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by masonhensley 4765 days ago
From what I understand, margins are pretty good right now for ~$1k+ printers. This however looks looks too polished for the price they are trying to deliver. Reliable wifi connectivity, air filtration, fancy box, mobile apps, cloud software, scale to weigh amount of filament in the hopper... hmmmm.

Existing sub $400 printers[see below] havent shipped in mass quantities yet (well, besides the printrbot jr). Whoever gets it right first will become the market leader for entry level printers.

If these guys ship all their preorders I'll buy one from them. Until then, based on the research i've done, im planning on buying a printrbot jr to build the parts for deltabot like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:34146

Also, it is a little disingenuous for them to compare it to the makerbot replitor which has ~4x the build volume[1].

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Makibox: $200-400 + shipping from asia (has only shipped a few beta units)

http://makibox.com/products

Printrbot simple: $299 + s/h

http://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-simple-beta/

Printrbot Jr: $399 + s/h

http://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-jr/

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[1]: Build area (28.515.315.5)/ (151012) = 3.75

*Sorry I keep editing as I read more.
3 comments
nnnnni 4765 days ago
I'm pretty sure that Maki is well-known in the 3D printing community for being a scammer. I'd stay away from the Makibox...
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masonhensley 4765 days ago
Ya, I shouldn't have included them. Can't edit that post now.

I had an post crowd funding order with them at some point in Q1 2013 and canceled it after not seeing much progress.

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randallu 4765 days ago
It's interesting that none of the hobbyist printers I've seen have optical calibration like a servo does -- I've read about overshoot being a problem when doing faster prints, but if the head could measure where it was in XY then it shouldn't be such a problem. Some old Sun optical mice knew where they were on the trackpad (which was super annoying, you couldn't pick up the mouse and move it somewhere else for a long drag), so the technology shouldn't be expensive...
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X-Istence 4765 days ago
The scale part of it is rather simple ... you can get sensors for measuring the amount of pressure cheap and easily, just some calibration and you are set.
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