Hi Jessica,
I think these links can also help you to find and explore more options to discuss…
http://www.3ders.org/pricecompare/3dprinters/ 8
and
https://www.3dhubs.com/best-3d-printer-guide 9
regards
Luis
Skip to main content
Form 2 printer is aweome for other options in materials! My form 2 never fails when it comes to high res 3d print. Mainly do prints for universities and engineering prototypes! But its not a cheap printer to run, you pay for what you get!
Dear Jessica,
after reading all blogs I can understand why some folks are steering away from the blogs. The American_3D friend is trashing every printer with bunch of false information about Zortrax and other printers. Are they ideal not, but each printer has the place and role to play. First off all Zortrax is using SIX DIVERSE materials plus two coming in November Z-Nylon and Z-Laywood. Today you can use Z-ABS, Z-PCABS, Z-Hips, Z-Ultrat, Z-Petg and Z-Glass. Their price for spool is comparable with other high end materials from Tylman or Color Fab. Yes, it is tested by them and guarantee consistent print you will never achieve from cheap material from Frys or Microcenter. Good material is 60% of successful print.
AS I stated we tested 20 plus printers (including TAz, different Makerbot’s, Tier Time, CubePros, Cube3, Fusion3, ZOrtrax, AirWolf, Formlab, Micro Advantage, Objet30, 3SP and multiple others amongst them). It looks like everyone is trying push printer he/she likes or have interest in, rather than ask you what are the Success Criteria for your place and then suggest proper device to fit your requirements. Fact that someone like TAZ doesn’t mean that it is best printer and it will work for you. We have Taz and have different opinion about it. Maker Bots received bad reputation and they deserved it, but I have friends very happy with Maker Bots as they like to feel connected to printer through fixing it. They will never replace it with Zortrax or Ultimaker2 or Up!Mini2 as you don’t have to do anything rather than print, print and print. I’m not trying to sell anything but rather share my production experience from more than 2 .5 years production operation. We went through similar challenge like yours, after realising that MakerBots will not sustain my business, but that they are very good for “geeks” to understand how printer works, how to repair it, replace nozzles, heads etc. Do I like them no, but I recognize that they are very good in certain MakerSpaces as they require student to think Improvements.We had very good experience with student rebuilding MakerBot to very decent machine.
What I’m trying to say is that unfortunately in this blog we have too many personal views and very little cool, metrics based information. I can share with you (i’m not selling it) our experience if you can contact me at email I indicated below.
Is your library production, MakerSpace, Education or all of the aboves? And if you have multiple environment, maybe you should look at different printers in terms of ease of use, software, size of the build platform, number of the nozzles and so on.
Best
Kuba
Hello Jessica,
FYI MakerBot and Samsung recently partnered to introduce MakerBot 3D Printers to five European markets. http://inside3dprinting.com/news/samsung-and-makerbot-partner-on-digital-skills-program/41044/ 1
Below is the link to a clip of “Print the Legend”. You can find the full documentary on Netflix. I think you’ll enjoy it!
Pather
Indeed. Learn how reprap machines work and use Prusa mk2. You’ll be able to afford more printers in your farm, allowing for regular maintenance windows. And they are well documented and easy to repair, on top of being able to print an insanely large number of filaments.
Hi Luis, I’ve read through all of these guides and tested several of the printers. I’m specifically looking for folks who have experience operating these printers at a production level rather than as an at-home hobbyist printer. Thank you for the links.
Thank you so much for your detailed response Kuba. Unfortunately we’re in Arizona, otherwise I’d love to come by and visit your studio. I have heard very good things about the Zortrax and will be reviewing this model in more details. You’re right about the choice of ease-of-use versus time spent fixing. Right now almost all of our Makerbots are down and I’d like nothing better than to chuck them all in the bin and light them on fire.
We actually have a training location in Arizona
Go have a chat with https://desertcommunityrobotics.com/
Dear Jessica,
i responded few minutes ago but I cannot find it in chain.
I was suggesting to send me email and I will provide my private mobile number that we can talk about our experience. We already working with scoops in Missisipi and we will be very happy to assist you. Yes, Zortrax is very capable and we have 5 of those as of last night. I’m not trying to sell you anything, simply exchange experience.
best
Kuba
.
I gave them a call tonight. The person I spoke to was very helpful and kind but unfortunately could not speak to the specific issues I was referring to above - production printing at a high volume - since they are education rather than production-based.
Hi Jessica,
I understand your pains completely. The comments from earlier in the thread talk about how the Ultimaker is not very good since it is a Bowden drive set up. They are somewhat right. I had two Ultimaker 2’s. They were ok, but since then I’ve upgraded them to the Ultimaker 2+ versions and they have been rock stars ever since. Not only are they more reliable, but I can print basically twice as fast. This is important because my business not only does product design and prototyping, but we 3D print products that we sell to consumers. If 3D printing directly to consumer doesn’t tell you about the reliable quality, then I don’t know what will. Like I said in the earlier post too, we run these things all day and night. This is all done with the Ultimaker 2+. Currently we stock over 20 different materials that the Ultimaker 2+ uses flawlessly. We have several machines in our farm and they work great.
I say this and I don’t work for Ultimaker, don’t sell for Ultimaker, and have no contacts at Ultimaker directly. My business does sell the best filament on the market if you are interested though :). We’re just passionate about 3D printing more than anything!
Thanks,
Justin
Justin Shook
Founder, Shook Ideas, LLC
We lost all our videos we took when we had a company use one of our machines for a mini production run, but here is an interview with the engineer that used the machine
You can contact us at info@gizmo3dprinters.com.au and we can have a chat. If you look at our YouTube channel you will see many many live streams proving we can do production runs on our machines.
Sorry Jessica. Wish I could have helped you more. We don’t care for extruder based printers : ) Haven’t had any luck with them. Too mechanical in nature and prone to breaking.
We do however LOVE our GiziMax dlp sla printer. Less working parts and less problems. It’s the future! My husband went to U of A. Go Wildcats!
2 months later
I woul recommend the N2 or N2+ from Raise3D. It’s a closed 3d printer how can reach 300 °c . It can work 100 hours without any check and the precision is really impressive.
Best Reagrds