A guy i met a couple times has IIRC  has 4-5 davincincis he has rebuilt. He buys them cheap  for $100- $150 then put another $200 -$300 in parts. and they make good printers.

Well my building experience had led to the design of a chassis of my own that I am pricing up to have made.

I just need to get FreeCAD to do its job but keeps on spoiling the drawing, think its got a bug in there...

...
I recently produced a couple of tudor roses as decoration for a friends boat

Nice job there.

What paint did you use?

A friend worked a couple of summers at a canal boat yard repainting wooden and the metal hull varieties of canal boat while they were in dry dock being refitted. Nothing worse t han a fitter puncturing the hull and the boat become an insurance write off.

Anyhow, I think the pain is going to be really important, this is going back some 30 years ago and I do realise paint technology has moved on somewhat but, anything marine or waterway is subject to a harsh environment where exposure to moisture I think is going to be your pints nemesis unless it is properly sealed and your friend doesn't puncture the sealing finish. If its not sealed then its likely to absorb some moisture and start to swell or deform as the moisture creeps in or the paint if non marine grade may because of higher UV exposure, break down, water ingress, etc.

Crikey, I learned alot off my friend and I didn't even work there!

Anyway's, they look really a nice job.

I do own many Da Vinci 1.0, Jr., and miniMaker, because I bid them very cheap on ebay and replace the main board so that I can avoid all their problems while take advantage of the cheap prices. If you are not confident on your skills, stay away from xyzprinting.

As big fan of MonoPrice, I would recommend MonoPrice maker select V2 and MonoPrice maker select plus. You can get them for as little as $199 and $299 when on sale. They can be unboxed and assembled in less than 10 minutes and ready to print in less than half an hour. They are not problem free, and not plug and play 3D printer, but they are easy enough to use and are backed by their customer service and huge community support in wikiforum and facebook group.

The other alternative that I have no direct experience is Ender-3, cost as little as $160 when on sale, also backed by their customer service and huge community support in facebook group.

All above three printer do not offer enclosure, and therefore is not recommended for ABS printing without build a enclosure for it by yourself.

Budget
Your abilities

You can get some printers that are built and only need two parts bolting together and ready to go in minutes.

I bought a GeeeTech kit that was their idea of a Prusa i3 MK2 that the called a ProB and there is an I3 reference on the display. So DON'T GET ONE unless you want to test your limits, push your boundaries and (it could go both ways) end up in a hospital as a patient in Emergency or as an inpatient in the psych ward.

I went into the purchase of mine with my eyes open, I was willing to trade off the bad points for a machine that didnt need a lot of setting up, as my skills are in CAD and I just wanted to be able to print my designs - not mess around setting the machine up.
I have been happy with the results I have had. - I recently produced a couple of tudor roses as decoration for a friends boat

Alarmed to read the opinions on the XYZPrinting machines   Was actually coming here to try and figure out if the Davinci 1.0 that I'm seeing for three hundred bucks and change was capable of running open spool generic filament.  Hmmm.  The attractive things about the Davinci, besides the price obviously, is the AIO nature of the machine.  Is there any other budget/hobbiest level AIO machine that someone could recommend?

Disclaimer: I have no personal experience with these machines

That said, I have "heard" from many others that the scanner part of these machines is not all it is cracked up to be.
You would be further ahead buying a separate stand alone scanner and an open source printer.

Thankfully, you have done at least a little homework before spending any of your hard earned money on something that would most likely be a big disappointment

Take a look at the mono price line up and the Wanhao (same printers different label)

these are low priced  import machine but are not bad at least when new. And time will tell i guess.

the crealty machines are improving by leaps and bounds so at least worth watching a few reviews. 

and it depends on what material you want to print if you are planning on abs you need an enclosure.

For a starter you are better off with a Monoprice as they have better support, and are more common. They also do not use locked down filament that cost 3 times the market average.

Also lets talk filament. I have a suspicion that russel_etl might be partial to or even employed by XYZ. Their filament on average is twice the cost of the similar material on the market. They also give half of what you would normally get on the market. For example one of their proprietary cartridges usually contain 500G of filament at a price point of around $25 while the normal open source spools that most other printers use give you 1Kg at a price point $15 to $20 and as much as $35 for more exotic or high end brands. You will also use it much faster than he hints at as well.

As far as bed size goes you need to think about this before buying. What do you intend to print? What might you print when you get better at doing so. Will you print usable parts, or just little trinkets? Keep in mind printed item can be joined but that joint can be a weakness depending on intended use. So if the need to print the entire object arises then you need a bigger build volume. Most of us seem happy with around a 10 inch cube or so but there are a few that need even larger. Of course the larger the volume the higher the cost. In all honesty I myself would stay away from sub $500 printers as a first printer. My first was $800 and was all wood. But that was like 15 years ago with a cupcake from Makerbot.

Now you should be able to get a good starter for $500 to $1000 that will be fully open source and have most parts available on the market like ebay or amazon. It is a golden rule in the 3Dprinting world that you get what you pay for. If it $200, there is a reason for that low price. Just keep that in mind.

I actually purchased this printer for my son after reviewed this list (https://www.3dbeginners.com/best-3d-printer/), Because just they said the da Vinci Jr., the Mini only uses a proprietary XYZPrinting filament. This is fairly standard PLA material but it’s a little narrower than other brands’. This does mean that filament is slightly more expensive, but infrequent users will find that they don’t have to buy extra filament all that often anyway.

• Wanhao Duplicator i3 Mini
• Tevo Michelangelo Cantilever 3D Printer
• Anycubic i3 Mega Ultrabase 3D Printer
• Tevo Tornado 3D Printer
• Wanhao Duplicator i3 V2.1 Steel Frame
• Creality 3D CR-20 3D Printer V2.1

All these 3D printers are available at extremely cheap prices on websites such as 3D printers Bay etc.

https://www.3dprintersbay.com

https://www.homedepot.com/p/Dremel-Fact … DAody0cCCA