Keep a close eye on ebay for the guy selling the returned Flashforge Creator Pros. I got some very good deals on like new printers that just needed a little adjustment to get them going. Even with shipping I paid less than half of new. It is a small gamble but worth it I think.


Quote Originally Posted by fredk View Post
If someone were to drop one of those in my lap for $800 I wouldn't say no, but that's way above my budget. I missed out by a day on a used Flashforge Creator Pro for $550. At that price I would probably have given up on the larger bed for now.


I have no design experience, so I have no idea how slicing and gluing might affect structural integrity on a part.

I'm of half a mind to go back to the original plan and buy the base Tevo Tarantula kit for $330 CAD and play with that to really understand what my needs are. I would imagine there is quite a learning curve for 3d modeling and printer setup to get whats in my head to turn into a real usable part.

I normally like to buy once and, other than minor mods, be done with it. There is not much technical info on these low end printers, so even when I buy one with an 'all metal' head, it is not clear what that really means or if I can work with higher temperature parts. Everyone seems to have all metal hot ends these days, but I imagine that they are not all created equal.

Materials is a whole other can of worms. I've been looking into PETG for the last couple of days. It looks to hit all the marks with a bonus of no/little toxic fumes while printing. The one downside is for some things I would want to bond to PVC, ABS, or acrylic. There are lots of good bonding options for poly-carbonate and ABS, but only one for PETG.

Hmm, buy a cheap printer (that works) and loads of different materials? Or maybe a lottery ticket...