newbie help wanted

[desdichato]

As a newbie to this forum and to the world of 3d printing I hope you will forgive me if these questions I have are old hat.

I am planning on getting a 3d printer before the silly season and the majority I have seen have 200 x 200 build area's....Initially I intend to use it for making parts for 1/16th tanks to increase the variety of vehicles I have, after that well who knows, but for some of the parts I would like to make this small size would be too small.

I have seen a Chinese 3d printer IIRC called a TEVO Black widow which has a larger build area but I am wondering what the build is like as in the research I have done there seems to be varying standards so I am hoping someone who may have one can put an unbiased opinion forward.

Also it has been about 40 years since I last worked on cad/cam and such technology and perhaps I am more concerned about the software and the ease to use - I do realise that things have improved since those days but IMHO they have also got more confusing. I would be interested in hearing others opinions but definitely use the KISS principle when replying Guys.

Thanks

[curious aardvark]

with any kit where you build it yourself, there are going to be plusses and negatives.
Part of that is down to the quality of the kit and part of that down to the experience of the person building the machine.

I absolutely do not advocate a kit as a first machine.
Get a cheap ready built printer first. learn to use it and learn the art of 3d printing. It's almost as much art as it is science.
Get a handle on the software, filaments and best practices.
THEN, when you have a much better knowlege look into buying a kit.

Many of the problems people have with kits are simply that they have no knowlege or experience of 3d printing.

To give you some idea read my delta 'blog': http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...t-a-delta-kit-)
My third 3d printer but my first build. Starts out as documenting the purchase and initial build, goes on to making parts to modify, number40fan buys one as well and it's devolved down to an ongoing conversation, regarding building a delta from scratch and continual prints and improvements for the original he3d k200 :-)

had it been both my first build and first printer, it's doubtful I'd have ever printed anything with it, or indeed got it to the stage where it could print at all.
After a fair bit of modding and correcting issues with the original kit - it's a totally awesome machine !
But that's with 3 years plus of 3d printing experience behind me and existing printers to make parts to correct and improve the original kit.

If I were you I'd get a wanhao i3 duplicator plus or version 2.1
Learn how to use and mod that - it's an opensource machine, well made and a very good entry into the 3d printing realm. More importantly, it's already built and tested. So considerably less likely to not work than a kit.