Comparing 8 different printers...

[Mastermind]

User ratings are interesting but they really don’t offer an objective comparison between printers. They just offer a popularity rating, since most people “love what they got”.

The Make Magazine shootout is the most objective comparison I’ve seen but even that doesn’t represent real world experiences very well.

The following summarizes my experiences with 8 different printers… What are your comparative experiences with different printers that you have used yourself??

I’ve owned the following printers:

CubeX Duo - This printer was complete garbage. Stay away from anything CubeX! They charge a fortune for filament and my experience with their printer was terrible. They’ve probably done a lot to turn many away from consumer 3D printing.

TAZ1 - I didn’t like it. I had a high print failure rate and its cheaply built with parts printed on other TAZ machines plus some aluminum extrusion tubing.

MakerGear M2 - I really liked this machine. It had a high print success rate and is very well built. I still experienced quite a few print failures and supports were often very hard to remove unless I got the settings just right. Settings for one print didn’t usually work just right for a different print. Pretty much all the FDM printers I’ve used, other than the Zortrax M200, are like this. I spent more time focusing on setting the printer to get my prints the way I wanted them than on designing/developing the part.

Form1+ - I loved it at first. Then the $65 trays started failing after about a half liter of resin and I realized it costs 5x as much to use as a FDM machine (counting trays, around $250/kg vs $40/kg for FDM) with a much higher print fail rate. It also doesn’t print very accurately. I.E. if you try to print a roller wheel it will wobble and not be perfectly round or if you try to print a flat plate it won’t be flat. It does print organic shapes very smooth except where supports touch. Anywhere a support touches leaves a sizeable bump. My Form1+ sits idle next to my Zortrax most of the time. I only use the Form1+ when I need a clear part, or for microfluidics manifolds. The enclosed laser section and heated vat of the Form2 should help prevent many failures but they still haven’t gotten past the PDMS tray system which is pretty unreliable and expensive. I’ll be interested to see how the Form2 performs over time.

Zortrax M200 - Press go and your part will print without failure almost every time. No more fiddling with print settings or praying that you won’t have a pile of string in the morning. There are only a few user adjustable print settings but that’s all it needs. This is what I had hoped 3D printing would be when I started… I really love this printer. It has freed me up to focus on my designs and not on print settings. We’ve printed 70+ hour prints with no issues. I wouldn’t even consider doing that with any other printer I’ve used because the chances of a print failure would be 50-100% with most of them. I’ve just completed two runs of prints that take 56 hours and everything came out perfect. Its the only printer I’ve used that allows me to go to sleep knowing I will have what I wanted when I wake up the next morning, almost every time. I was very surprised to see that prints set to the 90 micron layer height turn out nearly as smooth as Form1+ prints. Material selection is limited to ABS, HIPS and a Polycarbonate like material (Z-glass) but I find that ABS is the best choice for 90+% of the parts I make.

M3D - It works but its a toy. It doesn’t provide very good accuracy or finish compared to the Zortrax. Some parts are functional and for the price I think its a good machine if you don’t mind relatively high print fail rates and mediocre accuracy.

We have an Ultimaker2 Extended at work. It only gets used when our two Zortrax machines are tied up or if we need to print something in PLA. It’s a nice printer but its not nearly as consistent, reliable, or as easy to use as the Zortrax. Sometimes prints look very good. Sometimes they don’t. There’s still black magic involved that most of us prefer to not have to deal with.

We also have a Artiflex2 at work. We bought it because we needed the all metal hot end to print some high temp materials for a NASA project. So far it has been very comparable to the Ultimaker2 but its frame is not as well constructed. However, it doesn’t seem that the cheaper construction has affected the print quality. It’s done a pretty good job so far.

You can check out my hub here…https://www.3dhubs.com/louisville/hubs/3d-innovation. Let me know what you think. Most of the prints shown there are from the Zortrax. A couple are from the Form1+.

