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Additive technologies have begun its development and application since the second half of the 1980s. The main reason behind that was to fulfil the market demands of increased product quality, flexibility, lower costs, shorter development time and production, as well as small series and individual production. As part of additive technologies, low-budget 3D printers have been developed and are widely available now, and they have enabled a significant expansion of the application of additive technologies for development and production. A large number of low-budget 3D printers on the market make it difficult for the potential investor to choose from. Therefore, potential investor in low-budget 3D printers has to know more detailed their working principle, their construction, materials that they can process and the errors and problems of their technology that occur during processing. In the paper, two most popular low-budget 3D printers MakerBot Replicator 2X and Ultimaker Original was chosen for a detailed comparison. Two reference models were selected for detailed comparison of their performance. Evaluation was made based on final model properties such as deviations from nominal dimensions, shrinkage and surface roughness. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In selective laser sintering (SLS) of polymer products the price of material is not the most important factor, but it does play a significant role when analysing the overall i.e. final price of the product, and therefore recycling of material is becoming an increasingly important factor, as well as the ratio of the shares in combining the original and the already used materials. In practice it is inevitable to use the products in various atmospheric conditions (UV radiation and humid environment), intentionally or unintentionally. UV light, with sun being its most common source, and average humidity in different parts of the world can be approximately from 20% to 90%, depending on time, day and geographic location. Therefore, it is necessary to determine how UV light after a longer period of time of exposure affects the product properties. The properties of the final product are also affected by the orientation in the working area of the machine. In the paper an analysis has been performed of the impact of three different types of product orientation in the machine working area and three different ratios of the used polyamide material (100% original, combined in 50:50 ratio of original and recycled and 100% recycled material after the third cycle of usage) on hardness of the polyamide product made by selective laser sintering. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]