Author Topic: At what price point do 3d printers transition from junk to something usable?  (Read 9303 times)

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Online Fraser

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Regarding the fdm print process.

There are good and less good printers do the fdm output of a good printer can be excellent. It is note worthy that NASA recently elected to have a whole batch of complex shape antenna's printed using FDM. They were very impressed with the results and it saved them a fortune in CNC work and parts assembly. If FDM is good enough for NASA space rated components, it is good enough for me.  :)

On a serious note, there are other print technologies such as UV resin Bath and powder 3D printers. Do check on the longevity of the printed item however. Some of these technologies are superb for prototyping but the materials used can be very expensive and some degrade with exposure to UV light. NASA solved that problem with plastics degradation in Space by applying a protective coating to the finished print to armour it against space.

The full story is here..........

https://www.stratasysdirect.com/resources/case-studies/3d-printed-satellite-exterior-nasa-jet-propulsion-laboratory

Off topic.... a scientist was recently asked what will happen to the Elon Musk car that is now in space. His reply was shocking. The car contains an aluminium chassis etc but is otherwise made from organic materials. In less than a year the organic materials will be literally torn apart at the atomic level so nothing but the Aluminium parts will remain  :o Space is a very harsh environment but thankfully we do not normally need to concern ourselves with that.

Fraser
« Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 02:14:21 pm by Fraser »
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Online Fraser

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A very good point has been made here by a fellow forum member. Cost is not always a good indicator of a printers performance.

Very expensive printers can be unreliable and in need of much fine tuning. It all comes down to the design and operating system. Some printers have huge mark-ups applied to capture buyers who think that the more they pay, the better the results. Whilst it is true that very cheap or DIY 3D printers can be a challenge to use and achieve excellent results from, it is also true that some very impressive and comp,ex looking expensive printers have issues that make them frustrating to use. Issues such as Extruder blocking, filament jams or platform levelling errors can make life miserable for the user. In my opinion, it is best to study the market and read as many real world user reviews as possible. Make a short list of printers with a good reputation for print quality and low maintenance and pick the best you can afford from that list.

Another trap to avoid is buying a 'reduced cost' version of a printer such as a CETUS, and then end up spending a lot of money upgrading it to your required spec. Such can be fun, but the costs mount and it may have been better to pay the extra for a better printer in the first place. Also consider the cost and quality of the filament. Cheap filament can be OK, but it can also cause printing quality issues. The filament is only actually 'cheap' if the prints turn out OK and you do not end up wasting loads of filament through poor or failed prints. This is why I have been using the filament Tiertime Offer for thir printers. It certainly is not cheap, but I have had only one 'birds nest' print failure. All other prints have been completed perfectly  :) I have had issues with some large ABS prints warping, but that is not the filament at fault but rather me, for not allowing enough build platform heating time  :palm:

Lastly, prints can take a long time to be produced. This is especially so with small level increments of les than 0.2mm. You really want those prints to be good or else you are just wasting your time and suffering delays in getting your desired result. Very frustrating. That is why I bought a 'turn key' solution. Others like to tinker endlessly with their 3D printer. They get enjoyment from that activity so failed prints and lost time are not such an issue for them. I use my 3D printer as a serious tool, so have no interest in spending lots of time tweaking settings and adjusting mechanisms. Tools should just 'work'  :-+

Fraser

Fraser
« Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 02:50:19 pm by Fraser »
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Offline e100Topic starter

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Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if any of the $500 - $1000 printers use closed loop control for positioning, or is that not necessary given that the filament nozzle size is some large fraction of a mm in diameter?
 

Offline sokoloff

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I think they're all stepper motor driven (open loop). Provided you have enough power supply (most do) to not skip steps (most don't, absent bad gcode or physical collision), there's not much advantage.

On the topic of which printer, another thing to consider is that there is benefit to buying a somewhat common printer when seeking advice on the forums. This is more relevant for one's first printer (where the user's experience is lowest). I have definitely benefited from searching forums for "FlashForge Creator" content (even though mine is a clone). If I'd had a less common printer, I'd have been a lot more on my own in the learning process.
 

