Professional 3D Printers can be expensive and bulky, making them unsuitable for use at home, but there are now a number of 3D printers suitable for desktop use. Home 3D printing is still in its infancy and many home 3D printers are shipped in self-assembly kits, whilst other affordable 3D printers come pre-assembled.
- MakerBot's Thing-o-Matic (pictured above right) is an open source 3D printer from MakerBot Industries.
- RepRap is a FOSS 3D printer, with full specifications released under the GNU General Public License.
- Fab@Home is a an open source personal injection printer developed at Cornell University, designed for printing food and many other materials.
- 3D printer kits can also be bought allowing resourceful DIY-ers to construct their own 3D printers. Kits exist for Thing-O-Matic, Ultimaker, and Shapercube 3D printers.
- For those with a bit more money and space available a HP Designjet 3D Printer will arrive on your door step fully assembled and ready to start work. They are bulky (203 x 152 x 152 mm) and likely to set you back around £11,000 or $17,000.Printers 3D.
- 3D@Home's Cube 3D Printer is a pre-assembled 3D printer aimed at home and hobby consumers and retails for around $1,299.
- Buildatron Systems' Buildatron 1 3D is another affordable 3D printer suitable for home use.
- The Origo and iModela iM-01 are both affordable 3D printers aimed at children.
- The Printrbot is one of the cheapest 3D printers currently on the marketand is shipped as an easy to assemble kit.
- Ultimaking's Ultimaker is an affordable open-source 3D printer.
- Essential Dynamics' Imagine 3D Printer is a syringe based 3D Printer that comes fully assembled, and prints out a variety of materials, including food, chocolates, silicone, cheese, epoxy, organics, etc. The Imagine 3D printer retails at around $2,995.
UP! 3D Printer
The UP! personal 3D printer from China, is designed and marketed to be an affordable and portable 3D printer for home use. It costs around $1500 for the fully assembled printer, with refill plastic costing around $50 per kg. It has a resolution of 0.3mm. The finished models show striations from successive layers of printing, but minimal sanding results in a smooth finish.
If an object is an irregular shape, featuring extrusions, or unable to stand without support, the printer software conducts a full analysis and adds support struts on the fly. These have to be removed with a hobby knife or scalpel after printing.