Just starting out in 3D printing. This model looks to be a good spec and an affordable,starting point.
Can anyone advise on print quality, support, or just let me know how they are finding it? Many thanks!
Hey @moddhayward, the 2016 3D Printer Guide, based on the collective experiences of our Hubs, will be out in about a month. Maybe you’ll find some more info on this then. Hope this helps!
Hi, If you’re just getting started in 3D printing I’d highly recommend against any Delta printer, as Deltas have a very specific set of advantages that don’t actually make too much sense for most makers and are VERY hard to calibrate and tune properly. You likely won’t have a good experience with Deltas at all until you’ve learned quite a lot more about both 3D printing in general and Cartesian printers through hands-on experience. Instead, for a beginner’s printer kit, I’d recommend looking for a Prusa i3 kit. They’re still priced well and very DIY, but they’ll also have much easier configuration and likely more stable operation for a beginner. Cheers, -Karl
Thanks Karl. Can you tell me what you feel the advantages of the Delta printers are? I have been using a Cube and a Solidoodle, so I have some experience - just not on my own printer! And if you have used this specific model, please tell me how you have found it? Many thanks!
The main advantages of delta robots in general are speed and positioning accuracy, as well as minimal backlash. The lightweight print head driven by 3 motors allows for much faster movement, provided the steppers and controller are fast enough. In addition, because of the principle of the delta design, positioning accuracy is improved particularly towards the center of the bed, though that drops off somewhat at the sides of the bed. Finally, since all three linear rails have gravity directly acting on them, backlash on the rails is nearly eliminated entirely, which also improves positioning repeatability. (Some backlash is still present on the effectors, but even that is minimal.) That being said, both speed and positioning accuracy don’t make much sense for most delta printers I see. The main limiting factor to print speeds is how well the extruder and hotend can keep up with motion, not just the motion itself. Even if the robot is able to move at some crazy 600mm/s speeds, the extruder will still likely limit the actual speed while printing to more typical 100mm/s or so speeds. Regarding the positioning accuracy, it wouldn’t actually help print quality much since no matter how accurately you can place the extruder, you’re still extruding a pretty thick blob of plastic which is what’s limiting your detail size. About backlash, GT2 belts and proper tensioning techniques have already minimized backlash in cartesian printers anyways. So really, for most people, Delta printers don’t actually offer any practical advantages and have the disadvantage of its complicated configuration and tuning.
Thanks Karl! Just ordered a Prusa i3… 
