As the other enthusiastic roommate and as somebody who has built a 3d printer before I’m inclined to stay away from build-your-own designs. The printer I built (about 4 years ago) was a RepRap Rapman printer and we had a lot of problems with it. After assembling it we were constantly fiddling with belt tightness, fixing extruder feed and head clogs, and dealing with bed level issues. Don’t even get me started on trying to print ABS… Custom lexan enclosures and electric blankets were involved… Granted, that was a while ago and who knows - we could have built it poorly…
That experience really highlights to me how I want this printer to not work. I think nherbert stated it perfectly - “we’d rather not have the 3d printer be the project and instead wanted the 3d printer to accelerate our other projects.” With that in mind, it would be helpful to get some perspective on the Flashforge Creater Pro vs. Printrbot Simple Metal debate with regards to reliability and versatility (ie: can we get good ABS prints out of it?).
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The FlashForge will do a little bit more right out of the box but the PrintrBot might be a better printer in terms of quality and moddability. Both, I’m sure, will have plenty of weird quirks.
I have a Simple Metal, I’ve been printing with it pretty much every day for the past few months and haven’t had so much as an extruder clog. The bed is warped, but I was able to shim up a couple corners of the bed to make it more level. Once you have a fairly level bed, having the auto leveling feature on the Printrbot is great. I’ve spent a lot of time with Makerbot Replicator 2/2x/5th gen and the Printrbot has been a lot less effort to manage overall.
Both printers will be a project if you want to get the best prints possible. The Printrbot needs a few modifications the print abs, plus you might want to upgrade to the metal hot end if you want to print exotic materials, and you’ll probably want to build an enclosure for it. I’ve never used a Flashforge but it looks like an improved 2X clone, which should probably be fine if sometimes frustrating.
In my mind, the bottom line is that the Printrbot can do almost as much as the other printer for half the cost.
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You will still fiddle with tightness and levelness but for price to performance the printrbot is the better choice, I am close to taking my simple makers from a 4 cubic inch build space to a 10 cubic inch space with no loss on quality and only about $40 dollars on materials
Thanks for all the input. It looks like we’re leaning towards getting the Printrbot Simple Metal after all the support its gotten. We’re considering waiting on the heated bed, although we were looking forward to printing with both PLA and ABS.
Another person without an unbiased view of things… but I have just assembled my first reprap (Prusa i3) and although I agree that the printer shouldn’t become the project, I do feel that in building my own printer I have learnt a lot about 3D printers (I am a product design engineer and have used 3D printers of varying types for years). I feel because of this learned knowledge through building my own printer I have more control over the parameters that effect print quality and over time will be able to make modifications to further improve print quality and print speed. That being said, if you really aren’t interested in all that, then reprap’s probably aren’t for you. Worth considering though (especially if money’s tight).
Very simple, don’t buy either. Believe me, you want a Rigidbot. For $1400 you could get a 12x16x10 inch build volume, a super accurate printer (people run theirs at 80mm/s, that’s faster than I run my Makerbot Replicator 2), with a heated build plate, dual extruders, and a bunch of filament. If you want to save as much money as possible, the slightly smaller Rigidbot kit is 10x10x10 with a heated build plate, and only costs $580 if you build the kit yourself (which wouldn’t be a problem for you four) I’m currently saving up for a Rigidbot myself, and would definitely reccomend it.
kr0sh1
August 20, 2015, 5:12pm
11
Oh, and if you go ahead with the Printrbot, do yourself a massive favour and switch out the hot-end for an E3D - I destroyed one of their Ubis hot-ends in about three months and didn’t fancy waiting for Godo when it came to buying another Ubis. The E3Ds are fully repairable, modifiable and highly reliable, whilst giving you the option of swapping out the thermistor for a thermocouple if you want to print Polycarbonate or PEEK.
Current Completed Printrbot Mods:
- Installed drag chain on bed cabling
- Swapped heated bed heater for a silicone heater pad
- Upgraded to twin e3D extruders
- Flashed custom firmware.
Any questions about any of that stuff just drop me a line.
If you don’t mind me asking, how did you destroy it? I’m kind of worried about leaving my running for overnight prints. I’m worried the kind of print failure where a giant glob accumulates and are easy to deal with on something like a Rep2 would completely destroy the Printrbot.