Offline e100Topic starter

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I'm another one who can happily recommend the UP! machines, especially if youre a first time 3D printer who just wants a machine that works.  I've been running an UP! Plus for many years, and it has been great as a first 3D printer.  It has even printed a whole bunch of small enclosures for animal tracking devices I sell, which get some serious abuse in the field - they get coated with 2-part resin after printing for additional strength & water resistance.

I recently decided to get a machine with a larger print area.  I considered the UP! Box, but couldn't really justify the price for my usage - especially as I've been saving up for a new scope.  I also considered the CR10 as it has had a lot of great reviews, but I mainly want to print ABS and it isn't ideal for that.  In the end I decided on the JGAurora A5.  Despite some not great reviews, it looked good for my application, was available for around AU$500 delivered, and there is open source replacement firmware for it.  I've been using it with Simplify 3D and it seems to do a great job, but you do need to customise your settings for both the machine, the material, and the parts being printed.  I'm still holding back on my verdict of the "diamond" glass bed - it works well, but not sure how long the surface finish will last.

In depth review of the JGAurora A5
 

Online Fraser

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Sokolof,

A very good point Sir  :-+

The availability, or not, of advice and spare parts needs to be considered in the selection process.

There are clones of well known printers and, as has been stated, there are vast pools of experience on the forums if the design is popular. There can be improved parts to print yourself or purchase. There can be bespoke firmware to correct issues that have not been addressed by the OEM, and there can be 'hop-ups' to greatly improve performance. This can be the realm of the 3D printing 'geek' who loves to tinker, but those people know the designs inside and out so can provide invaluable help to noobs.

Spare parts quality and availability is an important subject to consider. 3D FDM printers are, by nature, mechanical and parts can wear or fail over time. Consider it similar to owning a car. If you own a well known brand, parts and support are easily obtained. If you own a kit car made by someone other than yourself, or a, now defunct, 'cottage industry' car manufacturer, you may have difficulty locating parts and support. That can be both frustrating and expensive to resolve.

Thankfully many common printers have decent parts availability, even if from 3rd party manufacturers. Many printers contain plastic parts that the OEM provides STL's for. The parts can then be printed on your own printer (if still working) or a bought in service. Spare parts prices can vary greatly. Sadly it is a fact that the big name 3D printer OEM's follow the standard policy of fleecing owners for original spare parts. This is where 3rd party parts can come to the rescue if of suitable quality as they are often much cheaper. My Tiertime printers are reliable but the spare parts are expensive when compared to the generic printer parts found on eBay. My complete (with motor) Extruder head for the UP! Box costs £220 ! Sadly there is no 3rd party supplier of such. A generic printer Extruder head, including the motor, costs around 20% of that price, or even less, from China. My build plates that sit on top of the heated bed cost £30 each ! The heater for the Extruder is £70 and brass Extruder nozzles are £15. I decided to buy a spare Extruder head ribbon cable for the UP! Box as it is the only known weak point in the design and it can fail over many hours of use (migration of the cores within the insulation). The ribbon looks like a standard flat ribbon cable, but it is not. It is a custom part for a Tiertime with a reinforced backing binder to it to reduce stress on the cable cores. The cable is long and even though I bought a generic non-reinforced cable for £6, I eventually buckled and bought the proper cable from Tiertime for £28 ! Any parts from Tiertime seem to cost a lot in Europe due to high shipping costs and VAT from the USA or OEM. Basic prices in the USA appear more reasonable. My UP! Box contains a very effective HEPA particle and odour filter. In the USA it costs £8. In the UK and Europe it was costing £15 plus shipping. Thankfully RAPID UK now stock it at £8 plus UK shipping.

Finally, a little known fact. Tiertime use flame retardant plastic in their printers, including the 3D printed parts. They clearly state that owner self printed parts, especially those around the Extruder head are a temporary repair only. They recommend ordering of the OEM made parts as soon as possible. No one wants a fire started by their 3D printer and I do not leave the house with mine running. The Extruder contains a heater, as does the heated build plate, and quite high currents are in use. I am pleased to see that Tiertime considered the risk of an overheated plastics induced fire in their printers. The Filament could still burn though.

