Original Prusa

[CAWJames]

Morning all,

 

I have been tasked with looking at 3d printers for the purpose of building skeletons, mostly small animal. With ready made anatomical models on the market for £1k plus, and we need quite a lot for teaching, the idea of making our own has been bandied about.

 

I have been looking at the market, and can see that the Original Prusa is top of a lot of lists for general use. Anyone got one or know of it? It seems to be a good price against the Ultimaker and Makerbots of the world, and the ready assembled version is around the £800 mark.

 

Obviously we would also need to find source files or a way to make our own, but sorting hardware out first to see if the cost is feasible.

 

Thanks

 

James

[noelmm]

The Prusa 3d printers do look like excellent printers however they are rather expensive. You can buy Prusa MK3 clone printers from companies such as Trianglelabs as a cheaper alternative (not sure of the cost)

 

Have you considered alternatives? I currently have a Tevo Tarantula and Tevo have just recently released a new model called the Tarantula Pro that is getting great reviews (look on YouTube) or you could look at something like a Creality Ender printer.

Edited September 17, 2019 by noelmm

[CAWJames]

I actually thought they were cheap, where an equivalent Ultimaker 2+ or Makerbot are £2-4k!! shows how much I know, I will have a look at the ones you mentioned! Thanks

[noelmm]

The reason Ultimakers are so expensive is they are great machines (I've supported a school that had one) and come prebuilt and you don't need to do anything with them as they just work out of the box. The Prusa style printers are generally all in kit form that you need to build yourself (you can buy pre-assembled versions) and when it comes to building yourself you can make any kit work well if you know what you're looking at and are willing to put the time and effort in, you also get to learn how to fix it should something go wrong.

[Chris_Cook]

We have some flashforge printers in DT here. Probably better suited to a classroom environment than a prusa style one as its more contained.

 

If its going into a back office that's less of a concern.

 

We have a creality printer as well, but the cabling to the heated bed isn't well supported and there are reports of these wearing out and overheating/causing fire. There are cable chains you can print out to give better support to this.

[robyholmes]

I'd suggest you look at Zortrax printers. Especially M200. My partner runs a business using them and there very reliable machines and produce good quality prints. Make sure you get the sides and hood if you do go this route!

 

Another thing to look at is getting a demo / loan printer. A lot of firms offer schools this now.

[ICTDirect_Dave]

We have a Prusa here. Cracking printer. We use it to print components that would otherwise be too expensive.

 

It's very reliable and does around 5 hours work per day