Just be prepared to put money into it to make it better.

For just over $500 I can produce prints as good as my buddy's $1000 Orion Delta, to which he still had to add a V6.

6 months later I still get customer support from XYZ (just got a new x-axis tensioner from them).

If you think of the Davinci as the substrate to build your printer from, and find a great deal on it, it is hard to beat in my mind.

I can't think of a machine that you won't add money to or mod at some point. Many 3D printer buyers seem to think that all they have to do is plug it in and go. The market is heading that way and many are hyped as such but currently we are not there yet.

In the beginning of the industry that was the attraction to build and mod your printer to do what you wanted and needed. It was unheard of to find one that did what you wanted out of the box. I thinks it will still be a few years before we have plug and play 3d printers that will not require any mods or upgrades after purchase. I have bought 5 printers over the years myself since 2008 and in the case of each i spent and additional $200 to $300 in upgrades to get what I wanted out of it.

I have added no mods and plan not to on my Ultimaker 2+. My Fabrikator Mini added a LCD display and my Duo new hotends and extruders.
Every machine should be ready to plug in and print unless it's a kit.

Everything about the DaVinci is flawed. Design, customer support, software, filament and hardware are all terrible. So people mod them voiding the warranty therefore they change the design, void customer support, change the software, use better filament, and add better hardware. In the end you basically built a kit printer out of an existing printer.

I like the CTC Replicator Dual, but I would prefer a metal version like Carl has. I would also prefer that "my hypothetical metal version" has something other than a mighty board so stock gcode files would run on it, with E3D volcano extruders while I'm at it (I think E3D actually sells one close to what I'm describing).  As you might have guessed, none of that was in my original or my "second time around" budget for a 3D printer, so I bought what was.

Do your research and buy the closest you can get to what you want that you can afford. Then be happy with what you bought.

I tried sticking with the stock version of XYZcrapware. It sucks, customer support is embarrassing, extruders fail to push even the xyzprinting filament after a few months, and the stock nozzles are crap. Buy a better machine that you won't have to upgrade out of the box. My Duo is now a lot better from stock but had to put $200 of upgrades into it.

Basically buy a better machine with that money.

I can't think of a machine that you won't add money to or mod at some point. Many 3D printer buyers seem to think that all they have to do is plug it in and go. The market is heading that way and many are hyped as such but currently we are not there yet.

In the beginning of the industry that was the attraction to build and mod your printer to do what you wanted and needed. It was unheard of to find one that did what you wanted out of the box. I thinks it will still be a few years before we have plug and play 3d printers that will not require any mods or upgrades after purchase. I have bought 5 printers over the years myself since 2008 and in the case of each i spent and additional $200 to $300 in upgrades to get what I wanted out of it.

Basically buy a better machine with that money.

Save your money and don't buy anything for XYZPrinting.

Oh wow this is HELPFUL!