Looking to buy a 3D printer for school, any recommendations?

I've been asked to source a new 3D printer for the school I'm working at. The budgets been set around the £3,000 mark and knowing it's becoming more popular in the combat robot world I wondered if you guys have any suggestions. Main priorities are:

1. Build speed - I'll be using it with entire groups, and the current desk top one is taking the best part of 2 weeks per group!
2. Reliability + after market support
3. Ease of use - The kids need to be able to use it
4. Build quality
5. Ideally be able to print models that are more durable than the current ABS ones. (Fingers crossed we'll be making robot parts in the near future)

Beside playing with the desk top FDM printer at school I've little experience so any advice appreciated.

Thanks

Dan

First up what qualifies as low build speed to you/ what is the current printer you have?

Also stronger is trickier pushes the price up quite a bit.

For your price range there are only really a few options in terms of speed and materials.
You have the FDM machines such as the makerbots/UP and others, and then you have the steriolography (I think that's how you spell it) such as the Form 1 and the new one Autodesk are producing which uses a UV laser to cure resin from a wet tank.

Each have their own pros and cons, for school work I would go with an FDM machine that can print ABS. It's still about the strongest material structurally you can print without spending a fortune. The biggest issue with FDM machines is still the parts warping and stressing as they cool, particularly on larger builds. If you want small detailed parts for show, then the Form1 style printer is great. All of them can be a pain to get used to to be able to produce good prints though.

If you want a great quality print and almost perfect everytime then the price range shoots up by over another 25k for objet machines. We have an Objet 30 which is amazing, but a little brittle for some things (and material is over £240/kg)

I have a form one. Cracking printer, great resolution on prints but I would not recommend for your application. It's a very delicate machine needing a good but of continual maintenance and the laser optics can easily be nackered.

Would look at a big builder 3d. within your price range, huge build volume and can take a range of materials. I plan on getting one myself sometime soon

As others have asked, what's your current printer?

For your money and school application and pure learning value you'd want to look at FDM/FFF machines (same tech really). I'd avoid any printer that only uses ABS as a filament as the fumes aren't pleasant (personal experience). A lot of the strength and quality aspects of a 3D print depend on the design of the part, some people perceive that 3D printing can create anything first time perfectly, I'm sure you have experienced this isn't the case.

I'm currently looking to change my printer UP! original, as it is a few years old now and I need something a bit more modern for what I want to do, I'd steer clear of the UP brand btw they come out top in reliability tests but other areas, build volume, software lets them down. I guess you could either go for a one big build area printer or 2 smaller ones just an idea.

I'd really recommend buying and reading this review magazine, they thoroughly test all the printers and give honest reviews - note it says the UP2 wins for reliability :P http://makezine.com/volume/guide-to-3d-printing-2014/

Alex

http://nicklievendag.com/

This guy gives a bunch of honest reviews as a proper user of the machines. Uses them for a good week or so at least and feeds back what he finds. It's cause of him I'm lining up a big builder 3d

Thanks for all the advice. We're currently using a 3d touch from 3d systems, but find the print quality isn't great and it's reliability is awful!

Sadly with the glut of machines on the market, that's the case these days for a lot of them. I'd definitely stay away from the new makerbot machines. Haven't seen any positives about them

3D systems have just bought out the Cube Pro. That looks very good from having a quick read.

We had two makerbot replicator 2's at my school, and they worked very well. Like most 3d printers they had their quirks, but we also had an afinia/up, a rapman 3000, and a prusa i3 and they were the easiest and most reliable to use. THey also have a huge userbase and decent customer service to boot.
I'm not sure if it applies in the UK, but in the US makerbot has a program to give schools 3d printers for very little money.

STAY AWAY FROM THE NEW MAKERBOTS!!!!!

They have nothing but negative reviews since they went closed source when they were bought over. Nothing but negative reviews online.

^^ I will add the caveat that the new ones (5th gen, 2X, mini, z18, etc) do all suck. But the plain ol replicator 2 did alright considering they gave it to us practically for free.

To be honest you could buy 5 Mendel90's (Mendel90's are some of the fastest non delta repraps around.) for £3000 or 7 i3's (Or buy 2 and save a load of money). For your application it sounds like reprap based would be ideal as then you can upgrade hotends and print in Poly/Carbon/Nylon filaments. Plus repraps have no end to their support.

Of course they take more tweaking than say a replicator but being able to finely control the printer means you can use nice cheap filament too and save money on print costs long term.

2 repraps and then put a bit of money aside to really tightening up the frame and hot end would still struggle to hit £1500 for a couple of fast very capable printers, that can repair each other. Layer heights can be as little as 0.06mm if you do it right.