It’s amazing all these projects done on the 3D printers. A question from someone looking to get into this exciting past time. How much would I be looking at as far as cost for a basic set up?
~$400 USD
I think it depends on what you are going to use it for, what sort of quality you want and what size things do you want to make.
Also, how you define “basic”
I got a cocoon create touch from Aldi for $500 (AUD) and I’m very happy with it. (also they are usually around $800)
It’s the same as the Wanhao i3 plus.
I’d say somewhere between $600 and $1000 would be a good range to aim for, once you add in some filament etc.
…then there is the addiction of $$$ modifying your printer to make it better, just like a teenager gets addicted to modifying their car haha
You can start as low as USD $220 for the Monoprice Mini.
Not sure what your definition of basic set up is. It depends on what you want to do how much you are willing to tinker and at what level you want to learn about the printers and the craft. Pre-built or kit? In my opinion a good reliable starter printer with a mid range build volume (10 x 10 ish) will be in the $800 range.
My “Basic”? It was a 12 x 16 x 10 dual head precision printer with a heated bed. Now I have some larger printers and some smaller. Max cost was $1,400 and plenty of room for further upgrades.
It all depends wether you want to print or want to tinker with the printer itself. In the first case buy a good quality printer or a printer kit for about $800. In the second case buy one of these cheap Chines clones.
I sell a great printer kit for $325. Easy to modify into a laser or mill, tons of cool upgrades are developed and a community of almost 1000!!!
Assembly will take a day, but it’s all metal and open source and I’m here to answer questions!
A great learning tool and it produces high quality prints.
http://www.Reach3dPrinters.com
I also offer assembly for $150, but where’s the fun in that? 
I am the proud owner of a Reach 3D printer, and I couldn’t recommend it more! My wife bought it for me as a gift for my first 3d printer. Building the kit helped me to fully understand the printer so the repairs and maintenance that you will have to do with any printer over it’s lifetime will be easy to understand. Nate is also correct about the community around his printer. As I have had issues from time to time over my last year with my machine, the Google+ community has been great support on top of the excellent customer service that Nate provides himself.
WoW…thank you for all the great responses. I was hoping to get a 3D printer so I could print myself a new car…LoL. Just kidding, all the responses made me think of things I didn’t know. Right now unfortunately I find myself unemployed but, as soon as I can scrape the money together. I think I might be calling Reach 3D Printers. Mostly because I’m thinking of making small stuff for other hobbies.
Again thank you
@Bernie_Bukoskey If you don’t have a 3D printer yet start with 3D CAD. There is good free and open source software out there. It will only cost you time and effort but the return is great once you have a printer.
I bought a clone from gearbest for about 160$ usd granted things have broke and I have spent more fixing things. It has been a learning experience. It came as a kit and required many hours of assembly as nothing was labeled and I had to watch a video to know how to put it together. But for a start into 3d printing, it is a low cost of entry.
@Eric_Buijs Thank you Eric, I never herd of this before. Thank you for the heads up.
@Fred_Brown Hello Fred, I don’t know if I would have the patience…LoL Although the price is appealing, but I’m not the most technical person. If I get a 3D printer it will already be put together. I’ll just have to make it a point to study how it’s put together and learn backwards. In fact most of the people say I’m backwards any way…haha
@Bernie_Bukoskey
The best free CAD software is Fusion 360. It’s free if your business, using it, makes less than $100k. Extremely powerful but a little challenging to learn. However, it’s professional, legit, $5,000+ quality program for free!!! High proficiency in fusion 360 would qualify you for almost any CAD modeling work.
I use google sketchup. It’s pretty good, but free version is limited and doesnt produce a “nice” format for other CAD programs, but can be used to 3d print, when converting its dae format to stl with meshlab or other conversion program. Its best quality… it’s extremely easy to learn and I have some YouTube videos that cover the basics in 20-30 min.
I’ve also heard tinker cad is good. It’s web browser based. Easier to learn, similar to sketchup probably, but must have access to Internet while using… I think. I’ve never used it.
Ultimately, if your 3d printing, you’ll be able to print lots of http://www.thingiverse.com models. What others have designed. If you want to make something unique, one of a kind, personalized or with custom application or purpose, you have to learn to 3d CAD model.
So if your kids’ toy breaks, and the part is impossible to order or find a 3d model of; well if you can CAD model, in just a few minutes you could be printing that broken part for a couple cents in plastic!
That’s the beauty of 3d printing.