Not to throw a wrench into your plans but check out Raise3D. Their N2 is a solid printer and should be in the same price range. We have been printing with their N2 Plus for a year now and have had an N2 as well for a few months.
i got the Rep2 upgraded to 2x, the only thing to check is the heated bedplate that have some imperfections and x Axis cable that is very stressed, but lastest are build better.
Mine prints well with PLA and ABS too… even without raft!
Note that there is a new desktop to prepare prints on the new Replicator+ series; Makerbot Print. For the moment it is early in its versions; so the ability to create any substantial custom profiles is pretty limited to the typical defaults. But that will be coming as updates and will eventually be a great slicer in my opinion. It still does a good job as far as the defaults are concerned
The new desktop was created because, and again I’m no tech geek, the original slicer had reached the limit of its potential; as it was described in simple terms for me.
One really cool development is this new desktop will work with native files - Solid Works and stuff. Import and print. Great for folks like me.
As far as quality - I have no experience with Lulzbot - my Rep+ prints have been coming out with the quality I’ve come to expect. But that stuff is relative.
Makerbot has their new Tough PLA product. It’s got some characteristics similar to ABS. It does however require a separate version of the Smart Extruder+.
I’ve never used it but I’m hearing reports that it is meeting expectations.
If it helps we’ve been working on 3d hubs for some time and we would swear by the Taz 5/6 models, they are a great workhorse printer which achive everything you need for most 3d print applications and more.
With Taz you can tweak it, dual extruders, flexi extruders, flexi and solid extruder (dual head) and now also the MOARstruder head (basically big, fast jobs = 24 hours prints at reasonably resolution in 5 hours!).
We have over a few years of pretty much constant printing had to do little/no maintenance on the printers, and they have a better material library and bigger build bed than I’ve managed to find anywhere else for the same all round capability of the machine.
The Taz will run 4-5 day prints on it’s own with no worries and will do really good quality prints and more importantly it’ll do all this out of the box and consistantly.
Makerbot has put out some shoddy products in the last couple of years. The Lulzbot Taz 6 uses a 0.5 mm nozzle I believe. You loose some fine detail in printing with that nozzle but you can change it. I would recommend the Makergear M2. I have 2 of them and they have been relatively bulletproof. The quality of the print is amazing. The printer uses a 0.35 mm nozzle. I would opt for the stainless steel nozzles as they are far easier to keep clean and keep from clogging. On one of my printers I am using a 0.5 mm nozzle. Other than having to increase the printer temperature it prints fine with this nozzle. The support from Makergear has been first rate. I receive a response to questions or issues promptly.
