Quote Originally Posted by DarkAlchemist View Post
I had a printer if you could call it that but I no longer do since I can't get a flat bed. If it can lay down a first layer it works wonderfully well. I was going to purchase a DP over the last year but China came in a screwed the pooch so even the older models were better than the current models. Over on another forum I was basically told that short of 1k for a DP the runout is horrible now since all sub $500 machines are made by the same factory in China and just rebadged. After asking around with owners of newer machines I must concur with that statement.
To tell you the truth, I have only had 1 single print fail (out of 50 so far) on the first layer with my Qidi printer. The failure was my first print and it was me testing if the printer could lay down the first layer without any glue/hairspray/bonding agent on the print bed. It obviously was not able to stick to the print bed without a bonding agent.

In reference to the machinery, we are talking about a drill press right? I ask because it sounds like you are expecting much better tolerances than is required. 1K for a drill press is completely overkill for a hobbyist unless you require exceptional tolerances. My drill press was $150 and is nothing amazing but it gets the job done and accounting for runout is just something a machinist has to deal with.

EDIT:
One of my mechanical eng. classes in college was all about tolerances and learning how to deal with them. Seriously, it was a whole class called "Geometric Dimensioning and Tolerancing" and all we did was machine + part tolerance work.