Hi, age old question. I am new to the industry and my fascination with the same has got me pretty hooked on to start a small prototyping service in my hometown in India. I was looking at some FDM printers and i have narrowed it down to the UM Extended vs. Makerbot 5th Gen.
I also looked at the TAZ4 but it requires manual assembly so it lost a couple of points there.
I am primarily concerned with precision, print quality, costing and build volume.
Please help me take a call on this.
Appreciate it
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August 24, 2015, 8:32pm
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There is no good anwer for this question.
It’s a draw in my opinion.
Stay far, far away, from makerbot’s 5th generation. Replicator 2x or 2 is way better for makerbot ( I’ve had both ). UM i have never owed but i have never read a negative about them.
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Makerbot was a good company when they started and they have allowed corporate sell-outs take control of their company and slowly run their product line-up into these ultra consumer friendly pieces of equipment that are over priced in every way.
Ultimaker on the other hand is a fantastic company currently with a great reputation and excellent build quality. You cannot go wrong with the Makergear M2 though. 8x10x8 build plate and it will do 25 microns just fine.
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Hands down. buy the Ultimaker.
I have a MakerBot Replicator 2 and had the same quandary when i was shopping that you did. Ultimately it was the lead time on getting my hands on a printer that led me to buy the MakerBot but i have easily spent over $1,000.00 USD on this MakerBot Replicator 2 in order to get it to the level that the ultimaker ships with by default. Heated print bed, glass build platform, better drive gears and bearings, the list goes on and on.
Also, if you are going to open a shop, the ability to do ABS, Nylon and other materials requiring a heated print bed could be a game changer and like i said, be prepared to hack your makerbot in order to be able do what the Ultimaker printers do to begin with.
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I have a gen 5, I have had very few problems