Fraser
« Last Edit: February 13, 2018, 03:38:02 pm by Fraser »
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Online Fraser

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I just watched the JGAurora review referenced above.

That review demonstrates the issues with the 3D printer marketplace at the moment. For me these are....

1. A generic printer design fitted with generic control, drive and display PCB. Not an optimised solution.
2. Issues with generic settings in the GUI as in the case of loading filament and the nozzle temperature causing a Bowden drive lockout. Plain laziness on the part of the manufacturer of the printer and pretty damn obvious !
3. Issues with levelling the bed. No auto levelling and poor levelling repeatability due to poor bed levelling mechanics. This could get very tiresome as bed levelling is important for a decent print.
4. Generic firmware running on the unit that, in this case, was very out of date. The fact that features appeared in the GUI that did not exist in the printer makes for a real DIY feel to the unit. Not refined at all on this front.
5. All manner of options to 'fine tune' the printing process. Some might Love such controls, others, like myself, may hate the fact that the printer doesn't just get on and produce a high quality print on its own without the need to faff around with minute adjustments in the  settings menu. This is a tool after all ! Sometimes the ability to fine tune a system is good, other times it is just an early warning that the system is unstable and needs lots of tweaking and fettling for a decent result. The use of generic boards and firmware likely make such fine tuning options essential for the firmware to match up with the design and performance of the hardware. A non optimised solution that requires the user to do the hard work. No thanks !
6. The OEM appears to have used an old version of firmware yet not made it easy to upgrade it to the latest version. Poor show if it is subject to the GPL. Why use an outdated and problematic firmware in your product ? Weird, plain weird.
7. The physical layout of the printer is pretty generic and typical of the arch type designs. It uses a filament push system that pushes the filament through a Bowden cable sleeve. Not my favourite system as it can suffer binding issues and is, IMHO, less reliable than a pull/push system like on the UP! Printers. The motor on these is on the head and pulls the filament through a Bowden cable sleeve before pushing it through the closely coupled Extruder head via a straight path. The reviewed design also leaves something to be desired on the cable management front. Having the moving bed cable foul the X-Axis motor cable is just plain lazy engineering and testing.
8. It appears that the printer cannot print in ABS or other similar materials with their high nozzle temperature and bed temperature needs ? That, for me, is a deal breaker. ABS may be smelly to print but it is a great material where you want to be able to sand, paint or glue parts. It is like working with Airfix model kits ! PLA is a comparative nightmare on this front. Large units can be printed in sections when using ABS and simply glued together using plastic weld or standard modelling hard plastics glues (Airfix Cement). Damaged parts can also be repaired in the same way. RC aircraft prints benefit from repairability. If a printer cannot cope with ABS, I would remove it from my short list, simple as that.
9. The reviewed printer is an 'open' frame design. I personally prefer the enclosed build area designs that go some way to creating a warm build environment for ABS printing and help to contain any fumes produced during the printing process. This may be important for people with breathing related conditions or allergies ? Modern enclosed printers contain HEPA filters to scrub the air inside the enclosure. ABS does produce quite acrid fumes when being heated and extruded !

Well that just about does it from me. 3D printing can be the veritable minefield when it comes to selecting your first printer. Buying a used printer, like I have, is feasible but remember that printers can be abused, worn out, or just bad performers, hence being rehomed ! Some people sell their smaller 'first' printer in order to move up to a larger model. This is what I effectively did. My UP! Mini and UP! Box printers came from fellow Forum member Toploser and they were customer returns to either CPC/Farnell. It is a fact that some 3D printers get bought and returned after a 'project' is printed or the user just does not have the required understanding of the process to make it work for their needs. The printers become customer returns with no actual faults present. In the case of the UP!  BOX, it did have a faulty Extruder but Toploser bought a new one for over £200 before selling it to me. Toploser is a Top notch chap :) The used UP! BOX had extruded 9kg of filament before it was returned. It looked like new inside and the 9kg of printing has thoroughly tested it for me :) It has not missed a beat since I got it 7 months ago. Do not rule out used printers in order to save money, but do be careful when buying such. Faulty parts can be expensive to replace , negating any saving made by buying a used unit.

