Hey guys,

So with my birthday coming up next month I think I may treat myself to a 3d printer! For anyone asking I will be 17. So basically I have very little knowledge on what is ahead of me, although I'm familiar with the Makerbot and I've seen it in action. I've watched countless videos and reviews but never really gotten into it. I figured that I would want to build the printer mainly because I live by that if you build it you will understand how it works, that way if something goes wrong you're not in the dark. As for the software side I'm very good with computers, I'm very familiar with google sketchup and I'm teaching myself solidworks. If anyone has a program they know of that's a little easier to use please let me know. Anyway I'm going to be printing just little gadgets and stuff, I hate having an idea in my head and not being able to do something about that!

I read up on the 3d printing FAQ and read a few threads on here but I just need a little push in the right direction. I don't expect this to be a "press the green button and everything works" situation. I'm up for the challenge.

So basically my main question would be if you guys could recommend a quality printer for $500-1000ish. The more the volume to print the better. More often than not I will need a longer printing area, vs. having a much higher printing area. So maybe 16x16x6? (That has got to be expensive but I'm just tossing numbers out). I'll be putting this in my room right next to my computer.

If you have any questions for me, or if you have a heads up I might need please let me know. I'm sure I forgot to ask a few things in here, it's late here!


Thanks for the help,

Mathew