The RepRap Prusa i3 arrived in kit form, over the last 5 days I have build, calibrated and got it pretty much functional. There was nothing missing from the kit, and everything went together really well. I did have to drill out the hole in the print head block by another mm as the thermistor did not fit. Also the contrast on the LCD display made it unreadable so I had to solder another resistor to the board to fix that.
Its all open source so all the schematics and code are available to the public, and all the parts are either open source and printed or off the shelf stuff like standard rods, nuts, motors etc. The electronics are based on the open source Arduino boards. The workable print area is about 180mm in all dimensions.
As with all open source stuff, its designed to be built, calibrated, maintained, used and even improved all be the end users/community. All in it cost about £300. Commercial version start from about double that price into the thousands. You probably need less knowledge and calibration to use the commercial version, but you're at the mercy of the manufacturer for parts and support... the usual open vs closed source story!
