[EricH]

Building on ChrisH's post (I worked on the project with him), some of the PLA parts built on one of those machines went on 330's robot last year. I have yet to see any damage to those parts (admittedly in low-load applications). I've heard that ABS smells funny while printing with it (though as noted we haven't experienced that firsthand). Nothing harmful though--outside people have tested.

The real fun is if you get a prebuilt one, build the parts for a RepRap machine early on. If you aren't an expert by the time you've built the RepRap, you're probably doing something wrong. (Or you've been letting the students have all the fun, even better!)