What I didn't know about 3D printing

There are so many darn options.

MakerBot is the go to, but perhaps not the best choice.  I visited several makerspaces with broken ones just lying around.  :(

Open source software is free, but you get what you pay for.  MakerGear 2 recommends Slic3r and Pronterface.  I didn't like them.  Not intuitive for a beginner like me.  Definitely not something I want to have students and staff jump into.  We're looking into purchasing Simplify3d.

Printing off of an SD card. 

Slicing. 

File types .stl, .obj, gcode

It's still incredible.

Polar3D was my first printer.  Cheap, easy as can be to set up, and awesome customer service.  Love that you can remote stop a job and watch it through the Polar Cloud.

MakerGear is my second printer.  Not so cheap, not so easy to set up, and the jury is still out on the support.  As far as I know, you cannot remote stop a job and there isn't a camera setup included.    The prints are gorgeous though!