Close



Results 1 to 3 of 3
  1. #1

    Purchasing a 3D printer with a service contract

    Are there companies, especially in the lower New York state area (New York City/Westchester County region) that lease or sells sub-$5000 3D printers and also provides service contracts? I haven't had much luck researching online.

    The company I work for has decided that adding a 3D printer into its workflow would be beneficial, especially for prototyping and reviewing designs before sending off to be manufactured in China. Our needs include printing draft prints for quick reviews and don't really need a large industrial 3D printer. Something more modest would be best, especially as we start to test the 3D printing waters.

    I'm personally advocating for less expensive devices with the potential of having two or more running at the same time rather than one expensive device. I'm providing lots of information regarding what's available but my company feels it is important to purchase a printer from a reseller that could service a 3D printer should anything go wrong, similar to the contracts we have with large companies like Canon to service our color printers when necessary.

    I suspect what I'm describing doesn't exist at this sub-$5000 level as the cost of service versus the cost of the printer wouldn't make it economically feasible (in other words for the cost of having someone service a 3D printer, you could purchase a new one instead).

    Any thoughts about the matter from someone in a similar situation?

    Thanks!
    Pierre

  2. #2
    From what I can tell, you as the owner need to know how to service the unit in your price range. If you have not looked into MakerGear, they are US company based in North East OH.
    Their printers are work horse professional grade in your price range. When properly maintained you can count on there products to function for years without issue.
    I don't have experience with any other printers other than my MakerGear which I purchased to have a highly accurate machine that would work for many years without issues.
    That said, you still must perform regular maintenance and understand how the printer works. This is not set and forget technology at the price range you are looking in.
    Good luck with your search.

  3. #3
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2014
    Posts
    8,818
    have a look at either the flashforge adventurer 3 or monoprice voxel (exactly same machine).
    The monoprice rebadged is cheaper, under $400.
    While the flashforge has some extra software and links to an online file service.

    It's about as close to a plug-n-play as you can get and the flashforge service is either very good or atrocious, depending on the review in question.

    As far as renting a lower end printer - not seen anything round here. You can rent the 3dp machines and the super expensive multimaterial machines. But for the multi-jets you're looking at thousands a month plus materials.

    Basic 3d printers aren't difficult to maintain, service contracts are generally a waste of money.

    Your best bet is to get a cheap machine around $500, and show them what it can do.
    Once you've convinced them start looking at machines like the leapfrog bolt: https://www.lpfrg.com/products/leapfrog-bolt-pro/
    One of the best sub $10,000 printers I've yet seen.
    Or just get a bunch of small cheap printers :-)

    Buying a sub $500 for proof-of-concept just makes more sense than spensing alot more on renting something that probably won't be much better, from a results point of view.

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •