Help Please! Looking To Buy A 3D Printer

Im looking to order a 3d printer in the next few days. I wanna make sure that I buy a 3d printer that I wont have to upgrade for some time. Was wondering if there is a standard size or standard filament type that most printers are using now a days. I understand that before ABS 3mm was pretty standard but fast forward to today and I read that its PLA 1.75. So i was wondering if you guys could help me. I just want to know whats the most commonly used type and size of filament for most printers today?


Can someone please give me a better idea of whats the most popular filament type and size by ranking these in order of most popular to least popular please.
PLA 1.75, PLA 3mm, ABS 1.75mm, ABS 3mm


Thank you for your help. I really wanna get into 3d printing but i have a habit of needing to know anything and everything before i go into something new. Thank you for your help greatly appreciated.

Hi,
Some printers constructors ensure that all modifications are retro-compatible with kits (see Spiderbot, now 1.5, with kits to come up from 1.0 if you had one). But that's not really a rule. So be aware there's a good chance your machine will be obsolete 1 year after you bought it.

Most filament resellers sell 3mm and 1.75 mm for all their materials and colors so I wouldn't worry too much about that.

The material is something you need to worry about a bit more : if you want nylon, you need high temperature hot ends. For most materials a heated bed is recommended but it's specially true for ABS. If you want to print a large volume with ABS, an enclosed build is highly recommended. Then rubber-like materials (ex ninjaflex) are a bit tricky and may require modifications or special hot ends depending on what printer you choose. Some manufacturers limit themselves to PLA because 1/ it's not compulsory to have a heated bed or enclosed build area, making the machines simpler and cheaper 2/ PLA is green and not toxic.

So we go back to : what do you want to do with it ?

Once you have decided what materials you want to print with, what size you want to print and if you need multiple heads for color and support (or not), you'll have narrowed it down quite much. If you just want to take the cheapest, there are posts for that already.

Also, if you don't know how to design 3D models (printable), you might want ot head for a product that has the project to make its own library of validated printable models - like the ModT I think.

Hope that helped.

You might want to look at this thread also. There are numerous others here that address your questions if you search.

http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...se-some-advice