School 3d printers  

For which class(es)?

Where in the world are you? [Some jurisdictions limit imports.]

Which material(s) do you intend to print?

How much skill/experience do you have?

Will you do your own maintenance?  If not, do you have an experienced technical assistant?

And this is a Prusa forum so expect a little bias...

Cheerio,

RE:

@Diem I am currently from the USA

RE:

I’m a retired Community College instructor and used to have technology similar to this in my classroom. However, 3D printing is much more maintenance-prone than the LEGO robotics (FIRST), soldering and electronic stuff I used to do. Hands down, I’d recommend the Prusa MK3+. It has been used in Prusa’s print farms for years and has most operational bugs shaken out. I have a MK3+. The mini is something I considered, but I didn’t feel it was as robust as the MK3+. (But I haven’t owned one)

Some things you should consider for a school environment. First is Fume Hoods. Just for safety you want ventilation for the printer. Having them sitting under a large fume hood is a good way to suck up any micro- vapors and will reduce the need to put each into an enclosure and then vent. And at some point a parent will likely bring ventilation up as a concern.

A consideration most never think of is humidity control. Filament is hygroscopic and if you have  a relative humidity over 40% you’ll get problems with prints. So you might need to use DryBoxes and you might need an active dry box that will heat and dry filament. (Or a food dehydrator or similar). DryBoxes can be made by students relatively easily. In fact, when my technology was new, student projects often centered around building things I needed in the lab. 

I’d say to pick one type of filament and only use that for a long while to work out kinks and get used to the machine. Stick with PLA and the smooth sheet. 

Order a bunch of extra 0.4 nozzles as you’ll likely get some clogs from student use. I had to maintain finicky desolder stations and they are similar to these printers. Students who didn’t listen well to the training would clog up the glass tubes and some would break them so the whole organization of training and not letting them do too much early, is important. Start out really simple. Maintaining the machines likely will  keep you busy. Standardize on a single model so you can stock only one set of replacement parts.  Maintain your machines multiple times during a week. 

It’s certainly a great thing to teach kids and the things you can create with it are amazing. If I had these early I would have integrated them into my robotics stuff so the students could have built their own gears, drive trains and chassis. 

Posted by: @amandanichols

@Diem I am currently from the USA

OK, wrong continent... I'll back off and let your local users deal with most of this ... @crab's advice is basically sound, one thing I would add is get in a stock of latex gloves and insist on them being worn when setting up prints and loading filament.  It is entirely unnecessary but it is one of the easier ways to impress the need for cleanliness when students are introduced to the machine.

Cheerio,

RE: School 3d printers

In the US, look at Printed Solid. They were recently purchased by Prusa, and are the official US distributor specifically for schools and other institutions.

RE:

You'll also find many, many brands of PLA filament.. Some have additives that can be hard on brass nozzles, stay away from those.. I think Galaxy PLA is generally ok on nozzles, but some of the metallic PLAs (and carbon fiber) can ruin brass nozzles fast (and I think you want to stick to brass nozzles).. I'd stick with the stock PLA. Prusa's PLA is the best, but at least in Canada, its price is prohibitive. I found that EryOne's PLA distributed thru Amazon (or their own web site) is 90% as good as Prusa's and here it is over 3x cheaper and 5x cheaper when they have sales.. (which they often have lately). I would expect PrintedSolid to be more competitive and since Prusa has an educational focus, you might get a great deal if you buy printers and filament there. So far, I've liked EyrOne's standard PLA and PolyMaker's PolyTerra Plus. But I have not tried any of the other brands and many are really good.. Each manufacturer's recipe varies slightly, so it helps to standardize on a brand for a while so when things go wrong you can rule out filament. 

I might even contact Joe Prusa directly at Prusa to tell him what you are doing and maybe the company will set up a good program through Printed Solid.. When I did the FIRST (robotics) training, they had a relationship with LEGO and we got much stuff at discounted pricing.

RE: School 3d printers

What's your financing? It can be flashforge finder 2.0 , very comfortable for children

RE: School 3d printers

In general, if you have good funding, you can read this article https://43dprint.org/best-3d-printers-under-2000/ the printers are pretty high price, but worth it. Dremel DigiLab 3D40 FLEX is suitable for kids too. Easy to use and has a lot of good reviews. Sometimes Amazon has good discounts on it. 

RE:

Check out Printed Solid if you're in the US. They were only recently acquired by Prusa, and now they serve as the official US distributor exclusively for educational institutions along with other types of establishments. 

Posted by: @phil0110

In general, if you have good funding, you can read this article https://43dprint.org/best-3d-printers-under-2000/ https://fnafsecuritybreach.co the printers are pretty high price, but worth it. Dremel DigiLab 3D40 FLEX is suitable for kids too. Easy to use and has a lot of good reviews. Sometimes Amazon has good discounts on it.