[gabriela3d]

Nice comparison, @Jessé! We’re getting ready for the next 3D Printer Guide, we’d really appreciate your input if possible. Cheers

[Cotterpin]

Form 1+ is a wet machine, so I’m not sure what your actual expectations were? Wet machines have always had post processing associated with it and will continue to do so for a very long time. It doesn’t hurt to get your elbows greased and buy some sandpaper for a rewarding part. What a silly misconception.

[Mastermind]

People should know what to expect for a $4000 machine. With the Zortrax (a $2000 machine) I get better prints that cost 5x less with 5x less post processing labor and a near zero print failure rate. My Zortrax and Form1+ are 6" apart. I can use either one anytime I want. I use the Form1 once every few months. The Zortrax runs almost non-stop. That’s the take away. The Form1 is better for some types of prints, no doubt. However, for engineering prototypes I use the Zortrax 10:1 over the Form1. The same is true at the engineering firm I work for. If I find a printer that can outperform the Zortrax, I’ll buy it. So far none of the machines I’ve used have come close.

[Cotterpin]

The Form 1 is built and marketed towards late prototyping phases as well as ZBrush sculptors. This has been known since they released it and is basic shop class knowledge. I’m not trying to invalidate your thoughts; just provoke a different perspective. Anyone who researched the technology before purchasing would know about the differences in SLA & FDM. The Form1 is the machine you make your final castings from after you have a solid prototype from a FDM. I have a 700 dollar FDM (which is the type of machine your Zortrax is) that has no failures either and use both exclusivley. It’s all about user and research.

[Mastermind]

I find it interesting that your $700 FDM performs better than the 6 FDM machines I’ve used, including the Ultimaker2 Extended. What FDM machine do you use? This may be enlightening to everyone.

[Mastermind]

That’s a great list. I wasn’t sure the difference between “enthusiast” and “plug-n-play”. Those categories don’t put similar printers head to head. Comparing them by print technology and price point or having sortable columns for specifications (min layer, min feature size, speed, cost, materials, material strength, material toughness, build area, build volume, heated bed, noise level, enclosed or not, bowden or direct, filament dia, open source or not, proprietary or open materials, cost per kg for proprietary materials, tolerance analysis of printed parts, ease of support removal, single or dual head, auto or manual z-offset, auto or manual bed leveling, lighted build volume, etc…) may be helpful. That way people could pick the technology they want then scroll to the price range and compare there.

Something no one ever seems to include in printer comparisons is the costs per print. For instance, the CubeX printers use proprietary filament that costs about $150/kg. That’s about a 500% markup that dwarfs the cost of the printer in a pretty short amount of time if you print very much. The Form1 materials start at $150 per liter plus about $100/liter of build tray use (I usually can count on 0.5L per $65 tray). That’s around $250/L which is about $250/kg. Open source printer filament is around $30/kg. Zortrax filament is about $40/kg with no other consumables. I print around 20kg/year at home. We go through around 50 kg/yr at work. Here’s the material cost breakdown for $50 kg/year (eye opening)…

CubeX - $7,500 per year

Form1 - $12,500 per year

Open source - $1500 per year

Zortrax - $2000 per year

If you factor in print fail rates the numbers change a lot…

CubeX - 50%, $15,000 per year

Form1 - 20%, $15,000 per year

Open source - 15%, $1,725 per year

Zortrax - 3%, $2,060 per year

Throw in labor costs and the Zortrax ends up being the cheapest by far.

Also, showing apples to apples print photos for various types of prints from each printer would be great.

I’m not sure how to quantify why everyone at work who uses a Zortrax doesn’t care to use the other printers unless they have to. I think it has a lot to do with the very high print success rate as well as not having to fool with print settings to “dial in” prints. You pretty much just slice and go. That would be difficult to characterize in a printer comparison without using all of the printers for several weeks on a regular basis. The Zortrax gives a better print quality for most parts than the other FDM machines also.