Fraser
« Last Edit: February 20, 2018, 11:38:51 am by Fraser »
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Offline e100Topic starter

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On a related theme, 3D Printers on Kickstarter - Where are they now? on youtube.
In summary:
- Successful products tend to be smaller/cheaper versions of existing successful products made by companies that have multiple years of experience making mid/high end 3d printers.
- Novel or cheap designs either won't ship, will be more expensive than projected or will have multiple issues that may never be resolved.
- If the product is still being sold 2 years after the initial release then it is likely to be usable (survival of the fittest etc)
- If you back a campaign then the money can be used for anything (building a house, going on holiday etc.), not necessarily delivering a product. Effectively you are making a donation, not placing a pre-order. There is no 'money back' clause.

 

Offline ChrisLX200

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There are a lot of [fast] moving parts in a 3D printer and precision/construction quality is must if you are to get any sort of decent print. My Wanhao Duplicator 4S has been running for a couple of years now and I have to say the print quality has been very good - confirmed by the many owners of this popular printer. It's not without issues though - I've had numerous ball bearing failures, all in one position (gantry top-right, which carries the lateral torque of two drive belts) and replacement is a bit tricky. I was so fed up with having to repeatedly strip the machine to replace this bearing I ended up machining a new bearing housing carrying a pair of heavier bearings (as opposed to the single bearing as supplied). I've been considering buying a new printer but have yet to find one that offers significant improvements at the price, paying more doesn't always translate to better prints..
 

Online Fraser

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e100,

Thanks for the link to that video. Very interesting, informative and entertaining.

Kickstarter is explained very well and it is useful to hear of the behaviour of some companies who either succeeded or failed in delivering a product that worked as advertised. The company that basically ditched half its backers orders and started selling direct amazed and appalled me at the same time. That company had big balls !

Fraser
« Last Edit: February 15, 2018, 11:34:00 pm by Fraser »
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Offline hagster

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Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if any of the $500 - $1000 printers use closed loop control for positioning, or is that not necessary given that the filament nozzle size is some large fraction of a mm in diameter?

The Mod-T printer used closed loop control. But theu recently shut up shop. And the quality wasnt that great apparently

The enourmous https://3dplatform.com machines use closed loop servo control.

The new Prussa mk3 has step skip detection and can re-home and recover from skips. I guess this is partial closes loop control.

Overall though its not a feature thats likely to improve quality in most cases. Things like frame rigidity, moving mass weight, bearing quality etc etc have a bigger effect.
 

Offline Yellofriend

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IMHO the cheapest entry point that doesn't have too much fiddling would be the Ender 2.

It costs around $150-200 and has a heated bed, means can do ABS, PETG etc.

Many others (Prusa, CR-10 etc.) were already named here.

But really, depends on what you want to do with it.
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Offline mavu

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There is only one choice to make if you want to buy a 3d printer:

Do you have more money than time?
Or do you have more time than money?

In the first case: buy the *Original* Prusa MK3 from Prusa Research.
There is no better printer on the market under 10.000 $ (or €,whatever)

If you want to print things successfully every single time, this is what you want, especially considering the price of under 1000$/€ and it is available as a very well documented kit if you want it even cheaper.
Check one of the reviews for a list of all features and why it is so good. Too much to list here.

If you just don't have the money for one of these, consider other printers mentioned in this thread, but the Prusa MK3 (or even the previous MK2s if you can get it used or as a kit) is in a league of its own.
 

Offline hagster

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There is only one choice to make if you want to buy a 3d printer:

Do you have more money than time?
Or do you have more time than money?

In the first case: buy the *Original* Prusa MK3 from Prusa Research.
There is no better printer on the market under 10.000 $ (or €,whatever)

If you want to print things successfully every single time, this is what you want, especially considering the price of under 1000$/€ and it is available as a very well documented kit if you want it even cheaper.
Check one of the reviews for a list of all features and why it is so good. Too much to list here.

If you just don't have the money for one of these, consider other printers mentioned in this thread, but the Prusa MK3 (or even the previous MK2s if you can get it used or as a kit) is in a league of its own.

