[Sprintey]

Agree with most below, a year and 1/2 ago I got a $300 XYZ Da Vinci Jr. For the money it's been a lot of fun, and the CAD design is really fun too. I've printed out shapes, machine tool parts, curved surfaces for equipment, pokemon, model parts, landscape parts, etc.

Would I recommend the Da Vinci? Um, it's OK. Great for the money and introduction 2 years ago. I had to rebuild the print head (disassemble, reassemble and refit) and made it up as I went along as I found the customer support practically nil. And that print head went out of stock, so examples were going for $170 from the UK, no thanks... It prints OK too, but if I wanted really precise high quality surfaces I'd use a more expensive one. For shed worthy machine parts it is OK. Filament via XYZ is expensive, and filament (especially the cool stuff like carbon fibre or copper insert) will be quite more exxy again (mine only PLA), so you won't end up using it on a production run of 600 widgets to amaze the world... Treat it like a prototyping machine and custom part design and it's all good.

It uses PLA and this does not have the strength for what I want to make next, so I looked into replacement (Prusa was probably where I was going to go), but then decided to bite the bullet and go with a full CNC. Some CNCs have a printer attachment/laser attachment etc. Learning curve on this is substantially steeper.

In going down the 3dp path, you'll eventually learn heaps about CAD programs (I started with 3d builder, free on Windows and really visual and "hands on" rather than the heavy duty professional CAD programs) and now have FreeCAD on Linux (costs 0$, Tux the penguin ftw) - lots of people like Fusion. You learn STL files, etc. It's a lot of fun, like Lego for adults. I still like my little Da Vinci, keep maintaining it and will still use it to prototype an idea.

Then there's the whole wonder of watching something build itself, love that bit.