My company is looking at investing heavily in desktop 3D printing
to encourage innovation in the design engineers. Im being asked on
a regular basis “What Printers should we buy”, and because of this, I am
looking at putting together an evaluation project on a few that are out there,
but Im looking for recommendations. Here are my requirements,
1 - Ease of purchase and use - No kit machines, nothing that requires more tinkering than use
2 - Support - Comes with a 1-800-MyPrinterBroke hotline and warranty
3 - “TurnKey” - As close to pull it out of a box, level the field, print as possible
4 - Multimaterial/printhead - Able to print whatever is out there, Not confined to one material
5 - Global - These might be going to mexico, the US, SE Asia, whereever
6 - Company Stability - This could possibly generate orders for ALOT of printers. Can they support that?
7 - Large build area - Bigger the Better
Before I get flamed, I know, alot of these are hot buttons. These are “cheap” tools
and wont be perfect everytime. Occastional failed prints are fine, but I cant recommend
“buy this printer then print a new X axis and buy two new hot ends because it comes with Junk”.
And Sadly I cant recommend any of the great kit or plans like the ingentis. It has to be an office appliance
essentially.
Some that come to mind are:
Makerbot - Shudder but we already have a few, even if we arent happy with them/support
Cubify - We buy alot from 3D systems now, so we may be able to leverage that
MarkFordged - I know they are still prototypes but look great
Ultimaker??
Soliddoodle??
LulzBot??
With the exception of the shipping turn-around times, I’ve heard nothing but good things from @Ultimaker .
Unfortunately they don’t seem to want US service centers unless the service center also acts as a sales center. I’m not interested in doing sales, but when I offered to act as a service center they sent a letter that basically requires sales too. So it’s unlikely the turnaround times will improve in the near future.
@Custom_Creations At this point I cant consider anything but established companies. When you guys get on your feet and have a couple years under you feel free to contact me. But Honestly I wouldnt want to subject a startup to our purchasing dept anyway…
Zortrax M200. http://zortrax.com/3d-printer. If I were going to by a desktop machine today. It would be this one, I think it hits all your requirements.
If you’re buying for a company and they’re looking to invest heavily but not have to be their own mechanics or DIY it too much, then I’d say a large firmly-established company like Stratasys or 3D Systems might be your best bet. Since you’d be buying through a reseller, they’d be able to give you support and repair technicians and training options and all that stuff that your company doesn’t want to have to do themselves.
We have contracts with both firms, but the price point of even the low end printers is prohibitive for what we are after. We are basically wanting to get these to the point where they are like our inkjet printers and people can use them whenever to encourage innovation. Id say 3k a printer with material that can be sourced at 30$/kg is what we are after for this.
Id say at a certain point we may train our IT staff or a similar service company to maintain them (also would be an awesome job btw)
A few more improvements here and there and stratasys will have nothing on us DIY-ers…
Cheapest printer I got quoted the other day calling up a stratasys rep was $10,000, had a build size around that of my mendel, material cost was $300 (5lb cartridge - the machine will ONLY take stratasys’ material… funny that…) and the build speed was the same as an average $500-1000 printer…
It is only compatible with 1 type of ABS, and only one color (not “at a time” - bone white or it doesn’t print) - though there was an (expensive) option to allow more than 1 color. Still no PLA, no Nylon, TGlaze, no flexible PLA or conductive filament or any future materials we come up with.
It sounds like “getting a new computer and no administrator privelages to change the background, add new programs or make any changes”…
What REALLY annoyed me was when the rep sent me an email showing me “what is possible on the printer he recommended” and “what a DIY printer can do”…
The pictures from the “$10,000” printer were actually SLA printed parts and I double checked this on his website - yup, they were done on a $50,000 model…
The pictures from a “DIY printer” were actually parts made with a “3Doodler” hand-held pen. They were from 3Doodlers advertising material, and showed very obvious “anti-gravity” moves that wouldn’t have been possible on an FDM printer… I was disgusted that they fudged the truth on both accounts to try and sell me something 10 X the price of my current setup… Anyone NOT in the reprap scene would have believed that bulls#!% and it would turn them off purchasing a hobbyist 3D printer…
