Find Yourself a 3D Printer - 3D Printing: Build your Own 3D Printer and Print your own 3D Objects - page 21

2. Find Yourself a 3D Printer
If you don't yet own a 3D printer, this is the chapter for you. I give you some
things to ponder when considering what type of 3D printer you might want to pur-
chase. Believe it or not, you have hundreds of options compared to just three or
four years ago. As in the previous chapter, my goal here isn't to overwhelm you
with a lot of technical talk. These days, when most people choose to purchase a
computer, they don't go to the store asking about memory cache amounts or hard
drive transfer speeds (well, some do). Instead, they just want something that works
and can run the software they need it to run. Today's 3D printers are well on their
way to being that easy to purchase and use (what computer companies used to ad-
vertise as plug-n-play). You can buy preassembled 3D printers, ready to go right
out of the box. Just connect it to your printer, follow some simple instructions for
installing the software, and you're all set. (This is not completely true, because
you've got to have something to print. More on that later in Chapter 5 , “ First Print
with the Simple . ”)
There are also 3D printer kits. These require you to assemble them, but today's 3D
printers have gotten much easier to figure out and put together compared to just
a few years ago. Don't believe me? I build a 3D printer and document much of
the assembly in Chapter 3 , “ Assembly Assistance for the Printrbot Simple . ” When
you're done with Chapter 3 , I hope to have you convinced that a kit should not be
intimidating if you choose that route.
So, let's get started by taking a brief look at some of the options you have when
purchasing a 3D printer. The goal for this chapter is to help you identify what you
want to do with a 3D printer, how much you want to spend, and a few other factors.
By chapter's end, you should have a better idea of which 3D printers will meet
your needs.
3D Printer Options to Consider
The practice of printing three-dimensional objects has been around for years. But
it's been only in the past five to six years that 3D printing has become a popular
hobby and favored topic in the media, mainly due to costs dropping and compon-
ent sizes shrinking. Today, 3D printing is available to anyone with a home com-
puter and the interest to print out 3D objects.