Before I purchased this printer, I researched them for a long time trying to find the best one. I didn't have a large budget, but I wanted the most from my investment. I literally spent days trying to decide between a i3 kit or something more plug and play. Being a beginner to the hobby, but not shy of tinkering, I wasn't sure where I should begin. So, I had decided on a i3 kit and then see that Monoprice had released two new 3d printer models. I instantly recognized the Maker Select printer as a rebranded Wanhao i3 and I was sold. These printers have very good reputations and I felt very confident that support from Monoprice would not disappoint me.



The printer came packaged very well and included everything needed to get started. I only had a couple of hours on the first day to spend setting it up, and I fully expected to have to do some troubleshooting. After getting everything unboxed and on my desk I followed the printed sheet of instructions included in the box. The instructions were very clear, however setup issues still came up and I had to work through those.



First, I had trouble loading the filament into the extruder. No matter how much I tried to force it in, it just wouldn't feed. I then read online that it's easier to cut the end off at an angle and that will make it easier to feed. And sure enough, as soon as I had a bit of an angle on the end, the extruder was able to grab the filament. This step would be really helpful if it were included in the documentation.



Next, I had a small issue with my Z axis not being level. This was my fault and a result of me manually moving it after getting it setup, it is entirely possible that it came level from the factory. Getting the Z axis back to level was a little tricky as I couldn't very well get a carpenters level on it, but a plain old ruler did the trick.



Once the Z axis was straightened out, I set to leveling the bed. I took great care to level it and my investment was rewarded. It's vitally important to make sure that only one piece of printer paper can fit under the extruder. Using two pieces of printer paper, I moved the nozzle around the bed about two inches inside of each corner and slid one piece under the nozzle, continuing to make fine adjustments until the second sheet wouldn't fit any more. After completing my first pass, I made a second pass to true everything up and make sure it was level.



Once everything was level, I loaded up my first test model from the included SD card and was printing. It took two hours, but I had my first print and the quality looked very good compared to other examples I'd seen on the internet.



Even though I had, what I feel, is a good first experience. I do have a couple of small complaints about the product listing. And since this is a new product launch for Monoprice, they aren't unexpected either. First, my printer included a 2GB SD card when the product listing claimed 4GB. Also, there is no longer a link to the product documentation on the product page. It was there the first day, but got removed when the listing was updated. This needs to be added back, it was tremendously valuable to me.



I highly recommend this printer to anyone interested in getting into the hobby, just don't expect it work like an ink jet and don't get discouraged when small problems come up.

PROS: Strong build quality.

Open source design.

Support for multiple filaments.

Heated bed.

Stand alone operation.

Very good print quality.

CONS: 2GB SD card included, not the advertised 4GB.

Missing full product documentation link on listing.

This is my second 3D printer from Monoprice. I was pleased to see several modifications have been made to it based on user feedback, like the leveling screws, the way the head no longer rubs against the z-axis belt, and the ground fix on the Melzi board.
From box to desk was about half an hour. First print was an hour after that (take the time to level that bed). Then three days of adventuring began.
I had little issues with bed adherence and layer bonding. Some of the issues are with the Prusa I3 profile in the current release of Cura, and some were because the printer was in a cold, drafty room.
Do listen to this guy on setting up the printer in Cura: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DDXo2GBmbtU
Do go to Thingiverse and make this for the bed heater cable:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1641044
And this for the filament feed:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1598317
And build an enclosure for the printer, like its own little hothouse. I built mine from PVC pipes, 3 way couplers, and vinyl sheeting for about $25.
Then it will start printing like a champ.
It is a very nice printer, and you can't beat the price. You just have to perform some very simple, non-warranty-voiding mods to it.
And you'll know more about 3D printing than when you started.

This is the perfect 3D printer for someone with more time and energy than money. Assembly was easy and well documented, and the prints looked decent off the bat, but once you start printing more complicated or larger parts, some issues will make themselves apparent. Luckily, since this is essentially a Wanhao Duplicator i3, there are lots of parts on Thingiverse ready for you to print and fix the machine's quirks yourself.

PROS: -Price
-Nearly preassembled
-Decent out of the box performance on PLA
-Common design = easy to mod
-The 0.5mm nozzle helps with print speed and reduces the chance of an extruder jam.
-Comes with almost every tool you need to use and maintain the machine.
-Did I mention price?

CONS: -The PTFE thermal barrier tube degrades faster at higher temperatures, so ABS will degrade it over time and anything requiring higher temperatures is pretty much out. It also limits print speed (I top out at about 50mm/s for PLA). Fortunately, there is a spare, and bulk tubing is cheap. Micro Swiss also manufactures a compatible all-metal hotend for if you want to try higher temperature materials.
-The cooling fan isn't even aimed in the right direction, and it's underpowered. At the very least, you should immediately rotate the shroud to aim at the nozzle, and you should consider printing a new fan shroud ASAP. Switching to a better fan is also beneficial.
-Leveling the bed is a pain. The wingnuts are difficult to reach and turn, and they can loosen from the movement of the bed. I highly recommend printing a set of one of the many compatible thumbwheel parts on thingiverse as well as the spring holders to make leveling the bed a rare occurrence rather than a common chore.
-The default 0.5mm nozzle can't print with as much detail as the more common .4mm or .35mm sizes, and it also limits the minimum wall size.
-Make sure to have a good set of needle nose pliers for the inevitable jam. I've only jammed it when I did something wrong (bed too high or improper unloading), but you'll want to be able to take apart just in case.
-Again, it bears mentioning that this thing is best when it prints slowly. Expect parts to take at least half again as long as on some other 3D printers.

