CubePro review? or UPrint SE?

[kmisher]

I am trying to decide between a CubePro Trio ($5,000) or the Stratasys UPrint SE ($17,000). Does anyone have first hand experience on either one? The Cube Pro is fairly new and I haven't seen any thorough reviews. I think the UPrint has a longer history out there. Any info would be great. This is for a 3D Fabrication course. We need a reliable FDM Printer, and the Makerbot Replicator 2 we have just isn't cutting it. I need the next thing up from that.

Thanks

Karen

[jimc]

Karen, i have no personal experience with either one but i can tell you the college here recently got the uprint. I know the guy who runs the dept and he said he was not impressed with it at all. Its already been broken 1/2 the time they have had it and the prints are so weak they are useless. Again i have never seen or used it. Just passing along some info.

[johnschneider89]

Full disclosure, I resell CubePros via Fargo 3D Printing. Shameless plug out of the way, here's my thoughts.

If you consider a Replicator 2 unreliable, you're either using it wrong, putting cheap materials into it, or have a lemon. It IS possible you have a lemon, they do happen! We have 4 Rep 2's that we run day in and day out. Yes, they clog occasionally, but it's about once every 300-500 hours. Not too bad.

The CubePro is a very well built machine. The CubeX, the previous generation of the CubePro, is a piece of trash worth more as scrap material than as a printer. Seriously, night and day difference.

Loading the material into the CubePro is a bit timeconsuming, but the machine guides you through it well enough, giving step by step instructions via a touchscreen. The touchscreen should really be about an inch bigger and not recessed into the bezel like it is. If you have fat fingers, you'll want to us an "unclicked" ballpoint pen. It's a resistive, not capacitive touchscreen.

The CubePro software isn't nearly as nice as the MakerBot software, but if you're of an engineering mind, you'll figure it out

We've gotten some REALLY nice prints out of the CubePro. As with most 3D printers, making sure that the build plate is level is key, and there's not much of an assisted leveling feature built in at the moment.

The printer looks really damn cool, like something out of JJ Abrams' Star Trek. The enclosure helps to keep the noise down, and keeps the printer nice and warm when the chamber heater is turned on for printing ABS.

The software doesn't handle overhangs the best. It tends to overbuild supports, making them difficult to remove after printing, and overhangs tend to droop quite a bit.

It's certainly not an exhaustive review, but I hope it gives you something to go on!

[igolfchip]

Check out the Fusion3 F306. $4K gets really fast speed, great print quality. Not pretty to look at but gets the job done, better than others at a great price.

[jimc]

i second the F306. if i was ready to upgrade from my makergear m2 today the f306 would be the only one that would get me to make the move and considered......right now

[emh203]

The CubePro is absolute Junk! We bought one for our office to do light duty prints. All of the reviews online were good and the examples at MakerFaire look good.


Bottom Line... This printer is simply non-functional


1.) The dual print head looks attractive as you can do support. Unfortunately the software to drive the machine is severely crippled. You have little to no control on how support is created. The problem is that it will always fill a solid volume with a cross hatch. The problem comes in that when it starts to lay down a continuous surface on top of the support, everything gets mangled. The engineer running the machine has had experience in developing models for many other 3d printers that have come out very nice. He felt if there was simply a way to tell the software to not use cross hatch support (just do a solid fill), it would be reasonable (that is what we get when we pay for another local service on a pricier machine). We tried many iterations to get a model right. Nothing, worked. Everything was warped or mangled in some way.


2.) Jams.... we have not gotten any model (other than a trivial test piece that takes 20 minutes) to complete without a Jam in the extruder. Once it stops, there is no way for the machine to restart without ditching the model.




We had about 60 man hours into the test/debug as well as multiple calls into 3d systems. The admitted #1 is done on purpose to reduce quality and #2 is "stuff happens". This printer is simply unusable.


We have been fighting to return the unit as they claim a "no return policy"...


Along the way we ordered 2 extra cartridges. Both were not recognized by the unit. The engineer working on it kept calling and didn't get a good one until #10!!! Along the way they even sent the wrong model cartridge.


The only success we have had is when you tell the unit to use straight lines to be used from support. The other patterns (diamonds, squares) never work. The machine always fails about 20% in. Using straight lines often causes the model to warp an break away from the base as alternating layers are not done at a 90 degree offset.




I plan on doing a video review and try to post everywhere I can. This machine and 3D systems is a waste. I WILL be at Maker Faire this Fall and WILL do as much negative advertising as possible.

[GOC]

- A young friend of mine got one because of the low profile, she thought it'd be nice for a dorm room. Nothing but a lot of b!#@$ing about it being a piece of crap & expensive. Needless to say, I do a lot of prints for her. I was just sorry to see her deterred from the printing part of the hobby because of one bad experience.

[StratasysEmployee]

- A young friend of mine got one because of the low profile, she thought it'd be nice for a dorm room. Nothing but a lot of b!#@$ing about it being a piece of crap & expensive. Needless to say, I do a lot of prints for her. I was just sorry to see her deterred from the printing part of the hobby because of one bad experience.

Full Disclosure: I am a current Stratasys Employee.

We tried to put together a fair comparison between the Uprint and Cube Pro Trio. Take a look and let me know what you think:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W4D1cpeYXw0

[iDig3Dprinting]

There are some issues with the support set up for the CubePro. Apart from that our experience is that, once dialled in, i.e. properly calibrated and the correct settings are used, then it does produce some very good quality prints.

Its not Plug'n play, the same way most 3D printers are not. They require a good deal of setting up before they work optimally.

As everybody else has declared their conflict of interest, we will as well, iDig3Dprinting also sell CubePro 3D printers.

What we have found though, as an added bonus, is that Cubify support are very helpful and responsive.

As to the Uprint, We cannot comment.

But if the 3D printers are for education, I would plump for being able to buy more than one rather than putting all your eggs in one basket. You need to decide what type of resolution you need to be printing at, how large the prints need to be and also the materials you want to use. Start there and then use that to guide your choice. You may beable to buy several different types of machine targeted for their different capabilities.

[3DWeaver55]

Our company has had a CubePro for the last 3 weeks and it has been nothing but trouble right out of the box!!!
Filament Cart undetected, then took a week 1/2 to get replacement sensor and cartridge.
Multiple clogs, inconsistent prints, layers separating during printing.
Our first print after going thru all the setup and leveling was one of the samples from 3DS and were shocked to come in the next day to a pile of plastic spaghetti and a partially built model. No wonder they have a "No return policy"! I would never recommend this printer to any of our clients until they fix this unit. Then we'll see.