My first trip to MicroCenter

[Bassna]

Awesome place!!! Can't believe I have not been to one before. It was about a hour away from me, they had a nice big 3D printing section. I picked up a few Inland 1KG spool's while I was there, $15 a spool

They had quite a few 3D Printer's on display also. Good price's also, I may try to pick another one up within a few month's from there. Not to mention the whole rest of that huge store. I will post about how this filament run's when I print some thing's.

[desertstriker8]

Place is awesome I went to the one in Cambridge and built a nice micro atx PC! Gotta go back and see their 3D printer selection, their powerspec printer is calling my name!

[jimc]

i visited my first one over the summer. walked out with stuff to build a lower end workstation pc for me to model on. it was a cool place for sure. i went to the one in philly. they didnt have a big 3d printing secion. there was some stuff at one counter and sort of scattered. the printing section was quite disorganized at the time. the inland filament is toner plastics of which i have printed about 8 spools of the abs and its fantastic quality. all made in US filament.

[Marm]

Hmmmm... they must have changed their tune over the last 20 years or so. I haven't been to one in about 10-15 years, and back then, they were no better than walmart is today.

[jimc]

now they are more like newegg but only computer and electronics. none of the household stuff

[Bassna]

Place is awesome I went to the one in Cambridge and built a nice micro atx PC! Gotta go back and see their 3D printer selection, their powerspec printer is calling my name!

Yeah I would have went with that printer myself if I would have known probably. Got a Flashforge creator pro few months ago, about $650 more >.<

They also had the da Vinci 1.0 printer for $399 there. Don't know much about that printer but other than the "Proprietary software" I have noticed in the spec's, great price

[ssayer]

If you have a Creator Pro (or PowerSpec 3D Pro), you would never ever ever be happy with the Da Vinci. It was my first (and second) try with 3D printers.

[Feign]

Bassna, the problem with DaVinci isn't the proprietary software, but the proprietary filaments, sealed in cartridges with chips in them to prevent the use of cheaper generic filaments.

I went to the "local" Microcenter (it's sort of a long drive) about six months ago, and they only had Makerbot on display, but had a list of printers they could order... Has that situation changed? Have they've actually given some other printers shelf/display space yet?

[Bassna]

Bassna, the problem with DaVinci isn't the proprietary software, but the proprietary filaments, sealed in cartridges with chips in them to prevent the use of cheaper generic filaments.

I went to the "local" Microcenter (it's sort of a long drive) about six months ago, and they only had Makerbot on display, but had a list of printers they could order... Has that situation changed? Have they've actually given some other printers shelf/display space yet?

Yeah the one I went to had atleast 12 different printer's on display, maybe about 4 or 5 were Makerbot type's, then the Powerspec, da Vinci 1.0 and 2.0. It was a bit crowded so I didn't get to look around that much. The filament was behind a counter, and had to have the employee grab the box's to look at, so that was kind of annoying. Could kind of see what each one was, but would be nice to be able to pick it up and look.

That would suck having to buy their specific filament so even at $400 I'd say that is not worth it :P. But that Powerspec for $800, what is the real difference between that and the Creator pro, if someone has used both?

[Marm]

Feign, the proprietary software is part of the problem now. If the Davinci detects a flashed chip, it reports back to the parent servers in asia that you're using a flashed chip, and they can remotely lock your machine now. I'm not unhappy with my Davinci, but I can't say I'm happy either.

I've had bad luck with PowerSpec machines in the past, So I chuckle a bit when I see that brand still around, I'm guessing that's a Microcenter brand, since that's where I bought my machines previously.

But now that I think of it, I'm pretty sure the last Powerspec I owned was a 386 in '91 (?), soooo they may have improved a bit since then.