Out of the box I had this thing up and printing in a total of 20 mins (software slowed me down and needed to find my MicroSD to USB adapter).



1st print went well aside from an issue that was my fault (take your time leveling the bed or you lose hours of printing to odd shaped parts). After that short of taking every inch of it apart I spent nearly 24 man hours looking into why ever following print I attempted failed...



It is the SD card... Toss it out buy a name brand one... on bad print worth of PLA or ABS saved will likely cover the cost. Do not be me and lose an entire roll and a half of filament bc you are stubborn and refuse to believe an SD card could take down an entire machine... its a real thing.



Also if you are handy at all look up Vernon Barry on YouTube, he goes by JetGuy. Do pretty much every MOD he shows and also put heat defection tape or a heat shield between the heater wires and filament feed.



In the end does it need way more MODs and setup than just 4 -6 screws... thats a huge yes... but there are only 2 ways to get an awesome printer... spend 2x the money or spend some time with this diamond in the rough and about 15- 50 dollars in supplies (depending on how stocked your junk drawer is)



I'd Buy It Again... and maybe 1 more time lol

PROS: Works great after you fix it, fast assembly out of the box, print quality way better than a $350 printer should

CONS: Heat wires had to be rerouted to prevent filament from warping, The SD CARD IT COMES WITH GOES INTO THE TRASH, The SD CARD CORRUPTS FILES AND FAILS PRINTS, Did i mention THE SD CARD WRECKS EVERYTHING so THROW IT AWAY

For the 1 month that it was working, I was very pleased with the quality and performance of the printer.

The issue was that after just one month the printer stopped working completely with nothing on the display.

These things happen, of course, but I have been waiting 4 weeks now for a replacement and the latest is that it will be at least another 2 weeks for a replacement even ships.

I guess bottom line is that it works well until you have an issue and then customer support leaves you waiting. There was not even an apology or an attempt at a solution, just a matter of fact statement that there is nothing they can do.

I received this printer on a Friday afternoon and assembled it Saturday morning. When I powered it on thick smoke came from the control box. I powered it off and contacted support through email. I did not receive a reply from Monoprice until the following Thursday afternoon. In the meantime, I repaired the printer myself one of the capacitors in the power supply had ruptured. Since the repair the printer has been performing very well, but I was disappointed in the initial failure and the slow response from Monoprice.

PROS: It is a great printer if it works.

CONS: There may be a problem with initial reliability.

Sad to report that my third such printer has now died. The first went via a sudden burning electronics smell from the control box and would not print (just wouldn't move). It quit early on 2 prints, slightly more each time, then done. Saw limited use. Done done.

First replacement dead after test print, or before, the heated bed would not heat.

Second replacement (arrived mid September), died late December, died in fashion identical to the first one. It had sat for about 6 weeks, also, and was used sparingly when used. Sigh.

But when it did print I was very happy with the results. Not top of the line, but certainly nice for the price. I can't recommend it though based on my experience.

The only real problem here is the customer (me)is not allowed to take the failed part out and check the connections to the power supply or see if the power supply itself had failed. If I could have done either of those things I could have maybe just sent the power supply back to the company instead of having to break down the whole machine and box it up , take it to UPS and wait for a new one. This whole process is a real pain in the ass and I am lucky I had a chance to talk to a understanding tech like Eon. great product, just needs to be made modular.

PROS: easy assembly.

CONS: should be made in separate pieces .pain in the ass to box up and send back.

This was my first 3D printer - I had held off for a few years due to reading about a variety of problems with other printers and being underwhelmed with the quality of the prints I'd seen as examples. I was also quite skeptical that a $350 printer could possibly produce anything reasonable.

I've successfully printed with PLA (which worked out of the box and has always been relatively easy), ABS (which was a little trickier and appears to always be the case with 3D printers) and T-Glase as well as Nylon variants. This printer is great in that it handles pretty much every kind of filament available. This also makes it economical to operate. Filament choice adds a ton of flexibility and gives you opportunities to print things with the right combinations of flex, brittleness, and strength for whatever job you're doing.

If you haven't owned a 3D printer before, here's some things that surprised me: The print quality can be absolutely *amazing* if you're willing to wait. Postprocessing can be done with nearly every kind of filament to make the edges smooth and give the appearance of injection molding. About the only thing you can't do is make a perfectly transparent part (but you can get very close with T-Glase and an the right epoxy coating).

