Which Printer? - Advice please

[curious aardvark]

See previous posts :-)

[violetprincess]

Really can't go wrong with any of these though the ultimaker gets my vote.

[Charlie1]

I recently purchased a $300 Chinese Prusa style printer, and can perhaps provide some insight.

I like the Wanhao machine mentioned - it's a good machine for the price. But I feel that the prusa style machines as a class are inferior, due to the fact that they need to move the finished work constantly back and forth along the Y axis. This constant movement results in printer artifacts. The ultimaker design, in which the printing head moves around the x and y axes in the top of the machine is a superior design. Ultimaker style machines deliver higher print speeds, and higher quality, than Prusa style machines.

Bowden feeds are superior to direct feeds, simply because removing the stepper motor from the printer head reduces the mass of the head, and thereby its inertia. The head starts and stops movement more precisely. In general, anything you can do to lower the moving mass will result in higher print quality.

But with that said, many are mounting dual cooling fans around the print nozzle in an attempt to rapidly cool the molten plastic, which - for some at least - improves print quality. It is true that people who have used just one fan on one side of the nozzle have experienced very lopsided results. Cooling the extruded plastic rapidly seems to be a good idea, and doing so evenly is very important. I'm not an expert in this, but there's sure a trend in that direction.

If you intend to print any plastic other than PLA, you will need a heated bed. And even if you confine yourself to PLA, a heated bed can still be very useful. I personally consider a heated bed to be an essential in any modern 3D printer. You can get away without it - the Dremel attempts to do so - but life is so much easier with a heated bed.

In general, a larger build area is better than a small one. Many Prusa class machines have a build area of 200mm ^3. A lot of my projects have been hampered by not having a large build area. So when you have the option, bigger is always better.

In general, I would recommend the Ultimaker 2+ in the tall version. I think it clocks in around $3,000 USD, and is probably the best general purpose 3D printer on the market today. At least, I feel so.

But with that said, the Wanhao duplicator mentioned can also create excellent results. It won't be quite as good as an ultimaker, but it will be very, very close. If you slow a Prusa class machine down, the inertia experienced along the Y axis largely ceases to be a problem. Given that Wanhao machines generally clock in around $500 USD, you could buy 6 Wanhao machines for the price of an Ultimaker 2+ - and 6 machines can definitely put out more stuff than one. So, from that point of view, 6 Wanhao machines might be the better buy.

I wish I'd bought a Wanhao. The $300 I spent for the Chinese prusa clone has turned out to be a poor investment. Had I spent $200 more and bought a Wanhao, I'd probably have wound up a lot happier.

Hope that helps - Charlie1

[ralphzoontjens]

How about an Ultimaker clone, I heard good things about these. For example this list:

SanjiuPrinter Z360
PROS

1. Delta PS is #1 maker of power supplies
2. Upgraded aluminum filament feeder hardware with dual gears. A big positive!
3. Ultimaker 2.1.4 mainboard
4. Painted underside parts, shows attention to detail
5. Ultimaker heatbed with logo (hopefully the quality is like the original)
6. Printed labels for wires, boxes, bags and screws
7. All connectors are pre-crimped and ready to attach
8. Corner pieces have vent slots like new Ultimaker 3
9. The part fan assembly on the printhead is the newer version
10. Better price

CONS

1. Didn't use anti-static bags for electronic components! This is no longer a concern for me as I've tested my components without any issues.
2. Corner parts were under sprayed and over sprayed and not done in a clean room. Quality Control is lacking for those painted parts.
3. The printhead uses the older PT100 sensors that don't include fiberglass tubing all the way to the back of the heating block.
4. Short spools holders that can only fit spools up to 70 mm wide. If you need longer spool holders let them know up front otherwise it will cost extra. Short spool holders are part of the UM2+ upgrade kit so it can be good or bad depending on your inventory of spools.

JennyPrinter Z360
PROS

1. Mean Well Power Supply. Top quality PS used in the original UM2
2. Removable and replaceable stepper drivers with 2 spares. They use their own proprietary mainboard not the original Ultimaker.
3. Static bags used for all electronic components
4. Longer spool holder, accommodates spools up to 90mm wide
5. Corner pieces are better painted

CONS

1. Proprietary mainboard with no specifications available
2. Proprietary heatbed
3. Old UM2 filament feeder mechanism which is known to be very problematic
4. Dark tinted glass with grid marks (Several owners have complained that chunks of glass come off when removing prints). Very low quality. Recommend you place a PEI sheet on top of the glass to make it more durable.

If anyone has experience with these let me know!

[dannielgery]

Hi. Nowadays 3D printing technology is very much popular in every industry. Due to the high demand and precision, it takes to build these intricate machines. Some 3d printers are:
1. Peachy Printer
2. MakiBox
3. Printrbot
4. Phoenix 3D Printer
5. Romscraj
6. The Buccaneer
7. Solidoodle
8. RigidBot
9. Robo
10. Deezmaker Bukit Mini


I took service from Iannone 3D, which uses in-house Stratasys Fortus printers as well as our network of large-envelope printers for 3D Printing Service in the New Jersey area. For more details visit the website. Thanks.

[ralphzoontjens]

An industrial quality machine for low-ish budget you can also look into is the Stratasys Dimension, it has good quality for functional prototypes in ABS and you can buy used ones for a fraction of the price nowadays.