Find Yourself a 3D Printer - 3D Printing: Build your Own 3D Printer and Print your own 3D Objects - page 35

Do Your Homework
I would place researching and purchasing a 3D printer somewhere between the
purchase of a toaster and a car. You've definitely got a number of factors to con-
sider, but don't let them overwhelm you. Your first 3D printer doesn't have to be
the one with the most bells and whistles, and truth be told, unless you're extremely
comfortable with technology and troubleshooting, you'll likely find yourself get-
ting frustrated and overwhelmed with the most advanced 3D printers out there.
Instead, start as small and as uncomplicated as you can get. There's a very good
reason I've chosen the Printrbot Simple for this topic—actually, there's a number
of good reasons:
• Its low cost—At $300, it's a perfect way to discover whether the 3D printing
hobby is for you.
• It's easy to assemble—Compared to my first 3D printer that took me almost
an entire weekend to assemble, the Simple took somewhere between two and
three hours. (I took plenty of breaks and worked slowly to avoid mistakes.)
• It doesn't use a proprietary filament cartridge.
• It comes standard with the finer 0.4mm hot end that also uses the 1.75mm
filament.
• The Printrbot crew has proven to me that they have outstanding customer ser-
vice. (This is my second 3D printer from printrbot.com . )
The Simple comes with an excellent set of assembly instructions, and in the next
chapter I provide commentary and photos on building it.
But should you purchase another brand of 3D printer, you'll still find the rest of
the topic useful. The 3D printer is the hardware, but there is still a software ele-
ment that you'll need to understand, and my goal with this topic is to make this
technology as easy to understand as possible.
So, let's continue to Chapter 3 , where I use the assembly of the Printrbot Simple
to explain more concepts related to printing 3D objects.