Today my son and I decided that its time to retire our first FDM printer a Makerbot Replicator 2. We have had it for some 5 years and its done 3000+ hrs. That means its run over 1 1/2 hrs a day every day we have had it. That is a lot of printing and we consider it was a great buy. When folks asked about costs we assumed it cost £1.00 GBP an hour, its new cost at the time was £2,000.00 GBP It has done far better than we could ever have anticipated.
Even at the huge initia the cost of the hundreds, literally, of models we have produced have cost way less than commercial price even if you could get them.
However the cost of replacement parts for a now old and dated printer cannot be justified, better to spend £800.00 GBP on a new printer with better overall performance, quieter, capable of upgrading to multi filament and a heated bed.
Like cars there is an optimum time to replace unless you want to make it a labor of love. We have bought a few OEM parts which may bring it back but its time to say goodby so in the next few days we will be ordering a Perusa, Mk 3, the timing is right, especially as our governments approach to Brexit means things like food will soon be difficult to get, toys impossible possibly for months or years.
Farewell old girl Full Spools Ahead.
