Here is a list of some common 3D Printers seen frequently on eBay being sold for parts, not working, used, or just printers that people have given up on. These printers make a great candidate for a reprap conversion. This makes it affordable and fun to upgrade your printer into a high end 3d printing machine. Be sure to at these 3d printers to your search alerts and grab these on the cheap! Sometimes you will get lucky and those who are patient with alerts properly setup will win big.
Keep in mind this list is for those looking for a project and there is extensive hours and upgrades needed to get this back up and running.
3D Systems
3D Systems offers one of the most popular 3D Printer lines to be converted from proprietary to open source. I have to hand it to them, the design and engineering that goes into their 3D Printers is phenomenal. Keeping their system closed source, selling their parts and filaments at outrageous prices has deterred many consumers from buying their products. Those that do purchase these printers soon find maintenance, materials and fixing broken item worth more than just selling the printer. I see these printers all the time go up on eBay listed as used or for parts. Fortunately for the RepRap community this is a golden opportunity as these are built really well and have a very sturdy construction.
3D Systems Cubify
The Cubify 3D Printer has a build volume of 140x140x140 and is a nice desktop 3D Printer.
Most common issues with this printer are the expensive filament, very noisy and closed source firmware.
This is a great candidate for a RAMPS 1.4 conversion. The RAMPS board is compact, cheap and will have no problem running this build volume.
Check out this thread on RepRap conversion: https://goo.gl/gYPrpb
Search eBay for Cubify 3D Printer
3D Systems Cube
The Cubify 3D Printer has a build volume of 152x152x152 and is a media size desktop 3D Printer.
Most common issues with this printer are long print times, noisy, filament jams.
This is a great candidate for some boards like RAMPS, Duet Wifi, Mini RAMBo or MKS Boards.
It it built with high quality components like the linear slide rails and also would be somewhat easy to partially enclose for ABS Printing.
Search eBay for Cube 3D Printer
3D Systems CubeX (DUO or TRIO)
This is a well built monster of a machine. It has really nice steppers, bearings and motion components.
This printer has a build volume of 270x270x238 +/- and can be greatly increased when converting to a hotend like the E3D Cyclops…
A lot of CubeX owners have issues with the hotends, calibration, and the closed source software. One of the biggest incentives to convert these to RepRap is the duo or trio requires you to buy more filament spools. If you are buying them from 3D Systems then you are paying really high prices for that plastic. Converting to RepRap will pay for itself very quickly.
This would be a great candidate for some of the new 32-bit boards to handle the processing needed for the large volume prints. The printer is almost fully enclosed and side panels can be added very easily.
Check out this thing: https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1689321
Search eBay for CubeX 3D Printer
Monoprice Select Mini
The Monoprice Select Mini 3D Printer has a build volume of 120x120x120 and is a nice desktop 3D Printer.
The most common issues with this printer are the expensive closed source firmware, no touch screen, no auto bed leveling, and fragile parts (bent x-axis arm).
This is a great candidate for a RAMPS 1.4 or MKS SBase conversion with an MKS Touch Screen. It may be possible to just flash this board with Marlin or other Firmware, but we haven’t tried it yet
I’m not sure why I see this one for sale so much on eBay it’s a really great little 3D Printer. Definitely one to add to your search alerts to get it cheap!
Search eBay for Monoprice Select Mini 3D Printer
XYZprinting da Vinci 1.0
The XYZprinting da Vinci 1.0 3D Printer has a build volume of 200x200x200 and is fully enclosed.
The most common issues with this printer are bed adhesion, motion control, and closed-source firmware.
This is a great candidate for any open-source board as well as adding a raspberry pi with octoprint for full control over your 3d Printer.
These are often sold on eBay for parts as they break down a lot and owners do want the hassle to fix the issues.
Check out this project by Ryan Brewer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xzvfRrN-1lo
Search eBay for da Vinci 1.0 3D Printer
QIDI Tech X-One
The QIDI Tech X-One has a build volume of 150x150x150 and has a solid metal frame. This is one strudily built 3D Printer.
The most common issues with this printer are filament jams, noisy, and closed-source software.
The MKS SBase board is a perfect retrofit for this 3D Printer and can be paired with a 3.2″ TFT Screen.
The original board is a Chitu F brand 32-bit controller and may one day be compatible with Marlin so keep an eye out for that.
This will unlock this printer to its full potential enabling users to PID tune and upgrade the extruder to their heart’s content.
Search eBay for QIDI X-One 3D Printer
Stratasys Dimension (aka the golden unicorn)
I have seen and heard many stories about people getting these on craigslist and eBay super cheap. I have even seen some posts that people got them for free!!! Hench the golden unicorn. I still look every week on craigslist and have not found a free one yet.
I actually used to operate one of these 10 years ago and they are incredibly well built.
The build volume is 254x254x305 and it’s fully enclosed with chamber heating/air circulation as well as ultra-quiet.
Some of the issues today are the tech is old, it’s super closed-sourced, and everything on it is expensive – especially the filament.
To convert this RepRap will take much time, troubleshooting, and research but will be well worth the time as these went for $35,000 when they were new.
Upgrade these with a good 32-bit board.
So keep your eye out and if you get lucky let us know by posting a comment below!
Search eBay for Stratasys Dimension 3D Printer
Summary
So as you can see there seems to be a common theme among these 3D Printer models. Closed Source and Proprietary designs stunt the growth of this technology.
I see it all too often that companies try to corner the market by making everything proprietary. In our opinion, making filament closed source is just ridiculous. Why not sell high-quality filament at a fair price instead?
Also, keeping the firmware/boards closed source stunts the growth and future updates of the 3D Printer. Instead, why not contribute to http://marlinfw.org/ and help evolve 3D Printing?
The nice thing is that where these printers fall short it gives the maker community a good opportunity to learn and improve.
Hopefully, these manufacturers will offer more open-source models in the future and also learn from some of the awesome RepRap projects being done in the community.
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