I’m leaning more and more toward the Craftbot, one thing i saw is that some people aren’t happy with Zortrax support ( maybe the users aren’t from Europe) and one other thing i saw is that on the Zortrax website you can only buy a couple of accessories but on the Craftbot website you can buy pretty much every little accessory, do you need to contact zortrax if you need something specific?
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I live in the US and have not needed direct support from Zortrax itself so I can’t comment there. Their maintenance and troubleshooting guides are superb though. I also have found quality US based distributors of Zortrax products that are the same in price and have most of the necessary accessories. Despite Zortrax not being open source, there are quite a few printed parts on the machine that allow for customization and upgrades. Craftbot, also European, has had great customer support and I’ve had no issues there.
I’ve owned 6 printers and have used a couple more and nothing I’ve used works as easily or reliably as the Zortrax M200. The beauty of the M200 is that you don’t have to become an expert at 3D printing to get good results almost every time. It doesn’t have as much flexibility in materials as open source printers but if you want to focus on your designs and not the printer I would highly recommend the Zortrax. The Form2 will give better smoothness and resolution for organic shapes but costs about 500% more per print and the material properties are undesirable for many applications. I rarely ever use my Form1 anymore. The Zortrax is not the best choice for every application so you may get better feedback if you describe what types of parts you want to print and what you expect in terms of accuracy, finish and strength.
Zortrax M200 prints really high quality 3D prints with a low fail rate and usually if it does fail a print the error is on your end. Also you don’t realize how helpful auto calibration is until you don’t have it.
The software is easy to use but has some limitations.
You have to buy the doors for it to achieve best quality.
Now the thing I riding like was that it would leave black burns on the prints. Even with a perfectly clean nozzle. Google it and you can see many have this problem. Support were not the easier to remove. Cleaning and removing model from build plate was a pain because it’s perforated. The SD card reader stopped working after 2 weeks. I ended up returning it for an ultimaker 2+.
The Zortrax inventure seems like it might solve a lot of these problems I’d probably look into getting that instead if you want to print abs.
I just want to print some of my characters( static figurines) and vehicle i made and maybe later try something that i can sell.
Thanks for the info, do you have any prints on both machines that you can post images, that would be awesome if it wouldn’t be to much hassle, i don’t know what the difference in print quality is between the two, someone said in a review that the Craftbot plus even though in the specs it can only go to 100 microns in the software you can go to 50 microns but craftunique doesn’t recommend it to be used often.
I know that it takes really long to print if you go under 100 microns but what i don’t know is what makes a machine be capable of going lower that 100 microns since most printers use standard 0.4 mm nozzle.
Regarding the noise has anyone measures how noisy it is in decibels,i heard the plus version has noise dampers but the stepper motor is kinda loud, i’m asking because if something will take over night to print i won’t be able to sleep, i won’t be keeping the printer in the same room with me but the walls where i live are pretty thin.
Cheers.
Here is a newbie question, how do you set up the Craftbot to work with Simplify 3d?
We are a professional 3D print shop and use 3 Zortrax printers along with industrial printers. We keep checking out other desktop FDM printers and really can’t see any good reason to buy another brand at the moment. They are easy to use, reliable and produce great quality models for the price. Closed environment is not an issue for us since we are not tinkerers - we just need the thing to work. Biggest downside is that filaments are more expensive than generic filaments, but again that’s not an issue for us.
I have an extra m200 that i’ve used twice and I’m looking to sell. I love it but I’m looking to upgrade to a resin printer for my custom collectibles.
dimfistproductions@gmail.com if you want more info
I’ll post two Benchy boats and try to match color with them.
As for the noise, my walls are thin too and I can’t hear it the next room over. I can check the noise levels too and get you the decibels, which should be louder since I do not have the Craftbot Plus.
That would be incredible, thanks a million.
4 months later
Hello,
Did you finally bought the Craftbot plus ? Are the prints are as good as Zortrax M200 ? Any usability problems ? I am also in the process of buying a 3d printer and I am between these 2. Difficult decision to make.
Thanks for your advise
George