fergal.coulter

Well while indeed you speak a level of truth - it depends what you want to do. Not everyone wants to extrude ABS / PLA so a hot-head isn't necessarily everyone's be all and end all. An OrdBot is a fine little (tiny) device, but for example in my case, when suspending a spool valve, spray valve, laser deflection feedback system and UV cure lamp on to the printhead, it requires something with a little more size. anyway, horses for courses, as they say.

I've just stumbled upon this post via Google, and registered to give some level of defense for Leapfrog. As a caveat, I have not used an Ultimaker. Admittedly it took a lot longer than advertised to supply me with my ordered Leapfrog Creatr, but, since it has arrived it works extremely well. I choose the Lpfrg based on the quality of the build and components. The build is truly rock solid, with full metal chasis, that's virtually bomb proof. In comparison to the BFB-3000 (what I was previously using for my PhD research) and the Fab@Home, i find this a breeze to use and hack. I can't say anything about the quality of the hot-head, as i removed that straight away and replaced it with a spool valve for delivering thick pastes (ie thixotropic elastomers). and a spray valve for misc low viscosity pastes... As a machine for hacking, it's really excellent. I achieve 0.1mm resolution in all directions (they may try limit you to 0.3mm via the Repetier software, but that is easy to skirt around - again with a little hacking) My only major complaint would be the Z-axis stop, which is difficult to (re-)configure accurately. It depends on what you want from your machine - perhaps but it it's a high quality 3D gantry then there's nothing much wrong with the Leapfrog.