My first printer and the only one I have right now is a Printrbot Simple Makers kit. I upgraded it to almost 8x8x8inches, with a heated build plate, doubled the accuracy, and a bunch of other improvements, but that cost me $700, and is still inferior to a rigidbot…
there’s flash forge clone’s on amazon for as low as $799 for dual extrusion and a variety to choose from. Another thing to think about is the cost of material and replacement parts. Being that there’s four of you on the machine something could go wrong where you’ll need to replace a part. Happy bot shopping!
I looked into the rigidbot a little. I think we wanted to work with a slightly more established printer. I get the feeling the rigidbot has a lot of potential, but also has a lot of kinks that need working out compared to the printrbot and doesn’t have the same level of support. Does this sound accurate?
Not in my opinion. The quality of prints from a Printrbot is exponentially worse than a Rigidbot, I’ve printed on my printrbot before upgrades, it was really poor quality. The Rigidbot has very few kinks that I’ve heard of. I talk on instagram with a maker who owns a rigidbot, and then got hired by them. His prints are exceptional, way better than I get on my printrbot, even after I doubled its precision. The Simple Metal isn’t a bad printer, but it’s just mediocre. I believe rigidbot is really a much better printer and Im a printrbot user through and through, and have no connection to either company lol. Rigidbot is a small company, but it also means they can give much more personal support. I’ve contacted printrbot a bunch of times, and they basically just refer you to forums and send you on your way
Printrbot “Support” is the community.
Hey Nicholas,
There’s nothing at all wrong with the Flashforge that a few tiny 3D printed mods won’t correct. It’s great, sturdy machine and very reliable. Mine prints all day long at 100uM and 200uM on glass. Invest in Simplify3D at the same time and you’ll have years of happy printing on a bomb-proof box. Support from local resellers and Amazon is exceptionally good too!
Cheers,
AndyL
Pot8oSH3D
Rigidbot looks very interesting and reading about makes me want it to be all that it says it is. However in this case I can’t find a lot of reviews for or first hand experiences with the Rigidbot, and the ones I have appear mixed. From the sample of experiences I could find online it seems like the people who enjoy the Rigidbot the most are the ones who almost immediately upgraded a wide range if components. It seems to me that it has a lot of potential for a real enthusiast (and a frugal one at that), but might not be ideal for us. I have talked to quite a few of my coworkers and no one has heard much about Rigidbot first hand, whereas many of them say the Printrbot Simple is one of the best value printers available. I may regret the decision, but it’s hard to spend the money on a Rigidbot considering it hasn’t yet established itself.
Do you think the Flashforge is too much for a first printer? (we have printing experience, however no one has owned a 3d printer before)
As one of the few people here with Flashforge experience I’m interested why you would choose it over other printers.
I have very little experience with firmware, but I assume that if you upgrade to twin extruders you need custom firmware? (and is it correct to assume that the e3d hot end does not require any firmware adjustments to work?)
Also, what, if I don’t sound stupid asking, is a drag chain?
kr0sh1
August 21, 2015, 12:13pm
22
I’ve had the ‘dreaded glob’ before but it’s always been to do with the bed adhesion or print settings - if you set your extrusion multiplier a little too high or your retract amount too low you’ll get globbing which may attach itself to your print, or in very extreme case turn into a doughnut around your extruder nozzle.
I don’t know what specifically I did to destroy the Ubis, what I do know is I printed long prints, hit high temperatures and tried about six different materials before it gave up. And it did really well up until the point where I wanted to disassemble and clean it, only for me to find that no amount of cleaning would fix it, and it’s not repairable in the sense that you can’t easily change a thermistor or heat cartridge.
kr0sh1
August 21, 2015, 12:19pm
23
The Printrbots run a version of the Marlin firmware which you can download through their GitHub page.
Changing anything about the machine is as simple as; opening the firmware in the Arduino IDE, changing a single digit in the configuration file, compiling, and uploading. Thankfully Printrbot have a decent guide on the process and even a software program to help with the last step. http://help.printrbot.com/Guide/How+to+Reflash+Firmware+-+Windows+PC/78
Technically using an E3D does require custom firmware, but in the simplest way possible - you literally change a single number in the configuration file to denote a different type of thermal sensor, then follow the steps aforementioned.
Oh and drag chain is the stuff that stops your machine’s wiring from catching in the Y axis belt and shredding to pieces. It’s mandatory on CNC machines, but so far I’ve only seen it on well-built Repraps and E3D’s Kickstarter printer.
Thanks for all this information. It sounds like the jot end is the first thing we would be replacing and I’m glad that it won’t be too difficult. How hard did you find it adding twin extruders?
