Looking for first 3d printer

I am looking for a 3d printer for school work and my own personal use afterwards. I have put together for my class a 3d printer already that used an arduino board and printed couple of test items to show we got it work right. We also printed off items for class work with the Stratasys Dimension 1200. So for the printer I would like to have the Stratasys did was print off dis-solvable support material along side the filament that the part is made out of to help keep it from messing up badly with the easy of removing it. I am looking around the 300 dollar area for the printer. Can I get everything I want for that or do I have to compromise with something that will with out the dis-solvable filament

This is a side note but just looking for the 3d printer my brother showed me not sure if they are still in business. With that I would like figure it out just for looking to see what they have developed in the last couple of years. I don't have much memory of the printer but it looked like a maker-bot style but with aluminum case along with I think it was addable acrylic panels. They were also developing a way to recycle printed filament back into the machine itself. If you could point me in the company's direction that would help me.

you need a dual extruder and Vanish soluble filament (or similiar pva based material) :-)
Can you get a decent dual extruder setup for $300.

Probably, it'll be a kit and most likely it'll be a pita to setup. But yes, should be doable.

No clue on the mystery printer :-)

The soluble filament is something that Stratasys developed and other companies are only starting to match. Airwolf is one company that's supposed to have a comparable solution (I haven't tried it myself): https://airwolf3d.com/shop/water-sol...port-3d-print/. As Aardvark says, you need a dual- extruder printer to print support material as well as the part itself. Printers at the ultra-low end of the market don't come with dual extruders. Stratasys machines cost about 100 times what you're looking to spend; the Airwolf machines are only about 10 times that.

3D printer companies have talked for some time about making their machines recycle unwanted parts into new filament, but so far I haven't heard of one that was actually on the market as a recycling printer. There are various machines like the "filastruder" which can produce filament from raw pellets, but they don't include a grinder for recycling. There are other problems with that idea, like contamination, and the tendency of plastics to fatigue after multiple melts.

I've got a roll of Vanish.
Works well - the bizarre thing is if it wasn't soluble it be the ideal filament.
Super tough, you can't snap the dry filament by bending back and forwards for a few minutes. And it's also very hard.
It's like polypropylene property wise - just water soluble.

I have printed a couploe of objects with it and they do dissolve in water really well.
Got a timelapse of a 'snowflake' melting, that's not as good a video as it could be.

I've got a statue to print before christmas, so it'll be properly tested on that.

But so far it looks pretty good.

for around the $300 mark you can get one of these: https://www.ebay.com/itm/CTC-3D-Prin....c100005.m1851

They do work, but ctc aren't known for their build quality or customer service.
On the plus side - you can get spares for them pretty much everywhere as the replicator clone is probably one of the most numerous 3d printers on the planet.
Hell I've got 2 - but not ctc :-)

If I got the correct site the Vanish filament is only shipped in the United Kingdom, so I would need a 3rd party to even ship it to me for even trail. I do have a question about the stuff from Microcenter if its any good and does dissolve in water or does it need a chemical. This is only because I live very close to a Microcenter and can stock up on filament easier. I might have to lower down my price range I am guessing 250 but not sure exactly the the true cost if I get the printer sooner rather then later. I have been looking at couple of the Zonestar printers on Gearbest site along with He3d but more on Aliexpress.

I have figured out my mystery printer the Makibox and I have read most of the people never received theirs so this was a big scam I am thinking.

Makibox wasn't a scam - just people who had no clue about how to run a business, I was one of the people who didn't receive their makibox.
Don't get me started :-)

You can get pva soluble filament lots of places - but bear in mind it's only of any use if you have a dual extruder. The ctc is probably your best and cheapest bet in that regard.

This is the one that I was thinking of going with if they were still in business, but I just was reading what people commented on and other news articles to see if the company was still around.

I should ask about this does filament color affect the printing process of the model. I did find one around the $240 mark it is Zonestar P802QR2, but I will go with the other one later when I have access to more money at the time. I need this soon too for school to print out the prototypes on this printer and have the Objet30 Prime print out everything in a better looking model for class.

The I am curious if there is something like Simplifed3d that you can have your model change flow rates and temperatures with different sections of the model for free?

Cura and slic3r pribably also do that.

Makibox went under over 4 years ago. Where on earth did you find info on it ?
plus it pretty much didn't work. The hotend they went with for mass production, was different to the prototype and just never worked.

Pretty much articles and youtube comments on his original showing of the assembly and printing of the printer.

I does HIPS filament dissolve in water or does it need a special chemical to have this happen because the PVA at the store sounds like its close to the Esuns which is spongy like material and doesn't hold up well with weight it looks like.

HIPS is not water soluble, it requires a solvent, I think acetone works. Also, I do believe slic3r has multiple processes (I know it has variable layer heights). Cura has an adaptive infill that creates denser infill around walls and stuff, but leaves the center parts more hollow. I find that particularly cool because it makes sense, most of an object's strength comes from it's outer shell. Dense infill in the center of objects doesn't help much for the overall strength. Things like bones use this type of structure to keep a good strength to weight ratio.

PVA works fine as a support material. No it's not a super strong structural material but it doesn't have to be. The 'spongier' it is, the easier it will be to remove.

hips won't dissolve in acetone - you need limonene. Yeah the same stuff that's supposed to repel mosquitos.

Pva and warm water are your best bets.

And yes a filaments colour does effect how it prints.

support material isn't there to hold weight, it's mainly there to support plastic until it sets - at which point there is no weight bearing down on the support.
It's certainly not 'spongey' - fairly flexible maybe, but that's not an issue.

Ahh, my bad, haven't read too much into HIPS but I guess I assumed since ABS and HIPS both contain styrene. Ohh well, at least you wont have to deal with mosquitoes ;p

Serious note: PVA is much nicer to deal with, large vats of acetone (if you want to try ABS dissolvable support...?) or limonene are neither cheap nor particularly safe to handle and be around.