What would be your "perfect" entry level printer?

[curious aardvark]

the big bastard has got a 350mm print area and will have over 1 metre build height.
Working on the fact that the uprights are 1.5metres and the shafts will be around 400mm and angled and obviously I lose a little where the uprights go into the corner pieces, I reckon it should be around 110cm max build height.

I figure I can print a full size, small child in one go or a one piece plastic guitar.
I suspect that it's actually too much height, and maybe 600mm might have made more sense, but I've got the bits now :-)
I have been running a few stupidly large virtual prints through s3d, and for anything - even hollow items - much over 700mm you will need more than 1kg of filament.
Which - like many parts of this project - brings me back to the filament joiner I started to make earlier in the year and had completely forgotten about lol
So that's back on the agenda.

Plus the plan is to sell and deliver and setup, to small business who want a large print volume but who don't have much cash. Nobody below the several hundred thousand price range actually does delivery and setup. I reckon I can get it all in for under £3'000 and still clear a pretty decent profit.
So far I've been astonished at the quality of parts I've got for bugger all money.
I didn't really think the hotend through and I'm not that keen on the e3d j end mounting setup. But hey I've got all of £6 invested in that (after talking to e3d at the tct show, it turns out it's not genuine - lol), so might simply switch to a volcano/tornado ? hotend as long as it's got screw mounts not just a cylinder that needs gripping.
Autowhiz uses those and that's a guy who's built a hi-end gaming computer into his car - simply because he could.
If he's using a part, then it's as good as it gets.

The vibration thing is going to be interesting with the flying extruder. As while the extruder is not on the effector it is still attached to the carriages.
tevon just use timing belt to suspend theirs while wasp use silicon tubing and the thing constantly shakes like elvis on meth with parkinsons disease.
But they still have fast printing and clean prints - so that's currently a suck-it-and-see issue.

I'll probably start with timing belt and see how it goes.
The drive belts will need to be really tight, thinking I might need to upgrade to reinforced. But we'll see once it's fully built and everything is moving around I'll have a much better idea what needs changing.

If you look around there is a review where they took the mini delta to bits, looks like standard nema 17's to me.

And bear in mind that monoprice are currently the worlds no 1 3d printer retailer, so their bulk prices are not comparable to anyone elses.

If you say $3 for a nema 17, $10 for a board, 10$ for the screen and maybe $15 for the frame and $10 for everything else. And that's probably too high.
You can make the whole thing for around $60.
Definitely under $100.
And as long as they work, they are just going to fly off the shelves.
Their little mini side build plate machine is already the world's best selling 3d printer - I reckon sales of the delta will go past that at a gallop.

It's just such a cute, neat bit of kit. Had the monoprice woman not been so attentive at the tct, there's a chance it would have gone into my bag :-)
She'd probably been fending off would be thieves all day.

This review shows the motors. Given the size of the base they look like standard 17's to me. https://hackaday.com/2017/08/21/mono...-delta-review/

Very good review.
Though it looks like these people don't actually learn. It will probably need a ptfe tube inserted. Given how short the bowden tube is. This should be an ideal machine for flexibles, but not with a break between the bowden tube and the hotend.
That's just something no printer should ever have. Other than that, no negatives in the review.

Now they just need to get them out in the uk so I can buy myself a christmas present lol
I've actually got two jars of loose change that will probably cover 90% of the cost once I've spent three hours putting it into money bags and taking it to the bank :-)

At the end of this build I will still have 5 nema 14 motors left over and a cheapo board. So could print a mini delta frame, use wheels instead of linear bearings.
We'll see, I could really do with a decent sized laser engraver, so might look at that instead. nema 14's would be fine for that.