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Comment by brianbreslin | Hacker News Reader

question/poll: at what price point will you buy a 3d printer for your home?

For me it was the 500 dollar mark. So far it's managed to make some trinkets and a car part that didn't exist but I needed to fix the electrical system in a 20 year old car. I wouldn't say it's "paid for itself" yet but it's certainly such an interesting thing that I don't mind.

"Was"? Where can you find one at the $500 mark?

Was because I own one now, so the question of where it has to fall is already answered.

I got in on the kickstarter for the printrbot and got it at $500, they sell in the store at $550 now [1][2]. Though apparently only the woodcut versions.

They do however have the [3] Jr version that's only $399 but I have NO idea how well it works.

[1] https://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-lc/ [2] https://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot/ [3] https://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-jr/

The price I am prepared to pay can be significantly altered by the avaliability of models to print. At the moment I would pay about $250. I've checked through http://www.thingiverse.com/ and have seen a few trinklets that would be fun to print out. My son would probably get a kick out of it. But without content I wouldn't consider spending much money.

However, if the right content was avaliable, I would be willing to spend up to $2500 on a 3d printer.

What is 'the right content'? At the moment, I don't know! 3D printing needs a 'Killer app'. I'm waiting for the 3D printing equivalent of VisiCalc...

Well, I know a killer app would be if it printed circuits. That's the obvious one, but it's a long ways off. I don't know if there's something before that that's a killer app. There may be.

I'd pay $100. Mainly because I feel no desire to get one. I can think of a couple things I might build with it, but after that, what would be the point?

Call it a failure of imagination on my part, but imagination can be stimulated by inspiration. I haven't seen anything remotely inspiring about home 3d printing so far.

$1000.

But only when it can do metal.

Or at least much stronger/better surface finish plastic

Between 500 and 1000 dollars, most probably. With good speed and precision, if possible, and open tools.

$400 with the precision of the MakerBot Replicator 2 (EDIT: 100 micron)

Replicator 2 is actually at 100 micron not 10. None of the FDM printers can get 10 micron that I'm aware of. The printrbot that I got for $500 I've been able to get to do 200 micron pretty easily (in fact it prints best at 200 micron). Though the printrbot has needed a bit more fiddling than I believe the makerbot systems need, it's certainly heading towards your direction.

Actually, a reprapper has been able to do 20 microns. But it's after a bunch of tuning on his part, and I'm sure they were slow prints. (14.5 hours for the yoda, where as when I printed it at 150 microns, it took 2.5 hours). But yes, 20 microns has already been achieved.

http://www.makergear.com/blogs/frontpage/6591695-20-microns-...

https://davedurant.wordpress.com/2011/10/12/ultimaker-faq-bu...

In the second link, you can scroll down to see what 20 microns looks like up close. That orange thing on the left is his thumb. There's about 10 layers to one line on his thumbprint.

Hopefully soon! I would also love if they were fast (like <1 min for an iPhone case fast). I wonder if the future will be extrusion or the photo-sensitive liquids that some printers are using.

considering a makerbot2x ~ http://store.makerbot.com/replicator2x.html is $2800 and cheaper than high end laptops, quality of materials like PLA with 100micron resolution, not long ~ http://www.makerbot.com/blog/2012/09/19/high-resolution-make...

A I would pay 500USD for a Prusa Mendel or equivalent. More for something more sophisticated.

Once Walmart stocks it. This will easily take off once it's sold like normal printers at retail chains, even at moderately high price points.

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