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I'm skeptical of the Solidoodle. Why on earth is it so cheap? And it looks of such high quality.

I'm kind of wondering how a 3D printer could be so expensive ($500). I've made homebrew cnc machines before at around $200 or so.

and i bet if you added the overhead of running a business on top of that $200, $500 would be quite reasonable. packaging, customer support, sourcing, assembly, returns, advertising/marketing, all add up.

$499 model doesn't have a heated bed, which means it can only print in PLA, or very, very small ABS prints.

It doesn't specify what the head speed is, so think "slow". 50mm/s, if that.

The one with the heated bed is only $50 more. So still cheap. I was looking for reviews and the only thing I could find was this one:

http://renaissance-engineer.net/2012/03/08/how-time-flies/

"A review of the Solidoodle after numerous hours of printing. But for a few tuneup adjustments here and there, it has been problem free. If only there was a heated build platform the prints would be totally awesome (instead, as you might expect with ABS on a cold piece of acrylic, the first few layers are not even)."

I might take the plunge and get the $549 version. Although I must admit, I have no idea what I'd make with it.

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