Hi,
that is nice to hear, that there are more people having a Sintratec printer. I come from Germany and i have to import the powder from Sintratec into the EU. Hopefully there will be a reseller avaible in Germany in future. I think if there is no reseller in US you will have the same import issues like me. I do not use the printer for commercial purpose. In that case for me in is no problem to order it directly at Sintratec. It takes about a week, if the dokcuments are ok.

If you have an short-circuit fault you will destroy your USB host controller. That is very bad. If you use an USB hub with short-circuit fault prevention you will not destroy your computer.
A short-circuit fault is possible if the cable of the of the IR lamps get contact to case. I have used capton tape to protect the cable. But the protection was not good enough. After some print and optimization the current goes through the capton tape.....
New version of the kit are better because they have an different IR lamp cable with protect i think up to 400 C. If you have glass fiber fabric cable you have the new one.
But after i have a short-circuit fault i have learned and will not connect the printer directly.