FlashForge Creator Pro 3D - any reason NOT to buy one?

[Ward]

I personally have a Flashforge Creator pro and a CTC 3d pro. I bought the Creator pro about a year ago, and the CTC over a month ago. Price wise, the Creator pro cost me $1450. The CTC cost me $430.

The main difference that I notice between them, is the case it is in. The flashforge has a nicer case, metal, sturdy. CTC has like a painted pressboard case with cheaper screws. The bed plate is also a thinner aluminum bed plate. That being said, after I printed out a few upgrades for the CTC, it runs basically just as good as my flashforge creator pro does. Basically identical printers other than the case, bed plate being thinner, after a few printed upgrades. I also switched the glass bed plates on both, so it really is about the same printer now.

The CTC came with non-spring loaded extruders. Those can also be printed and parted together with the direct ones it came with, but instead I personally took my left spring loaded one from my flashforge and put it on the CTC. Perfect And in doing so, I now have 2 extra motors, since I only have 1 extruder motor on both printers. Don't dual print much, and can be put back in if needed.

I would still pick my Flashforge over the CTC, but if I had neither, I would just buy a couple CTC's and call it a day :P

Cool. Are you the guy who made the T-Rex skull?
I think I DID buy a FFCP....it's just called a Monoprice and cost almost half as much.

[Ward]

Lots of things. Besides the bed leveling, the clean build plate, the right plate and extruder temps, you have to make sure that your designs are printable without tons of support and rafts and whatever else. Depending on what type of filament you're using, you might need to mod your printer with a cooling fan, or properly enclose your printer if you're using (dare I say it?) ABS. The 3D printer reality check is really just - experience (time and testing).

Ok. Thanks for the feedback. I think all my current designs are pretty simple and should be very easy for the printer to build. I hope. But like you say, experience will correct if I'm wrong. I hope I haven't underestimated the skill required to take things from design to build.

[UAVUHNM]

other than build volume - nope no reason whatsoever not to buy one.
http://www.casesam.co.uk/category-ga...-cover-15.html
http://www.casesam.co.uk/category-ga...-cover-10.html
http://www.casesam.co.uk/category-ga...-cover-33.html

[Ward]

Maybe I should have bought the FFCP after all.....the MonoPrice clone seems to have had a catastrophic extruder failure on the 3rd print :-(

I'm so sad. I did two prints yesterday, the first done with ReplicatorG (awful) and a 2nd done with Simplify3D (fantastic) and was very excited.

Extruder malfunction (overheat then total extruder failure) on the third print this morning.

Waiting for MonoPrice to open this morning so I can call and see what they will do.

[djprinter]

Maybe I should have bought the FFCP after all.....the MonoPrice clone seems to have had a catastrophic extruder failure on the 3rd print :-(

I'm so sad. I did two prints yesterday, the first done with ReplicatorG (awful) and a 2nd done with Simplify3D (fantastic) and was very excited.

Extruder malfunction (overheat then total extruder failure) on the third print this morning.

Waiting for MonoPrice to open this morning so I can call and see what they will do.

Could just be bad luck. Although it's really hard to gauge the reliability of products that are in so few hands.

[Ward]

Could just be bad luck. Although it's really hard to gauge the reliability of products that are in so few hands.

Well, they told me they have never had that failure before. Time to buy lottery tickets.....

[djprinter]

Well, they told me they have never had that failure before. Time to buy lottery tickets.....

"never" is not a believable number of failures--obvious lying.

[Bassna]

I mean hey, if they are fixing it for free, not so bad of a deal. Still saved a lot of money on that compared to a FF.