can someone explain what the limitations or drawbacks of getting a cheaper 3d printer like “Prinrbot” and “Buccaneer”.
what makes them cheaper.
Well, the Buccaneer is an unknown quantity at this point so not much chance of getting good info about it. Printrbots on the other hand have a very large user base so a lot of folks to ask about their experiences. I have a printrbot GO and love it, but building it and getting good prints out of it has not been without some frustration.
Brook Drumm is a compulsive inventor as far as I can tell and generally more interested in developing the next thing rather than perfecting anything he’s already spat out. This leaves a lot of work for the community to tweak and improve, for better and for worse. But essentially, that’s the major downside of owning a Printrbot as far as I can tell: you’ll spend a lot of time tweaking and improving.
If I had it to do over again I might’ve built a Prusa i3 or a mini-Kossel, but I can’t say for sure I’d be any better off. The pb community is excellent and the product is sound, it’s just not plug-n-play by any stretch of the imagination. That said, there are no plug-n-play 3d printers just yet although a little extra money thrown at it will get you closer than pb does (UP Plus 2 perhaps?).
I can’t tell anything about Brook from personal experience but I own a #printrbot simple. I bought the printer as a beta product and got all improvements for free from printrbot. There also a lot of improved parts in the store and on thingiverse to print yourself. He (and his company) is very devoted to the improvement of his products and has a great attitude towards his customers.
The printrbot simple prints good quality but has some limitations:
- build size: it’s only 10cm x 10cm x 10 cm (there is an upgrade available)
- reliability: you have to watch each print at least for the first layers and I have to adjust the z height endswitch each day
- no heated bed: you can print PLA only and I had a lot of problems with a new brand of PLA (the printrbot supplied PLA worked extremely well)
Less profit 
Hahaha @Brook_Drumm - I’m sure learning that as of late.
@James_Hooten , basically people have worked pretty hard in getting the manufacture time down, spent time getting the most efficient components (as far as $/usefulness), and engineering mechanics so that less parts are required. Largely these machines aren’t much worse than something $400 more than what the printrbot sells for. The printrbot is a great intro machine to get into (though I’ve never owned one personally) and can serve as a bootstrapping platform if you ever decide you need something bigger or you want to build another (you will if you’re into this kind of stuff).
@James_Hooten basically you stop printing printers (not that it can’t) printing takes a long time (compared to other mass production techniques) so by reducing the number of printed parts in the product you increase the speed that they can be produced, by increasing the speed you reduce your labor cost and increase your supply. Now you can sell more of them at lower profits per box and make the same about of money. Yes they do make frugal design choices in other places, but that is the real logic imho.
Btw, I like the idea of rep-rap, but I think the goal should be a mass produced device that can print itself, not a device that is only made via 3d printing.
Edit: own a simple and love it.