Thank You all for your reply. I really appreciate it. To me Dual Extruder is not important, but a large print surface is a great thing to have. My main motive it to print out, Robot parts prototypes, in Either PLA or ABS, before sending it for manufacturing. Hence, I was thinking to have a larger print bed.
Based on the feedback from this forum, I am inclined towards Flash Forge Creator Pro ( Amazon has Lifetime Support through flashForge guys). However, I have looked at the below printers and wanted to get back your feedback on them:
All flashforge retailers are required to offer lifetime support. Lifetime support does not mean lifetime warranty. All legitimate retailers fall under the same warranty and support guidelines. Flashforge amazon is forced to comply and follow MAP pricing because it is the standard and most well known source for pricing and shopping for just about anything. Other retailers are able to move lower than MAP as special options and opportunities arrise. Best of luck in your purchase and welcome to the 3d printing community. We are all here to answer an questions you.might have along the way! -Kenny
Great discussion here. Since these machines are quite comparable, to me, the decision to go with either basically comes down to two thing.
It’s been mentioned multiple times, but the FF offers the advantage of being able to be easily enclosed. If you intend on ever printing ABS, this it pretty much a requisite.
The FF doesn’t rely on “standard” gcode printing directions. Instead, it relies on the proprietary .x3g format. From a functionality standpoint there’s really no difference (there are converters out there that can produce .x3g files from .gcode if your slicer doesn’t natively support …x3g), but you’ll run into compatibility issues in certain instances. Octoprint, for example, isn’t compatible with the FF.
Re: octoprint, the latest version supports x3g based printers via integration with the gpx utility. Which means you can now drive your flashforge via octoprint.
I think you send gcode to octoprint, and octoprint uses gpx to convert it to x3g and send it to the printer.
The latest release (0.11.0 on 2/11/15) doesn’t have GPX integrated. Gina’s pretty clear that the new versions being worked on are very much in the alpha stages. Do I think that one of these days Mark will solidify his plugin and they’ll fully release it in a future version? Yes, but it’s not really supported just yet.
As an owner of both printers, I would have to say that the configuration of the axes alone on the FlashForge produces vastly higher resolution prints with less drift; however, if you’re just interested in mechanical parts with functional resolution, I’ve been able to print a part at 950% speed on the Printrbot, getting it done (with really low but solid resolution) in 14 minutes versus the FlashForge’s 54 (but FF’s still came out with dramatically better quality). All that said, the build plate on the FF also heats up better and having had two printers with and two without an enclosure, I’d say the benefits of an enclosure (air draft minimization, heat retention, /portability/, &c.) vastly outweight the benefits of an extra 1-4 inches on the bed. You’ll rarely ever use close to the 225mm mark and, even then, it’ll more than likely be just in one dimension (moreover, if you do need just a little over the max on one dimension (say 250mm out of 225mm), you can tilt your print up a bit into the z-dimension and gain an extra few mms).
Regards and Onwards,
-zCoCo from OllTheStuff
Great website btw!
