Build your own 3D printer magazine

none01ohone

Just saw this pop up as an ad, so had to take a look.

http://www.3dprinter-collection.com/

I'm wondering what to think!

richgain

I think you'll be waiting a very long time before you get a working printer! Pay £100 less and get the same printer as a kit straight off. Or, better still, get a tried and tested kit like the Mendel90 or RepRapPro Ormerod for even less.

McGyver

Yeah, I agree with the previous post...

1- ask yourself, do you think you could assemble an inkjet printer without problems, now take that from 2D to 3D... Remember an inkjet requires precise calibration to work properly in 2D.
A friend of mine who is a pretty good electronics engineer, put together one of the better known kits... (maybe an early RepRap)... According to him it works, but it was a pain and if he could do it over he would have just purchased it assembled, since the price difference was not all that big.
Some people do prefer to build their own... Some kits are easier than others...

2- That free software is SketchUp... And that will most likely be for SketchUp Make (free), not SketchUp Pro which is $500... Pro is better suited to produce a solid 3D object "right out of the box", but free and pro would require you to do some digging through the plugins list at SketchUcation's plugin archive (the plugins are all free BTW) and understanding how to use and install them (not hard, but not "instant")...
Plus, to be able to make (print) solid 3D objects in SketchUp, you really should have some experience in producing "clean" closed hull models, otherwise some of SU's natural little quirks will hamper your efforts (reversed faces, hidden geometry, internally trapped faces, and native n-gon geometry). SU is not hard to learn, but I do know that you definitely have to do a bit of tinkering to get good results.

3- The free items seem like standard trade show giveaway junk.

4- Parts on a monthly basis? That just sounds a little too much like something from a 50s comic book... "Order now and you'll get one part for your personal mini-sub every month and in no time you'll be king of the seas, discovering ancient underwater cities!"

5- The free filament spools (plastic for making stuff) seem way too good to be true, probably they are only a foot or two of material... A regular spool runs around $30 in these parts, and here they appear to be giving away 6 or 7 spools...
I would guess they would really only be enough to produce, something very, very small...

6- A 4 gig flash drive... Wow!... I just picked up a 16 GB for $4.

7- The tools look a little bit "99 cent store"... And if you don't already own those very same tools (as well as a few more) you probably should not be assembling a 3D printer.

8- EDITED THIS- maximum print size is average.

9- "Can't wait to get your printer built? Get your designs printed by our friends at..."Sounds a little like "When you finally give up on making this thing work, let these guys with a real printers do it for a fee"... Which is a service which there is no short supply of...

Okay, I'm just picking on the gimmicky sales pitch, but to be honest, most gimmicky sales pitches, pitch gimmicky stuff... When I see an ad that I can easily pick apart, I tend to dismiss it and what it's pitching.
This thing could go together smoother than bread and butter and print like a gem, but the alternative is you are stuck with a product you assembled and then are left with the blame of it not working properly if there is a problem.
I'd save my cash for a while longer, there are more printers coming on the market every day. I don't know if you are a U.S. resident, but just last month I went in to Best Buy and found they have a whole display and are selling 3D printers in the store as well as online... The cheapest is around $500 and change... That's a pretty big step in 3D printers coming into the mainstream.

That's all just an opinion based on a quick look at the site...but that more or less what was asked for.

EDITED TO ADD... Okay, I looked into it a little more... There is no actual mention (in writing, I did not watch the video), but based on the subscription that runs up to at least 59 issues, you'll pay at least $625 USD... Or more, the circuit boards are slightly more for shipping, and there is no mention of the ultimate number of issues required to complete the machine...
So that's four issues every for weeks, for at least 59 issues...
Ooooookay.
If one were to opt to purchase the assembled 3D printer, it would be over $1,000 USD...
There are several known and reviewed brands available for that price... all that produce decent results.
That price is pre order.... Shipping in April 2015.
There is also no oblivious mention of the printer's resolution.
The layer thickness is normal (0.2 mm) for this size machine, but there are thousand dollar machines (even one $700 machine) that go down to 0.1 mm.
The print speed seems a little slow for the machine's price.
The printed object's size is listed as more or less 5.25" x 5.25" x 5.25" square... Which is about average.

cunningf

According to the FAQ http://www.3dprinter-collection.com/faqs.aspx it's 90 issues and is available in the UK and Ireland only.

none01ohone

Thanks for the info guys. It was the concept of the magazine more than a heavy interest in buying that got my attention. Like you say lordvicore, as you picked up a 16gig flash drive for $4, prices will only drop when the volume is high and I cant see 3D printers becoming as ubiquitous as inkjet printers. With the cost at the moment for whats basically a hot glue gun, a few stepper motors and a circuit board I'll leave this in the rich kids toys category. Unless of course your into design.
I also came across the 'self replicating 3d printer', although it looks like most of it contained steel rods nuts and bolts!

Sfariah D

My brother has a 3d printer but I doubt he built it himself.