There’s still a lot of room for improvement for the Zortrax where it may get edged out for some that need one of the following…
-quieter

-faster

-Dual head, dissolvable supports

-Larger build volume

-Lower warp for large, straight walled prints

-Ability to use more types of filaments than Zortrax offers

-Lower price point

IMO, I believe Zortrax has pin-pointed the most important factors for most users… no experience required ease of use, super high reliability, high accuracy, very good surface finish, ABS plastic which has much better heat and UV tolerance than PLA.

[Cotterpin]

I use a FlashForge and CTC.

[gabriela3d]

Cheers, Tony! @Paul_71, here’s more valuable feedback on the 3D printers guide

Tony, if you have any more feedback, be sure to include it here: Talk Manufacturing | Hubs. Many thanks!

[Chip_Royce]

Great post!

I run sales & Marketing for Fusion3 and agree with a lot of your points - we encounter a lot of these issues when trying to tell the story about our products.

When shopping for a printer, there’s so much more than specs and price to inform your decision. Final print quality at the speeds and layer height / setting you need to print in is VERY important. The Make shootout does a good job of trying to use apples to apples comparisons and we recommend that prospective customers get a sample print of their designs so they can see first-hand the end results of the different printers. Material costs are also very important for those printers that don’t embrace an ‘open materials’ (razor blade) model. 3 other factors that we don’t see discussed a lot: 1) quality and nature of service and support; 2) reliability (ability of printer to deliver a finished print at expected quality on a repeated basis) and 3) durability (how long will the printer run before you see parts fail).

[Mastermind]

Chris… this is Tony from Techshot. You sent me a sample ABS print of a military battery housing mockup printed on your machine. I will say that the Fusion3 was able to print that part with less warping and with equal surface finish quality as the Zortrax. I was impressed.

[Chip_Royce]

Thanks for the kind words, Tony! Did you end up purchasing a printer?

[Chip_Royce]

@gabriella3d - interested in learning how to get products listed in your next guide? I run Sales & Marketing for Fusion3. Our printers are in the 3D Hubs database. Due to our focus on EDU and Commercial use, we don’t get as much attention as consumer / prosumer, but would like to think that we’d be a worthy addition to your guide.

[cyprien]

Thank you…

[Paliproto]

I have to agree with the Zortrax printers, I have a Makerbot Replicator X2, Taz 4 with upgrades, Cube Pro Single, Cube Pro Duo, 3 Zortrax M200’s and 2 Cube 3’s for FDM printers. The Zortrax M200 has become my workhorses for FDM prints, they are running 24x5 for the most part.

[boydconnor]

Great insights here! I loved the tank turret cake topper from your hub page btw - just curious how it worked out in the end? What did you use to power it?

[Mastermind]

It worked great. My nephew loved it. I used a hobby servo and a Maestro controller from Pololu.com with a simple 4 pack of AA’s to power everything.

[Mastermind]

Here’s a video showing a little bit more about the 3D printed tank turret birthday cake topper… Moving Tank Turret Birthday Cake Topper - YouTube. Let me know what you think…

[Johnic]

Great info I’ve been looking for. Honest info from someone who uses the printer.

There are so many choices is crazy. It’s down to for me:

Zortrax M200

Cubicon Single

Makeegear M2

Raise 3d

But realistically its between the Zortrax and the Cubicon single. Any thoughts ?

[Mastermind]

Printers have improved so much since this review I can’t really offer up to date advice now. A friend of mine bought a $600 open source printer and made a few simple mods and is getting some excellent prints from that machine. The one advantage that the Zortrax still has is that you don’t have to learn how to adjust 50 different print settings to get excellent prints. It just has a few preference type settings and you just print. If you want a lot of flexibility in materials then the Zortrax isn’t the best choice. If you want great prints without a lot of tinkering then it’s a great choice.