dice that 's effectively the turntable spindle. Somebody turned the thing by hand and snapped that piece of plastic. I have a part number for it but nobody sells it any more. A chunk of th

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[Anonymous Coward]

what Normal, Usable thing can be produced by 3d printer?

and less expencive than the same thing from Walmart ?

I have a printrbot simple metal and the longer I have it the more use it seems to have.
I have printed shelving brackets, coat hanging hooks, soap bottle and spray can wallmounts, parts for my kid's rc cars (seriously, we have 3d printed wheels on one of the tamiyas because my boy wanted his name cut through the wheel structure), soldering spool holder, tablet wall mounts, picture frame corners (I have some JAMMA arcade boards as hanging wall art using these), a spoon, rapid buckle clips when my dogs broke t

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[thegarbz]

What normal usable thing can you produce with a welder?
What normal usable thing can you produce with a sheet of ply and a jigsaw?

Sure you can buy pretty much anything from Walmart but some of us have imaginations that involve making things. I'm just waiting for the price to be right and a 3D printer can find it's spot in my workshop next to all my wood and metal working tools.

but which markets?

[jythie]

While a good guide, the interesting question will be, how well does it represent the needs of markets that 3D printers (specifically the 'big names') are expanding into? One thing I found lacking in reviews a few years back was that they came from the perspective of people who were interested in the devices for their own sake, which put certain weights on issues like calibration and tinkering that would be very different from hobby to hobby. This made them great reviews for some segments but less helpful

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[jythie]

I should note that I am not accusing them of issues, just that it will be interesting to see how these potentially conflicting use cases pan out in reviews.

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[plover]

I had the same question, so I read the article, then browsed their site. I found out the site is a service that offers you the ability to upload an .STL file, pick a nearby guy-with-a-printer, send it to him for printing, then drive over and pick it up an hour later. So the guide is basically a survey of hundreds of hobbyists who are turning over a little cash by operating their machines.

The market then, is still the "interested hobbyist, enthusiast, or specialized craftsman", and not "average guy who just

Can I...

[JaneTheIgnorantSlut]

Can I print a 3D version of the buyer's guide?

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[ganjadude]

lemme know when i can 3d print a 3d printer

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[ArcadeMan]

http://reprap.org/wiki/Tantill... [reprap.org]

3D printers

[ledow]

I work for schools. We don't have a huge budget, but a 3D printer is a good "show-off" item. The kids can make something in Google Sketchup, throw it to the printer, and take it home at the end of term after we've used it on a display for parent's evening.

We bought the Cubify Cube3D. It does the job. It's robust enough, cheap enough, works well enough. For what most people would ever use a plastic 3D printer for, it fits.

All we need is the price to come down to inket-printer costs and people will start

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[ganjadude]

I believe he wasa talking about the hacks needed to run most early PCs, messing with jumpers, add on cards, even breadboards. C64 while early, was not "early"

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[ArcadeMan]

I believe he was also talking about the same attitude back then, which was basically "why would I want a computer?" which is similar to the current attitude toward 3D printers.

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[ganjadude]

im not so sure, i know quite a number of non techie people who would absolutely LOVE a 3d printer, however the marketing for them has not ramped up really yet, and rightly so as they are not ready for mainstream IMO

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[houstonbofh]

It wasn't like in the early days of home computers that somehow every C64 gave a slightly different answer to 2+2, and some crashed, or that they consistently answered 4.1 while Apples gave 3.9 and Ataris answered "blue".

Obviously you missed some of the early computers I used... :)

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[ArcadeMan]

It wasn't like in the early days of home computers that somehow every C64 gave a slightly different answer to 2+2, and some crashed, or that they consistently answered 4.1 while Apples gave 3.9 and Ataris answered "blue".

Stop trying to protect Intel's feeling and just say it already: Pentium FDIV bug [wikipedia.org].

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[ArcadeMan]

What do you mean by "iPhone designed website"? Their website looks just fine on my desktop monitor.