Hi,

I have plans to buy my first 3d printer. The 3dworld is not completely new for me, I have the skills to model 3d models and animate them in C4D, Maya.
But the part to bring the models and designs to real life is completely new for me. I Inform myself the last few weeks about 3d printing and read a lot reviews and info about 3d printers.
There are 3 printers that are on my list, The Ultimaker 2, Ultimaker Original Plus, And the Flashforge Creator Pro.
Maybe the Ultimaker 2 Go but I don’t like the small build volume but it’s accuracy is supurb.

I’m going to use the printer to print out my custom designs, products and figurines. The figurines will be printed in high resolution. So the printer has to be accurate, no big ripples.
In the time that I don’t use the printer I will use it as a hub to print out orders for other people.

The Budget: € 1000 – € 2000 but if I can save around € 1000 than I have a bigger smile so I can buy some extra filament and other toy’s for the 3D printer.
The Ultimaker 2 is around € 2500 but I find some second hand UM2 on the internet for under the € 2000

Fillament: I going only print out some PLA or Colorfab XT filament and some experimental filament like wood, copper etc but no ABS because of the toxic fumes.

There are some questions that I have to make my decision between the Ultimaker or Flashforge Creator Pro:

1 - I live in the Netherlands so for the support the Ultimaker would be the perfect printer. But I don’t know about the Flashforge Creator Pro.
There are some store’s here that sell the printer but what about the maintenance and the spare parts here in Europe.
Is it easy to get spare parts for the Flashforge without spending 50+ dollars on delivery costs, from China or the US.

2 - The thing that I don’t like by 3d prints is that you can see the ripple layers, especially if I want something smooth like faces or spheres.
So what about the resolution. I read that the sweet spot for a good high resolution prints on the Ultimaker is around 0.06 mm for almost a smooth surface.
The Flashforge has a maximum of 0.1 mm. Is the difference noticeable between 0.06 mm and 0.1 mm?
Can some people show me some pictures of high resolution prints that are print out on those printers?

3 - Is there a difference in quality of the prints by the Ultimaker Original Plus and Ultimaker 2 and how easy is it to achieve 0,06 mm prints on an Ultimaker Original Plus
without tweaking a lot in the hardware site like tightening the belts and calibrating the X&Y axis. etc?


Thanks,

Mark