Hi, I’m looking to upgrade my hand-built Prusa to a manufactured model, in hopes of gaining reliability and print quality.
Two printers which stick out to me are the MakerGear M2 and the Robo 3D R1 +Plus. They both seem to have similar features/build volume. Here’s my pro/con list so far.
M2 - Pros
- Dual extruders (optional)
M2 - Cons
- Supports only PLA and ABS – What about other materials?
- Price – More than twice the price of the R1.
R1 - Pros
- Price
- Auto-leveling
- Supports any material up to 290c
- SD Card reader
R1 - Cons
I’d love to hear feedback from current owners or people who know more about these two printers. I’d like to make a decision soon!
Thanks.
Update: Thanks for all of the thoughtful comments – I pulled the proverbial trigger on an R1 earlier today. Looking forward to not having to mess with my Prusa. 
I have the ROBO 3D R1 Plus. I got it in February 2016. Amazing printer. I also have had the Davinci, Dremel, Prusa. I personal returned all of them except the ROBO. Some cons:
- The filament loading is kind off hard
- The filament might get tanglled because of the position(their are turns of mods to fix this)
Those are the really cons.
Their is a promotion right now. I think it has an amazing value.
The Prusia M2 what not really what I was looking for.
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Another really good printer is Ultimaker/Airworlf. If you can afford them.
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Yeah, those are bit more than I want to spend. 
I can’t comment on the Robo3d but I have owned a Makergear M2 for 2 years now, leveling is easy and it stays level, I very rarely have to make adjustments. I have printed large orders taking up to 5 days only stopping to swap out prints and it just keeps going! You can’t find a better built machine than the M2. The new model with the V4 hotend can print much higher temps, check out the makergear forum and you will see people printing in nylon and petg. Good luck on your decision, I am sure you will be happy with either one!
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Wow, those are great quality prints! Thanks for the comment/insight. (Can you link me to the source for the plane?)
developing 3dprinted planes - RC Groups Here is some discussion on the plane, the guy who designed it has several more designs!
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I have 2x M2
I printed a lot of exotic filaments. I have one model with single extruder and upgrade it with the Dyze extruder and Dyze end. The second have the dual extruder kit with V4 Nozzle.
I print around 21 hours a day on each one and I make only some ajustment. I higly recommand to use the printer with S3D software.
This is the Pros and Cons I can tell about the M2 Model
Pros:
- Very flexible equipment
- VERY GOOD customer services and you can find a tons of tips on the forum
- the nozzle is very precise and I have been able to print a .025 layers
- Speed of printing is very good
- Not a lot of ajustments to make between prints
- Quiet
- Heated bed go to 150C
Cons:
- Dual extruder is difficult to ajust
- The default fan is not terrible. I recommend to upgrade with a small blower and a 360 degre fan dock
- The LCD is optionnal
- No ethernet or wi-fi connection
- Price of shipping for the parts (I’m in Canada)
Tips:
- The carbon fiber will bring VERY FAST your brass nozzle unusable. This is why I change to the Dyze Design kit
- The very flexible filament cannot be extrude
- Add a BuildTak on your glass. The result is wonderfull
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Robo has excellent custumer service. M2 also had pretty good costumer service. I just did not like the look of the m2, so I changed. Either way you buy the are good!
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I “own” all three. M2 is hard to get in Europe, must be shipped, but is superior in mechanics and wiring. I would rate these items 9/8 in a 1-10 scale. I consider the Prusa 4/3.
If a Prusa is your reference the R2 is very cost effective but rates 7/6.
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ROBO is better than M2, i would rate robo 10/10, m2 8/10
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Could you elaborate a little more and explain why you consider it better? I am not saying your wrong but you need to include some reasons!
Personally I I was torn between several 3D printers. The M2, Robo3D, Taz 4, and the flashforge dreamer. the taz was too large, the Robo3D didn’t look very sturdy and seemed like it would be hard to modify, the dreamer has lots of bell and whistles but also seemed like it would be hard to modify and I heard bad things about the quality control and customer service. In the end I wanted the most industrial type design I could get that will last the longest with minimal maintenance so I chose the M2. Customer service has been amazing, they have their own forum and are active in the community and listen to customers.
