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  1. #11
    Engineer ralphzoontjens's Avatar
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    Thanks for the advice!CA could you expand a bit on why Formbot is so much better?Since Formbot and Creality are both Chinese builds though, I'm also wondering about electronics reliability since it'll take so much longer to break even.

  2. #12
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    Jul 2014
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    for one thing the formbot uses the proper prusa i3 engineering.
    I know I bang on about thsi to the point that people just assume I'm being paid by josef.
    But it's because from a mechaical and engineering point of view - it's significantly faster, more stable and has better precision that the crippled i3's creality insist on making.

    I have a plywood framed i3 made with components so cheap most people would have changed them before even powering the machine up.
    But because it's the prusa design it will print - accurately and consistently at 0.3mm layer height and 200mm/s.
    Most people with creality machines seem to think that 70mm's is fast.
    My replicator pro clone prints at 70mm/s and the print carriage on that has 2 nema 17s, two hotends and 2 extruders. It's a seriously heavy, slow moving beast. And even that is as fast as a creality cr10 !

    So these things Matter.

    so: direct drive extruder, proper printbed side supports and dual z motors (to be fair, the cr10 series have dual z motors).
    The rest of the formbot components are better quality.

    And - very few people come here and say: 'I've just bought a formbot - why doesn't it print properly.'
    Plus it's IDEX.

    Now at the moment, if I were strapped for cash (and to be honest I'd have to gain money to even get up to the 'strapped' level)

    I'd be seriously looking at the Hictop D3 Hero: https://www.hic3dprinter.com/product...-dual-extruder
    Again, it's a full prusa design i3 with idex for under $700.

    I have no knowlege of reliability or much else beyond a few youtube videos - most pretty positive, nobody saying Don't buy this - and the stated specification.
    Oh and it has Linear rails !
    The sapphire pro I've just picked up has linear rails - oh man ! Are those things buttery smooth !
    Wheels ? we don' need no steenkin' wheels !
    ;-)

    But at the end of the day - it's a large idex made with easy to source standard components that - on paper - look pretty reasonable.And I can;t emphasise how much difference the liner rails must make to a standard i3 wheeled print carriage.
    Fast, smooootthhh and ultra stable. There is no way you should ever get carriage rock on this baby.

    Okay, so on balance, taking the $1300 price differential - I've just talked myself into the hictop and out of the t-rex :-)
    Last edited by curious aardvark; 05-18-2020 at 03:41 PM.

  3. #13
    Student Govard45's Avatar
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    May 2020
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    Hey guys - thanks for the tips! I'm leaning towards the Formbot T-Rex 3.0 after looking around the link from curious aardvark. The build size is awesome at 400x400x700 although I may save $300 and go with the 400x400x500 size. I kind of put a mental limit of about $2K for a 3D printer.

  4. #14
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    well have a look at the hictop as well.
    not as big, but still a large print area and you'd have about $1200 left for any mods that might need doing.

    It's interesting.
    the t-rex has linear rails on the bed and the hictop has them on the print carriage.
    Not suire which will make the biggest difference.

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