Would you recommend this?

[stevemills04]

I am thinking about buying my first 3D printer. It is really just for fun, but if I spend the money, I want it to be on a decent printer.

I want to spend around $1,250 and I want a printer that is home friendly and flexible on print material. I am ok with light programming and maintenance, but would prefer that my first printer be as plug-and-play as possible. Obviously I would prefer the largest print volume possible, but understand this may be asking for a lot.

What do you think of the Lulzbot Mini or FlashForge 3D Creator Pro?

Any recommendations are appreciated!

[dunginhawk]

both are good printers. ive owned both... if i had to do just one, it would be the flashforge creator pro. I think the overall quality of prints is better. In fact there arent a lot of FDM printers out there better.

[LambdaFF]

With that price, you can get a printrbot metal plus : they are selling refurbs now at a discount. I think they're a good deal and the company is good.

[Geoff]

I am thinking about buying my first 3D printer. It is really just for fun, but if I spend the money, I want it to be on a decent printer.

I want to spend around $1,250 and I want a printer that is home friendly and flexible on print material. I am ok with light programming and maintenance, but would prefer that my first printer be as plug-and-play as possible. Obviously I would prefer the largest print volume possible, but understand this may be asking for a lot.

What do you think of the Lulzbot Mini or FlashForge 3D Creator Pro?

Any recommendations are appreciated!

Flashforge for that money, for sure. I bought mine for about $1200 4 years ago and the thing still purrs. If you can afford a creator pro, go for it - alot of support and great prints, very easy to use and alot of software options.

[3dex ltd]

Flashforge and Lulzbot are both very popular and good choices. However, I think the quality of the FF is very good!

[KludgeGuru]

Take a look at the Qidi Technology 3D printer. It is the same design as the Flashforge but a few hundred dollars less. I got mine for $650 on ebay. It was delivered in 3 days from China. It works great and I'm pretty impressed with the quality of the prints.

Check out the thread discussing it here:
http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...icator-2-clone

But if you really want to spend more money I've heard the Flashforge is a good machine. I have a friend that has the Lulzbot mini. It works great but he is disappointed that he doesn't have the dual nozzles and enclosed case.

[vollken]

I would recommend you the flashforge over the lulzbot not only for the strong quality of the product but mainly for its features; versatile dual extruders, it's solid steel frame construction and it's upgraded platform that can withstand very high temperatures ( A very important asset if you ask me). While it does have other good assets, just like any other good printers, the flashforge isn't costly and still produce quality products.

Though I still think that budget-wise, I'd recommend the Craftbot from CraftUnique. It may not be the best around but it did obtain a rating of 8.8 on 3D Hubs! Plus it's only about 999$. Of course, when selecting your first printer you have to consider the extents of what you are aiming to produce. If it's small to medium sized personal or creative models, you may want to aim for a lower quality/cost printer. You don't have to go bankrupt over 3D printing unless it's for manufactured products.

Honestly, if you got any troubles finding and selecting the right material/ software/printer just go on www.3D4U.co

[LambdaFF]

Dual head printers are hard to setup and frustrating for a beginner. Not necessarily a good first choice.

[Geoff]

Dual head printers are hard to setup and frustrating for a beginner. Not necessarily a good first choice.

Nah, I was a beginner and I was printing dual prints like this within a week or two.. in fact the second thing I EVER printed was a dual extrusion robocop logo, in makerware its a breeze and its piss easy to adjust nozzle height.. If you can't use an allen key, I suggest steering away from printers all together however

cne.JPG

[curious aardvark]

yeah the dual nozzle isn't necessarily an issue.
I;ve currently got one machine with the right nozzle removed and one working with both.
And yep - at the moment makerware is still the best choice for dual extrusion.

There are no real pnp machines around at the moment. the cell robox probably comes closest. As it has programmable filament reels that can be set to the best setting for each filament. so you just swap reels and start printing without having to mess around with settings.
They are also user programmable as well.
I suspect it's just outside your budget range though. Plenty of us suppliers lookingn at the map. lmao - walmart sell them :-) Oops - some walmarts sell them. nothing on the wallmart website. Okay looks like it's around $1500, 1400 on amazon. Not much build height but other than that it's a very very nice bit of kit. They've got a lot of stuff right, why they couldn't have added another 50mm build height I don't know. but that's pretty much my only criticism of the machine.
But worth a look: http://www.cel-robox.com/

The other option is to go cheap: http://wanhaousa.com/products/duplicator-i3-steel-frame
only single nozzle - but the mk 2 is getting pretty much just great reviews. and only $400 :-)
Buy three :-)