I've run this thing *non-stop* since I purchased it. Other than the hiccoughs that I ran into with the Y-Carriage, it's performed brilliantly without any part failures or wear. And the printer is a very simple construction - if something fails, you can find parts easily and inexpensively and many repairs can just be printed.

I've used this to print most of the parts to a RepRap tricolor that I'm building and the parts came out perfectly (with the addition of a 0.3mm all metal print head required for a couple of the parts - $14 for the head and $37 for the MK10 all metal kit which included a 0.4mm nozzle - since this comes with a 0.5mm nozzle and it's easy to swap out these parts, that gave me a little more versatility ... T-Glase prints best on large nozzles, detailed parts need smaller to produce the best results).

PROS: It's very nearly there out of the box - by "there", I mean, prints of a quality you might expect to pay more than twice as much for.

There's a huge community behind this printer and it generally gets very good reviews everywhere.

Very easily hacked/modified.

Supports a wide range of filaments and is deeply configurable to cover corner cases you *will* run into.

Uses .gcode and nearly every software application that slices works out of the box for PLA by selecting Prusia i3 and (sometimes) modifying the nozzle head to 0.5mm.

Incredible price *doesn't* leave you with a nice, cheap, 3D printer that's entry level causing you to long for something better.

CONS: You need to be willing to hack a bit to do any 3D printing on any 3D printer. This is no exception. The good news is that this printer has a massive following being based on the Wanhao Duplicator i3. I received the "v2" model of this printer (which has the LCD panel slightly tilted instead of at a 90 degree angle which is an improvement).

You'll want to print the Z-Brackets (Search thingiverse). I also had to purchase a new Y-Carriage mount because the part that the bed screws into is really flimsy and made it very difficult to get a consistent bed level (or to get it to level at all after a few weeks because it bends so easily). Not to worry, they're $20 on Amazon - Get an anodized aluminum one, add some lock nuts to the M3 screws on the bed and print the thumb screw heads and add some lock-nuts to replace the thumb screws and this printer is simply, without a doubt ... *amazing*.

First - understand that getting into 3D printing is not just about installing a new piece of hardware on your computer. Plan to invest some time and a few $ in research and improvements.
Second - why is this a great printer? It is cheap, versatile, and offers everything one needs to learn the "art" of 3D printing. If you enjoy tinkering - the possibilities with this printer are endless.
Third - for those having problems removing the filament, I found that heating up the nozzle, pushing down the release level while pushing filament down into the heated nozzle about 1-2cm (yes it will squirt filament out while doing this), and then quickly pulling it out allows you to remove it. If it doesn't come out, push some more down and try it again. It appears the filament expands while feeding into the nozzle while doesn't allow it to pull back out. Manually pushing the filament down into the nozzle melts this expanded portion which will fit back through the feed portion once it gets warm enough.

MOD Recommendations: Research the mods online. Vernon Barry - Jet Guy on Youtube has been mentioned before - a great resource for learning the parts of the printer and where to apply some upgrades. Search WANHAO on thingiverse for a huge list of upgrades and mods. As mentioned, and as you will find, this is a PRUSA I3 or WANHAO I3.: Platform thumb screws with some nuts below the heated plate and new self-locking nuts in the bottom are a great upgrade to help keep the build plate level. A MUST. That and do a JET GUY blue-printing z-axis alignment. Then you are pretty much set. Z axis dampers are already installed - not required! You may want to build some z-stop offset blocks, you will have to move the z-stop if you install a glass plate, however there are two sets of tapped holes in the bracket to move the z-stop up without a new bracket.

PRINTING:
PLA is easiest to use.
ABS is tricky and took some time to get good results. Cooling causes ends to curl and peel up from the build plate which ruins the print once it becomes "unstuck." I added a glass build plate with PEI, but have had better results with blue painters tape directly on the metal build plate covered with glue-stick. Used 105C platform temp, fan off. For even better results, add a brim and use blue painters tape over the brim once its complete and as the part starts printing.
CURA is free, simple and works well. I invested $150 in simplify3D, but so far it's well beyond what is required to get this running. Download a STL file (3d Model) from thingiverse, load it in CURA, use quick print settings to set ABS or PLA defaults, then switch to EXPERT to tweak the settings. Don't get overwhelmed by the adjustments, I started with build plate temps, nozzle temps, and supports. RAFT works well for a smooth bottom, BRIM as I mentioned, works well for keeping the print stuck to the plate. Then save the GCODE file, copy it to an SD card, and stick it in the printer to start printing. I haven't tried and see no reason to tie up your computer with a USB cable for 3 hours or more to print directly from CURA. Additionally, you can tweak platform temps and other settings from the control panel while warming up/printing if you didn't get them set just right in CURA before generating the GCODE.


PROS: Did I mention the price?
Heated bed
Versatile
great way to learn how to start printing, and will last a long time
LOTS of available internet documentation and support.
widely compatible with multiple slicer software.
You can completely disassemble, re-assemble as required - all open source hardware/software

CONS: Single extruder (vice dual), but for a good starter printer, my sense is dual extruders get well into the more advanced level and really aren't necessary when you are first learning.