Used/ refurbished 3d Printers

[Hercules28]

Dear all,

I really am not sure where to post this question but I thought to start off here:

Does anybody know where I can find used/ refurbished 3D printers?
I am looking for 3D systems Projet 3000 or 3500 or machines of that caliper.

Thanks,

Herc

 

[ArtL]

Mr 28 Try your local 3D sys var. Another place is Ebay,I was looking a few months ago, and those two were my best leads.You could also try trade periodicals, on line and hard copy. I found there is a big price differental when a model is phased out and replaced by a upgrade model. Wish you luck finding what you want.

 

[CADFlyer]

Make sure you take into account the maintenance cost on a used printer.

At my last company, we had bought a new printer that was being phased out by the next gen. We worked it like a dog & it performed great most the time. But when it went down it wasn’t cheap for replacement of parts. We went on a yearly service plan to save costs and ended up replacing almost ALL the hardware on the thing before I left. The machine was ~6yrs old & our maintenance provider told us they were about to stop providing parts for it because of its age.

Hopefully you won’t run into these issues like I had. But things break, especially in the hot environment that most of these printers run in. So be careful & make sure you can still get parts for whatever machine you choose, new or used.

 

[ArtL]

Mr 28 In the long run, decided I did not have the volume to buy a new machine, and as Mr Flyer sezs, I felt the maintence of a used machine would be the same as buying a new machine on the installment plan. I ended up using my local VAR for the small quanity of rapid prototype parts myself and my customers need. So far it has worked out O.K.. The only thing I miss is the opportunity to learn how to operate a new machine.

 

[Hercules28]

Thanks for your replies. Do you mind sharing what models where you using?
yes 6 years in this field seems like a long time.
Any experience with 3D systems or SLA processes?