I spent over 10 years working for an auto manufacturer/importer and was astonished by how many ‘problems’ magically disappeared by invoking the simple advice to RTFM! (READ the Effing Manual)
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Who needs a manual?? 
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Hold on, a representative will be with you shortly …
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Well I think you guys have helped me make up my mind. It’s going to be a prusa printer for me but it will be in kit form because I can’t justify the coupled hundred bucks to have someone put it together for me. Plus I suspect shipping will be cheaper for the kit as well.
Also my salary is in loonies and the exchange rate sucks 
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So i just looked and a prusa kit is 750 usd. Why not make a repeat at that point? I just dont see that kind of money in that printer. Am i alone in this??
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No you are not! That is the reason I never got one.
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Ohhh, mine is not that caliber. It prints great but takes a lot of DIY, hardly any manual to speak of, not that sort of project. I actually think I am going to revamp it as soon as the LR3 dust settles.
My heart says that’s a great idea - my head says I’ll spend the three grand on a Prusa XL when the time comes. I would love to have owning a printer as my hobby rather than using one.
I have a printer which has regular updates provided by experts when the slicer tells me it’s time, and it just prints. I paid for that, I’d love to think I’d built it myself, but I’m happy with having the Low Rider as my hobby machine!
As always, I watch with interest!
And immediately a full plate print gets a dag on it and drags a corner of itself off the plate at the beginning of the second layer. That’s why you don’t walk away folks!
If you count first layer failures I’m going to revise my estimate to “better than 99.5%”! I can say that confidently because I’m almost at the end of the “great furniture component” print job - - around 600 parts as it turns out, and this is my third first layer failure (unless my bad memories are repressed), so I’ve lost a gram or maybe three of filament out of 7kgs.
A bit of dishwashing detergent and hot water fixes all. Is a first layer failure a failure?
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Because you’re paying for convenience. They come 95% built, unless you buy the kit, which is cheaper. Could you build a cheaper printer? Sure. Could you build a cheaper printer using the exact same hardware? Maybe? Sometimes the Ali gods will smile upon you and you actually get good hardware, but they are fickle gods, and if your blood sacrifice doesn’t please them your linear rails will be warped, and your lead screws will bind.
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Ain’t that the truth!
One would like to think one would be immune from that sort of thing when buying from Prusa…but then you have the postal service to contend with too…
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I started a few years back and thought I’d “try” 3d printing. I borrowed a small mini printer from a friend and printed some items until I “needed” something larger. I got a delta style printer and the wheels basically fell off. I traded it for an ender 3 and it was a train wreck until only recently when was I able to get to less than a 50% print failure rate. There is much to be said for filament quality, quality extruders, proper cooling, and good-quality-and-clean bed material, and calibrated equipment. All of this failure (“experience”) came at the cost of time.
I have a friend who bought a prusa. He followed the instructions and he printed my MPCNC parts and they are nearly perfect. The one that isn’t was from my cheap filament.
I would echo the prusa comments. The prusa printers are backed by those that have put in the time to fix all these issues and you will be leaps and bounds ahead of the time it takes to tinker and tune it. They have settings and a slicer that just work. It is a beautiful thing.
It is possible to get beautiful prints from cheap printers and I’m getting them now, but if you have the budget, save yourself a lot of time and buy a tool, not a toy. If you have time and no money, then buy what you can afford and expect to invest the time. Pay in time or pay in cash, but it will cost either way to get going in 3d printing to do it well.
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Prusa MK3 has been my main quality printer for the last several years. I also expect 0% fails from it and experience less than 1%. It is also faster than my custom built core XY machine and nearly twice the print speed of my Ender 3.
I think Prusa accomplished this through MANY efforts on different fronts. They eliminate so many possible issues through constant improvements over time. Slicer and firmware both get better every couple months. Hardware, over the last 5 years I have seen them replace several sensors, and add new build plates. I love the fact that it has so many automations built into it to prevent failed prints.
Hands down it is the best value per $ if you want a printer that will minimize failed prints with the least user intervention.
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