If only things were that simple. But firstly I will state that the MK3 looks like a fine printer and probably is a great choice for many of those that want a step up from the cheap chinese machines. I would love one.

However... I have to disagree that its the ONLY choice for less than 10K. Here are a few reasons why you might want something else.

If you need a different build volume. Perhaps bigger, berhaps taller, perhaps longer.

If you need an enclosure to print PC, ABS etc.

If you need dual material. The prusa multimaterial printer looks great, but you arent going to do PVA supports with it or flex rigid combos.

For some of these perhaps the Ultimaker 3 (or extended, BCNsigma (or max)  or new Robox Pro are very worthy competitors. But yes about 2 to 4 times the price of the Prusa.
 

Offline MicroBlocks

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What most 3d printer users forget is that something wonderful as glue exists.
You need only a small hickup to scrap an hours long print. This is your first concern after having dialled in temperature and speed settings.
Slice up the model and print it as smaller parts that can be glued up.
It also very often avoids support material (by rotating the model first) which is sometimes hard to remove and clean up. It waste also a lot of time to print all that support material.
I use cura and i can place mulptiple models on the bed that are printer one by one. The software takes care the printhead will not crash into previous models by warning you at placement time.
It works perfectly and when you have that inevitable little hickup then only a small part is wasted.

 

Offline mikeselectricstuff

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If only things were that simple. But firstly I will state that the MK3 looks like a fine printer and probably is a great choice for many of those that want a step up from the cheap chinese machines. I would love one.

However... I have to disagree that its the ONLY choice for less than 10K. Here are a few reasons why you might want something else.
.....
Or you're impatient & want something quickly - seems they've been selling faster than they can make them, though website is only saying 2 weeks now for the kit, "March" for assembled
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Offline ZomBiE80

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No 3D printer will be "Quick and easy" or "Plug and Pl/ray" ever. Every decent machine will need setup until those will produce nice results. Those chinese P.O.S's have such high tolerances, replacing parts to something suitable will cost more than base unit itself. With less than 1000€ you wouldn't get anything useful, unless you are handy guy like me or Mike.
 

Offline Monkeh

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No 3D printer will be "Quick and easy" or "Plug and Pl/ray" ever. Every decent machine will need setup until those will produce nice results. Those chinese P.O.S's have such high tolerances, replacing parts to something suitable will cost more than base unit itself. With less than 1000€ you wouldn't get anything useful, unless you are handy guy like me or Mike.

Or you buy, say, a Prusa.
 

Offline wilhe_jo

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No 3D printer will be "Quick and easy" or "Plug and Pl/ray" ever. Every decent machine will need setup until those will produce nice results. Those chinese P.O.S's have such high tolerances, replacing parts to something suitable will cost more than base unit itself. With less than 1000€ you wouldn't get anything useful, unless you are handy guy like me or Mike.

Or you buy, say, a Prusa.

I really don't get why everybody's running after these prusa printers.

The only thing which may get you faster to nice prints are the profiles for different filaments... but these will only work better (read "well without further tweaking") for expensive brands. Cheap filaments will need tweaking anyway.

If you got through all troubles with calibration once, this is like 15min playing with some settings.

However, 3d Printers are essentially CNC machines. So they wil never be plug'n'play or quick'n'easy... maybe in some corner cases.

73
 
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Offline mikeselectricstuff

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I really don't get why everybody's running after these prusa printers.
From what I've seen, quiet Trinamic drivers that can also sense missed steps and recover, direct filament sensing, auto bed-level sensing  and ability to recover from a power-outage.
The fact that they 3D print a lot of the parts for their printers themselves means they should a lot of experience in making them work reliably

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Offline Monkeh

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No 3D printer will be "Quick and easy" or "Plug and Pl/ray" ever. Every decent machine will need setup until those will produce nice results. Those chinese P.O.S's have such high tolerances, replacing parts to something suitable will cost more than base unit itself. With less than 1000€ you wouldn't get anything useful, unless you are handy guy like me or Mike.

Or you buy, say, a Prusa.

I really don't get why everybody's running after these prusa printers.