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I assume you meant Prusa 4/10 and R2 7/10? Edit: Nevermind, I get what you’re saying.
Thanks for taking the time to respond with all of that detail. It sounds like a great machine, I’m just not sure the extra $1,000 is worth it compared to the R1. Thoughts on that?
M2 will print other materials up to 290 as well… M2 is upgradeable and bed has been improved… its not auto level but it is simple and only needs to be done once long as you dont rough up the printer seriously. I dont agree auto level is as precise as people say… typically it requires the z to constantly adjust and to me extra movement equates more chance error and flaws… dont get me wrong you can get great prints from them, but depends how picky you are. I have several M2 running nearly 24/7 and some have been doing it for over a year straight now with no problems (even with their old style bed) …they are also open source if that means anything to you. They also have stainless steel nozzles now, If you get regular hardened steel nozzles for any printer dont torch them to clean them because that will ruin their temper and no longer be hardened. For those that care what the printer looks like over what the printer is able to produce then it may not be wise to make suggestions if results meant less to you… unless you like big expensive desktop paper weights… no offense, just my opinion. No ROBO to comment on.
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do you have the most recent rev. E?
I have a http://hlcs.it/wp-content/uploads/2015/04/Prusa\_i3.1280.jpg like Prusa, I consider this Prusa fun to build, but not fit for production. It’s like a Ural motorcycle: lots of maintenance, very sensitive, error prone. I had more than 10 issues in one year, including fierce sparks from the electronics, wire failure and lots of plate adhesion issues due to the sloppy, loose mechanic design. I didn’t even print a full kilogram on it.
The R2 is solid. Fit for production, but it has some weak spots. Mine had some QA issue out-of-the-box. Over a year: Heated plate design had to be modified due to a melted PCB connector (under dimensioned for the current it needs to provide) the cooling fan failed, the on-off switch had a quality issue and is stuck. Everything is easy to overcome or repair, but it seems a bit “Chinese” in quality, QA and design. Wiring is medium. There are some flex-points hotspots that result in defective wiring over time. There is stress on wires when printing large legal hight objects. Basic rigid mechanics is definitely it strongest point. Results are fine. Big objects do well. Glass plate is great. Dynamic multipoint calibration. Dynamic hight compensation to level out inequalities. Almost a print-and-go printer. Great value, if you are prepared to do some maintenance yourself. I printed more than 15 kilograms on the Robo.
Mk2 is a different ballgame. Superior mechanics. Rock solid. Great wiring. Flawless in all aspects. Great prints. No calibration needed after its initial setup. Its flat and stays level. Print and go. 24/7 capable. Has its pricetag, but worth every penny. I don’t have it that long, but I am confident that I can print 50+ kilograms without any printer related issues. (Not including common initial parameter settings, plate adhesion, warp and object design trial-and-error stuff.)
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I have an r1 (not +) and I’ll say it runs like a champ. Bed leveling has been an ongoing struggle for me because there is no manual adjustment and the autoleveler hasnt been precise enough to prevent warping on abs. But other than that all stock parts and ive been printing for over a year. Paid for itself several times over
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n23d
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I also have a Robo3d. Mine is the original Kickstarter version. The original suffered from a few defects that have been corrected in the newer version. The biggest was the Y axis slide. The old slide would sometimes bind up and cause the Y axis to slip ruining the part. The new one uses linear ball bearings. I broke the build platform due to a tangled spool of filament and took the opportunity to upgrade to the new bearings and also increased the Y axis travel significantly to about 400mm. Also added wire chains to better control wire routing. One nice thing is that with the active forum and low cost I was not concerned about making these enhancements and several others. The linear bearings made a big difference in reliability. The Z axis on mine also has a few imperfections because I have not upgraded to the new Z axis screws. The X axis on mine was a little wobbly until I added the Z axis rod stabilizers which is one upgrade you should do If you go with the Robo3D. You will not notice it with short parts but it causes issues with taller ones if you push the print speed up. Over all I like the Robo3D machine and believe the latest model will compare well with all others for cost vs performance. You can find better machines but you will pay for it.
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I would like alert you about how their is a taz 6
