Find Yourself a 3D Printer - 3D Printing: Build your Own 3D Printer and Print your own 3D Objects - page 23

Initial Cost
Just a few years ago, the hobbyist 3D printer market (in contrast to the higher-
end professional products used in specialty industries such as manufacturing and
engineering) floated between $1,000 and $3,000. At that time, it was an amazing
price for cutting edge technology that could be ordered, delivered, and assembled
in your home. Still, the price was out of reach of most hobbyists, let alone any par-
ents or teachers who might want to introduce a 3D printer to a child or a classroom.
But one amazing thing about technology (especially technology that gets a lot of
media attention) is how fast the price can drop when demand goes up. Demand
for 3D printers has grown, and this has resulted in hundreds of 3D printer options
popping up, many almost overnight. Companies and individuals, big businesses
and small businesses—the list of sellers of 3D printers is an impossible document
to put together because it seems that a new 3D printer is announced almost daily.
This is great news for anyone wanting to buy a 3D printer today.
The variety of 3D printers and the various options they offer have created a new
market, where prices have dropped drastically. You can still find 3D printers in the
high $1,000s, but these are the high-end printers that would have been out of reach
of most hobbyists a few years back. And the entry-level 3D printers that floated
around $800-$1,500 two or three years ago? Those can be had for under $500.
Today, you can expect to pay between $300 and $3,000 for a hobbyist level 3D
printer. These are printers that are designed to be used in a home or small office,
producing good to high-quality 3D objects.
But price isn't just related to the print quality of the plastic object that is created.
Price is often also related to whether the 3D printer is preassembled (also referred
to as ready “out-of-the-box”) or comes in a kit for you to build yourself. Some 3D
printers, such as the Replicator 2 from MakerBot ( makerbot.com ) shown in Figure
2.1 , only come preassembled. The reason is that the assembly of a 3D printer of-
ten requires some fairly strict tolerances. If a screw isn't tightened properly or two
panels aren't perfectly perpendicular to one another, a printed 3D object can come
out a little lopsided or completely unusable.