These days when scrolling through the online catalogs, the desktop 3D printer resellers and retailers, you are making a decision. Based on your expectation that you're going to receive something days, weeks, months or in the case of a Kickstarter, years later. That will feel sound and look like the glossy sales photos. This was not always the case and it is worth reviewing how this era of desktop 3D printer hardware relates to the options of today. A one time, back in the ancient days before 2010, the only way to get your hands on a low cost IE not professional or industrial printer was to download open source, reprap files and bills of material from the Internet. Or purchase one of a handful of DIY 3D printer kits that were quickly becoming popular. If you went the reprap route, you were faced with a bit of a conundrum. Listed on the bomb and plans would be a number of 3D printed parts that you would need to make your 3D printer. Sharing your machine and printed parts online or at festivals and maker fairs was as much about earning the bragging rights to claim, I worked my tail off. And I built this printer, that along with exchanging your latest tips and tricks and your love or hatred of the breed of reprap that you had constructed. Builds for these kits up until around 2012 were estimated to be around 15 to 20 hours. But often clocked in at days or weeks while tricky mistakes preventing the printers from functioning properly were discovered during troubleshooting and frantic technical support calls. One popular vendor's official documentation suggested that you needed a weekend, a good friend and a six-pack of beer to complete the kit. Having followed those instructions, I think the solution was aimed as much as fighting discouragement as a measure of what was really required. As you look through the vast amounts of 3D printers on the market, you will likely come across the reprap name. Which references the early days of desktop 3D printing. These days reprap has taken on multiple new faces, but the reprap name typically is synonymous with the type of machine that you can easily modify and tinker with. They typically are in kit form. Although some are purchasable assembled. And you will find a variety of 3D printed parts on the printer due to the nature of the reprap movement. You can visit riprap.org and the riprap IRC channel online to explore details about the most popular riprap breeds. Locate your parts files and bomb and get going. While succeeding to complete a perfectly functioning riprap still requires character persistence in the face of unexpected challenges. Many of the elements used from pulleys the steppers to micro controllers can be much easier to locate and install these days. And thanks to the use of modular aluminum extrusions for framing up the devices over threaded rods and a prayer. Heavy use friendly industrial sliders and linear bearings and tool head kits that can be obtained whole cloth as needed. The chances for a first-time builder completing a decent desktop printer have vastly increased. The Midwest riprap Fest in Goshen, Indiana is not just a who's who of desktop top printer filament and accessory manufacturers and online machine builder superstars. But is it is also the annual family portrait of all of the oddball and brilliant Builder strategies. From The Edge of Tomorrow to the exquisitely vintage ones that remind you every day that RepRap is a technology movement and not a destination. And engaging in this activity and community is not just about assembling existing breeds of printers and learning the basic machine design build in operation skills to make them seen. It is about keeping yourself open to the possibilities of what can be created with this relatively simple technology. By bringing together the world of digital design with all of the avenues via electronics, mechatronics, robotics, fabrication in various configurations. You might uncover new applications for this technology, better ways to produce parts and better ways to make your ideas physical. A similar leveling up has happened in the DIY 3D kits world. While more and more of the 3D printers available for purchase our pre-built, many of which function essentially right out of the box. Improvements across the board with how well a low-cost desktop 3D printer functions means that the opportunity now exists. That you can open up an Ulta maker, original plus, CBC and Syrah stop Max fiii, Apprecia I3, etc. And assemble it in the long afternoon. By the end of the day, you'll have a completed machine that can compete head-to-head with any other desktop printer in its class. Why would you do this when it might be possible to purchase a prebuilt machine for the same coin and not face the challenge and uncertainty of cracking open that box? And sorting through layer after layer of laser cuts or bars of aluminum extrusions? There really is something valuable and quite magical by going through the experience of building a working 3D printer yourself. At the end of the day, as many potential gotchas as there are in even the simplest kit build, a desktop 3D printer doesn't have that many moving parts that cannot be finessed into the correct positions. That you have no hope whatsoever completing the device. And the learning value to the experience is deep and lasting. It is one thing to know the concept behind how a 3D printer works. It is another to attempt to build it and find out firsthand where things can go wrong if you don't think through the entire process of printing from interface to part removal. Before we wrap up this topic, I wanted to add this. The crucial component to any 3D printer is your imagination and your willingness to come to terms with the strengths, weaknesses and peculiarities of your machine. There are learning opportunities on the roughest garbage printer clones and highest-performing top rated models alike. If your budget prevents you from considering one of the top rated models, it's still valuable for you to get printing as quickly possible. And one of the easiest ways to make that happen is to pick up one of the entry-level tinker friendly machines. At the purest level, these devices are the lap dog printer class, running on inexpensive feedstock and a lot of operator love and care. Having a printer handy of any type will help you understand both the digital and plastic part of 3D printing while you're learning all the other stages. These are tiny portals for making impromptu ideas solid. Given the advances in desktop 3D printers over the past several decades, these tinker grade printers are surprisingly solid for their size and cost. You will outgrow their building envelope very quickly when it comes to more involve projects and daily printing. But there's an opportunity here for this first printer to join your household as a beloved pet and not just a pet project and actual robotic pet that you tend to daily. You will learn a great deal about the nature of 3D printing by tending to one of these printers light enough to carry around the house with you and slip into your suitcase to take on your next vacation. And you'll be able to bring that knowledge with you on to your next printer when you're ready for your family to expand.
