I wanted to use them for making art pieces, primarily. And I'm a DIY kinda guy, so it seemed like I'd have better control and save money by keeping it in-house. But getting them to work and keeping them working was a lot more work than I thought it would be. If what you really want is the end product, and not a new hobby tinkering with balky machinery, using a service bureau or someplace like 3DHubs makes a lot of sense. You pay a little more per part, but you don't have to pay for parts that aren't good, and you're not stuck with any particular machine - if you decide you want finer resolution, or a larger print, or full color, etc., you can just find someone with a machine that can do that particular job. Leave the headaches to someone else...

Andrew Werby
Juxtamorph.com