RepRap Vs. MakerBot

[dream3d]

In my opinion, Makerbots are great for beginners who want to learn about the printing process as quickly as possible. They require minimal tuning out of the box in order to create great prints. They're great plug and play devices. On the the other hand owning a RepRap requires a significantly higher knowledge technical skills in order to calibrate the printers. RepRaps can take longer to start making good prints, but the knowledge you gain about the printing process and how the printers operate is invaluable. It's kind of like Mac vs. PC. The only thing that matters is how involved you want to get with understanding the machine.

[navkram]

Here is my 2 cents, I have a Orion From seemecnc.com its a delta, comes fully assembled base on the Rostock MAX kit just smaller. Steve and John are great people to work with and has a very helpful forum. It also comes with sdcard with a couple files on it, I actually set it on my desk scrolled through the sd card menu and clicked print and I could not ask for a better first print. and its open source.

[KDog]

I'll throw my 2 cents in again for open source and a kit. Newer kits like the prusa i3 are not very hard to put together and the amount you learn while doing so is invaluable to learning to print. You may be able to print right away with your Makerbot but if you are not handy enough to build a reprap then you are not going to be happy when your $2000+ closed source printer starts to go south. I really don't see the appeal of a Makerbot at all but I'm certainly biased towards open source printing.

BTW, I do see the appeal of Macs over PCs but I did spend many years working on PCs before switching to Macs so I do know what to do when my Mac breaks down.

[MeoWorks]

I'll throw my 2 cents in again for open source and a kit. Newer kits like the prusa i3 are not very hard to put together and the amount you learn while doing so is invaluable to learning to print. You may be able to print right away with your Makerbot but if you are not handy enough to build a reprap then you are not going to be happy when your $2000+ closed source printer starts to go south. I really don't see the appeal of a Makerbot at all but I'm certainly biased towards open source printing.

BTW, I do see the appeal of Macs over PCs but I did spend many years working on PCs before switching to Macs so I do know what to do when my Mac breaks down.

Took the words right out of my mouth, even down to the Mac VS PCs part . Good post KDog!

[TopThiniverse]

I agree, that some of the RepRap kits can be quite easy to assemble. However, owning a RepRap is more of a hobby within itself. You not only have the hobby of 3D Printing, but also a separate hobby of RepRapping.

[AbracadabraMan]

I agree, that some of the RepRap kits can be quite easy to assemble. However, owning a RepRap is more of a hobby within itself. You not only have the hobby of 3D Printing, but also a separate hobby of RepRapping.

I don't know if I agree with this. I know several people that own RepRaps and only do so because they wanted an affordable 3D Printer. They are not into the RepRapper community at all. They could care less about upgrading, or doing anything related to a hobby.

[ScharkAlvin]

Makerbot took the design work from RepRap, and then commericialized it. They have also closed source their design. Personally, I would not buy one from them. I've read some reviews that pointed out problems with the current Replicator printers where they went nuts and started "vomiting spaghetti" (clogged extruder?). Mind you just my opinion, but there are other 3D printer companies that are keeping the code open source, and I would patronize them before I bought a Makerbot.