[riboflavin]

I think you can get a "real" desktop 3D printer for about $5K these days. But the consumer build-it-yourself designs are doing reasonably well, and actually give very, very good results - the catch is you have to be willing to put a lot of time in.

[riboflavin]

I guess I would also note that these guys are all kind of headed in the direction of competing with the "real" desktop 3D printers, but yeah, they won't be there for a while. I wrote some further thoughts here: http://justindunham.net/2011/08/where-is-open-source-3d-prin...