The only thing which may get you faster to nice prints are the profiles for different filaments... but these will only work better (read "well without further tweaking") for expensive brands. Cheap filaments will need tweaking anyway.

If you got through all troubles with calibration once, this is like 15min playing with some settings.

However, 3d Printers are essentially CNC machines. So they wil never be plug'n'play or quick'n'easy... maybe in some corner cases.

73

You can get them properly preassembled and tested, their firmware is maintained specifically for the machine, they're not thrown together to imitate some other design as cheaply as possible..

Buy a preassembled Prusa. Take it out of the box, run through a few minutes of verification steps, feed it gcode and it prints properly. They really are fairly quick and easy to get going. I know, I know, you don't believe me..
 

Offline wilhe_jo

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I really don't get why everybody's running after these prusa printers.
From what I've seen, quiet Trinamic drivers that can also sense missed steps and recover, direct filament sensing, auto bed-level sensing  and ability to recover from a power-outage.
The fact that they 3D print a lot of the parts for their printers themselves means they should a lot of experience in making them work reliably

Well all of these are good points, but to be honest, I want my printer to be fast, big, reasonable quality, quiet and reliable operation.
To get a big and fast printer providing quality, I got for myself a H-Bot.

Trinamic drivers were supplied (the 2208 ones... so no stall detection but as quiet), bed leveling is done with a bltouch probe.
To prevent the printer to hick-up on every mains-glitch I got a standard 24V industrial supply... so no problems with voltage dips,...
But the main thing for me was the mechanics...

If Prusa had a CoreXY or a H-Bot, I'd have possibly taken that one.

You can get them properly preassembled and tested, their firmware is maintained specifically for the machine, they're not thrown together to imitate some other design as cheaply as possible..

Buy a preassembled Prusa. Take it out of the box, run through a few minutes of verification steps, feed it gcode and it prints properly. They really are fairly quick and easy to get going. I know, I know, you don't believe me..

Well, that's only half the story. You will buy some cheaper (or in my case, locally sourced) filaments, and you're again fiddling around with some values. That's not quick/easy!

If you just want the thing to run out of the box - RS Components has the Replicator Mini and Makerbot Go for like 1500Euro (incl. VAT).
Then you have at least a printer with serious mechanics which can go fast which not only has a maintained firmware but also a slicer with a huge arsenal of filament presets.

Same seems true for the Lulzbot printers... similar price range as the prusas but IMHO has nicer mechanics.

So there are definitly good alternatives for the i3... the Lulzbot ones are also open-source as the Prusa ones!
maybe it was just the i3 Mk3 launch making people just blindly running after these...

73
 

Offline ar__systems

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I got myself a Zortrax and I'm pretty happy with it. I was looking for printer to just work, without having to tweak many parameters. And it is good. I don't have to fiddle with parameters a whole lot. Their native slicer is a bit limited, but there is a way to use Simplify3D with converting gcode to zcode using a z-tool application. This is a path I'm taking now. In the last two month I printed tons of parts, mainly various jigs and tools for my SMT equipment.

Still, as much as hands off it is, one need to understand limitations of this manufacturing process, and material properties. So you need be realistic. If you want a completely point-and-shoot kind of machine, I don't think it exists at any price.
 

Offline ar__systems

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I have to mention that Zortrax is very solidly built. I had an opportunity to compare it to XYZ DaVinci, which is about 1/2 price of the zortrax. And it shows. The daVinci is built to minimize cost. Lot's of plastic and sheet metal. Zortrax is all thick metal plates and no plastic.

Solid mechanics is apparently very important to get stable results.
 

Offline Monkeh

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Well, that's only half the story. You will buy some cheaper (or in my case, locally sourced) filaments, and you're again fiddling around with some values. That's not quick/easy!

So your argument against the Prusas is that you wouldn't buy good filament if you bought a Prusa. What.

Quote
So there are definitly good alternatives for the i3... the Lulzbot ones are also open-source as the Prusa ones!
maybe it was just the i3 Mk3 launch making people just blindly running after these...

I never said there weren't. I just happen to be somewhat familiar with the Prusa machines. .. and no, I'm not some fanboy with a garage full of them. I own 0.
 


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