Solidoodle Begins Offering Refurbished 3D Printers Starting at $299

When it comes to PCs and laptops, there is a huge market for refurbished hardware. After all, if the manufacturer can completely overhaul it and bring it back to its original factory condition, why not save a few hundred dollars and purchase a refurbished model rather than a new one? This business model can work on a select handful of products, such as computers, game consoles, etc.  On the other hand, there are also many products that don’t work well with this business model. Take for instance smartphones or desktop printers; people simply don’t find much use for the refurbished versions.

When it comes to 3D printers, there really hasn’t been much of a market for refurbished products either, however, this may simply be caused by the limited availability of 2nd hand products. Consumer 3D printing has only been prominent for the past couple years, thus not too many people have yet had the desire to upgrade. We are finally beginning to see variations and improvement upon both FDM and SLA consumer level 3D printers, and with this, a second hand market for used hardware should open up.

Solidoodle, one of the more popular consumer level 3D printing manufacturers, evidently realizes this, and because of this realization they have today announced that they are beginning to sell refurbished 3D printers. Currently they offer three of their popular 3D printer models, the Solidoodle 2nd Generation Pro for $299, the Solidoodle 2nd Generation Base model for $299, and the Solidoodle 3rd Generation for $399. These are drastically reduced prices when you compare them to the new models which sell for $499 – 2nd Generation Base model, $599 – 2nd Generation Pro model, and $799 – 3rd Generation. That’s savings of up to $400, if you don’t mind having a previously used, factory restored model.

This is a great opportunity for those who are looking for a quality 3D printer but have been holding off due to the high price tags that most of these machines have attached to them. Solidoodle is known for their excellent products, and equally impressive customer support.  It should be interesting to see if other 3D printer manufacturers follow suit and begin offering refurbished versions of their products.

So would you consider purchasing a refurbished 3D printer? Let us know what you think in the Solidoodle refurbished 3D printing forum thread on 3DPB.com.