we are 3D service Studio with heavy volume and as diverse audience as yours. We are doing a lot of workshops for students from K2 till high grades. We are working with Faculty and Inventors and had similar problem to find proper, easy to use, not complicated printers for our client open area.
we tested around 22 printers in the past 16 months and depends on desired size and work type we decided on Zortrax M200 and Up!Mini 2. For very large prints we are using Fusion3 F-400. Zortrax has simple but powerful ZSuite and we run 280 hrs. jobs on it, mainly unattended. Bed size around 200 mm square, Up!Mini is easy to use as well. Both are enclosed, Mini has Hepa filter. We had both printers operated by 6-7 graders or total 3D novices.
F400 is large 14 inches each (xyz axis) and needs 3D deeper knowledge.
Where is your library located?
If you are in Georgia, by any chance, please stop by in our Studio. I can also share with our tests results. Some of the tested printers we still have and using them from time to time. For place like yours, we will never recommend printers from “geeks” category ( nothing wrong with geeks, I’m one) as you have choice of running it like clockwork or spend time fixing printers
you can contact me at ssliw@usa.net if you would to have more infomation about our decisions process.
For printer management I would suggest using 3dprinteros, we used 8 ultimaker with number of students collaborating and using the 3d printers. The whole interface is very institutional friendly setup and would prefect in your case. Has ability to slice in cloud, give prints, monitor them etc and also give access to students as required. Later on the data analytics is also helpful for some purposes.
Printer- I would recommend makergear m2 simply because its reliable and consistent, you will find others with good spec and all but this machine never fails. I give prints remotely and come home to find the prints done! simple.
I run a product design and 3D printing business and we use our printers basically 24/7 as well. We have used several brands of 3D printers, but we’ve found that the Ultimaker 2+ series is the most reliable as long as a the machines are keep in good maintenance. This includes regular greasing, oiling, etc. If you would like to get a hold of me to see some basic maintenance charts, feel free to contact me justin@shookideas.com.
In reference to your comment about expanding the number of materials, my business Shook Ideas would love to help you out. You can find our material shop here: http://shookideas.com/3Dfilament.html. We offer special discounts on materials to schools, libraries, etc. We use all of the filaments we sell, so we also support the materials we sell if you have any issues. I look forward to hearing from you!
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.
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.
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.
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.
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!
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!
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.
