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Hi all sorry if this is in the wrong section.

I've been seeing more and more 3d printed terrain coming up, including modular stuff similar to GWs 40k buildings. As such i've been looking into 3d printers, now i certainly do not have the budget for the premium stuff but the sub £500 mark is where im thinking.

There are a few to choose from, two have come up for me

Flashforge 3d printer - https://www.amazon.co.uk/Flashforge-Printer-Finder-Single-Extruder/dp/B00ZBS86ZW/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1492009176&sr=8-3&keywords=3d+printer

or

XYZprinting Da Vinci - https://www.amazon.co.uk/d/3D-Printing-Scanning/XYZprinting-3FM1WXEU01F-Printer-Vinci-Mini/B01KVJCXRC/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1492009176&sr=8-8&keywords=3d+printer

Now i will admit i am a complete novice but if anyone had any experience with this, would these models suffice for what i'm trying to do? Or would i need a slightly better machine? I know the more you spend the better quality you're likely to get, but i'm wondering if these cheaper models will still provide a quality end result on something smaller. I've seen plenty of videos of them being used to make larger things like a T-rex skull, batman or a bobble head but in comparison to miniature stuff they're much larger.

Anyway any help would be great

£500 is a lot of money to spend on plasticard, foam core, textured styrene sheets, rods and I beams, sand gravel, paint and tools plus a few kits to stretch out.
£500 is not very much to spend on a 3d machine and materials.
The results will be better and it will take a similar amount of time and effort to make it from scratch.
The learning curve for terrain making is nice and gentle with your pieces becoming more complex as you learn. Get the basics down and you'll have a skill for life.

You could always go look for a maker space around where you live

some times they have classes for 3d modeling and stuff and they are often like 20-40 bucks a month. if you feel like you can do it you can invest your 500 bones after

I can tell you straight up that if you have never used a 3D printer, you should not buy one. Look around for some local tech/maker clubs and get try to get some hands on experience with the printers and 3D printed parts first. Much as 3D printer companies want to market their units as 'consumer friendly' or mass market, they are not. They are incredibly powerful tools, but they can be fickle, temperamental, and expensive pains in the ass, even for experienced users. Under $1000, you are talking about pretty budget models, and your experience can vary wildly between printers. At these prices, you are also pretty constrained on print sizes, which makes doing larger items like terrain pieces more complicated. The brands I would look at for large, high quality printers are Afinia, Ultimaker, and Printrbot. Again, tho, you should not buy any of these today without any experience. It will just lead to frustration and disappointment, at a hefty price.

My current printer is an Up! Mini, I bought it for around £500 new from curries, you can also get them refurbished from Maplins for £450 or so.

My first printer was a prusa i3 from ebay. Decent enough but has some difficulties.

Here is what you discover about a 3d printer.

A i3 Prusa is a very good starter 3d printer. But all of the kits out there are actually quite expensive for the parts you receive. For example:

A lot of frames come in cheap acrylic. You can build a good printer for quite a bit less.

If you search online:
1 Aluminum i3 Frame = $80.00
5 Nema 17 stepper motors = $6.00 each
Reprap Prusa i3 Rework Printed Parts = $22.00
15pcs/set Reprap Prusa i3 Rework Smooth Rods and Threaded Rods 3D Printer XYZ Axis Rods,Prusa i3 Single Sheet Frame Rods Set = $54.00
3D Printer Kit RAMPS 1.4 Mega2560 12864 LCD Controller A4988 for Arduino Reprap = $9.80
Metal J-Head Hotend V6 for RepRap 3D Printer Bowden Extruder, 1.75mm Filament 0.4mm Nozzle, Including 12V 40W Heater and NTC3950 Thermistor
Metal J-Head Hotend V6 for RepRap 3D Printer Bowden Extruder, 1.75m = $17.99
Metal Bowden Extruder for 1.75mm Filament = $27.99
Zyltech 12v 30a 360w Power Supply Psu For 3d Printer Cnc Arduino = $16.09
Lm8uu 12pcs 8mm Linear Motion Ball Bearing Bushing Bush Top Set = $9.99
Nuts and washers bought from local hardware store...... variable

Semi-Optional:
Anodized Aluminum Heated Bed Build Plate For 3d Printer Reprap Prusa = $27.99

Instructions:
Goto Reprap and download their instructions.

Definitely go with bowden extruder to pull the weight off the arm. It also will solve quite a few feeding issues. As you can see that adds up to alot less then £500. You will have to download the software but it's free. The slicers are open source. And at that point, your going to do a lot of fiddling to make it work correctly.

No 3d printer works perfectly the first time you use it. You will find you will probably need a couple of the j-heads and 3-5 thermosters and 3-5 sets of nozzles to get everything working the way you want. You will break things at random and have to figure out how it all works. But, once you get it working they are very fun to play with.

Before I piled in and went for a Prusa Mk2, I was looking to get an i3.
There are lots to choose from, and my main consideration was knowing where it was supported from. Lots are listed as being from China, and I wanted local-ish support.
Layer resolution was the other main point I looked for. 0.1mm is good, and the MK2 manages 0.05mm well enough.
Most of what I knew before getting the MK2 was from http://reprap.org/. Lots of the cheap 3d printers are based on designs on there, including Prusa's own.

What I was using to tell which specs I needed, I looked at the settings listed by people posting designs up.
Dragonlock was the reason I bought mine, and the settings are all listed on the websites and forum they have.

I totally agree. You will spend a bit of time learning what is good and what is bad on parts.

For example, a j-head comes with a heat break (small threaded tube in it) on cheaper Chinese ones, they cheat and put plastic tubing in to smooth out the feeding rather then well milled all metal tubing. What I found is if you print in ABS, it causes serious issues.


Abs can be smoothed with acetone.
Pla is smoothed with chloroform.

So, depending on what your trying to model, if you want to smooth out the print lines, You have to look what is easier for you to get.