Leapfor xeed

[Mastakazes]

Hello there,

I really need to know about Leapfrog xeed 3D printer. I searched the web, but was unable to find any good experiences nor the bad ones. So please if anyone has some experience with this printer, share it. Or if you have some opinion in general about this printer please share it.

Thank you.

[PRINT3DUK]

Leapfrog printers in general have the best quality in there class. We wouldnt hesitate to recommend. Also the leapfrog support and sales teams are quick and efficient.

[pikes57]

Dear Illja,

I do have some experience with the Xeed. This entry level professional printer is easy to use, very solid build and -same as the Leapfrog Creatr, not restricted in filament choices- therefore not expensive in daily usage. Pls specify your need for info and I will be happy to try to answer

best regards,

hans

[Mastakazes]

Thank you Hans for your answer,

Well I have researched that printer a lot. I have found that it has great specifications, I have also contacted the leapfrog support center and they have been very helpful, and they have also sent me a sample print which looks great. But during my research I came across a number of comments for their Creatr, that it tends to break a lot. Is it the same case with the xeed? That is now my main concern. What is you experience with that?

Best regards,

Ilija

[3Dscaleworks]

One of Xeeds usp is the closed environment of the print area that makes change of wrapping of ABS during printing quit small.

This als counts for other plastic with a fast cooldown time.

[Outbound]

My experience with Leapfrog is outright terrible. I bought my Creatr Dual nearly 3 years ago and it has been nothing but a damn headache. I’ve recently gotten it to work again by pretty much replacing the controller board with a Megatronics v3. I remember in their old forums they used to have a couple of comments on the Xeed forum and they weren’t very enthusiastic. Something about the printer not being able to go past the first layer basically. They are incredibly overpriced and over-hyped. If you need a large volume printer I suggest you look into something like the Lulzbot.

[OliSven]

I own a Leapfrog Creatr since two years and it was a terrible experience. I recently bought a Ultimaker 2+ and I can’t be more happy with the machine. I would never buy a Leapfrog again and would not recommend the brand.

[3Dscaleworks]

But this is the past te 2hd gen HS is a big step forward. And the Xeed is a pro version which run without problems

[Yoshi]

Hello,

I have been using Xeed about 6 month now.

Xeed is generally very good printer. I have used 5 FDM printer so far and xeed is the best so far.

This is what I think. What makes 3D printer more expensive is not actual printing resolution or result, but physical printer parts and structure quality.

Since a 3D printer has various moving parts, while a printer is moving some part might get loose.

If 3D printer is cheap, The printer uses all cheap parts. so There is more possibility of bad result after few printings.

Xeed has very heavy duty housing and high quality parts. Very well build. So you can print as same result for many times. In another word, if you have effort to calibrate many times you should get cheaper one.

Honestly I had a very bad experience with Xeed first time, but there was a defective in a part. Leapfrog sent me a replacement machine. After I got the replacement, I have no problem at all with Xeed. I calibrated printer only once since I got new one. Now I can run the printer 24 hours non stop without any effort.

Another advice I have is Xeed is not supported any soft material such as PVA, Brick or flexible PLA etc. At least I have never succeeded. Also some part of xeed is not designed very practically such as filament is located very far from nozzle, sliding door and usb port is only at back of printer or such. That’s another complain, but there must be some reason, though.

[tnarro]

I agree with everything another responder named Yoshi said about the XEED. This is my 2nd machine, but first “non-professional” model. I bought my XEED a year ago and have become happier with it over time. However, as their highest price (except the tall Creatr) and most professional product (although, I would still classify it as a high-end hobbiyest machine) the XEED is a little disappointing as it has many has so many limitations:

1. limited materials - this is not so clear in their website materials unless you look at which models each filament is recommended for.

2. I can not get flexible to work. I will not give up, but it needs more time.

3. The ridiculous location of the usb ports (on the back).

4. The low quality VGA display.

5. The heating bed cable gets caught in the door due to completely unplanned looking location at the door front. It literally comes out of the heated chamber every time you open the door. You can not close the door without two hands. It is just that bad.

6. The heating bed is not stationary in the X-axis. You must be careful if you open the chamber during a pause in a build not to move it. Once the machine started mysteriously after finishing a job and slammed into the part that was on the bed and jackhammered the bed into the glass door.

7. There is no way to pause the machine and change the materials (simply) if you want to change color mid-build or if you run out of material during a build. You can pause the machine, but there is no simple way to run the unload/load utility so that you can just start where you left off.

8. You can’t run PVA dissolvable filament which is one great reason to get a two-head machine. In fact it is the reason I bought it, I was stupid to not figure this out ahead of time. I was disappointed that they let me buy the material as it was on the order I placed when I bought the machine. I bought 10 spools from leapfrog direct.

There are more frustrating things about this, but at $10K, I expected none of these issues.

That said, here are the positives:

1. Good mass (I think it is 180 lbs or so), so on a solid table you don’t have the same vibrating jackhammer of some mid level machines.

2. two heads, although I have to be honest, I have yet to benefit from it. Again, I wanted to run PVA with ABS to be able to drop the print in hot water and dissolve the support. Also, I wanted to run flex with ABS, but again, no luck.

3. heated bed allows good conditions for good ABS Adhesion/builds. Really nice ABS performance. This is the most impressive part of the machine as ABS is my favorite material for making dimensionally stable durable prototypes.

4. Enclosed chamber, if you work with ABS, enough said.

5. Simplify 3d is pretty good slicer software that comes with the machine. Not difficult to figure out.

6. The guys in the Netherlands are very good at responding to problems (they use a decent ticket system). They are very nice and have very good english.

7. I have not looked at machines in a while, but when I bought it, there was really no competition (two heads/good resolution/reasonably speedy/heated bed/network/wireless/good software interface/on-unit screen/robust sealed enclosure…) at this price that did not have proprietary material requirement. Other cheap/high quality machines seem to make their money on selling you over-priced cartridges. I love this about leapfrog. I have used $11-20 ABS and PLA with no real problems.

A word on what I considered to be the competition:

One competitive example is MarkForged around $6-10K also. Nice machines, but with a single head (at the time of purchase anyway). Also, the material is so expensive that if you are a steady user, you will pay more than the machine each year or two just in materials, they are 8-50x more than the Inland materials you can get at Microcenter.

All that said, I think the the lulzbot people look interesting too. If you have any more questions, please send me a question, I was very frustrated to not find more experienced XEED users when I was making my decision on which machine to get.

Thomas

[tnarro]

See my comment above (or maybe below).