Hi!
I got into 3D printing at the beginning of May of this year with the 5th Gen Makerbot.
To my disappointment, it didn't meet a lot of my expectation. Looking at the 3D printing community from the outside, the Replicator was the printer to buy. I was completely hooked.
However, after two months, four clogged extruders and one printer repair, I'm done wasting my time. I'm currently in the midst of talking to them about returning the printer.
I was about to give up on the hobby all together but I found Ultimaker and this community.
My question is this: is 3D printing supposed to be as difficult as I experienced it? Not only did my extruder would clog consistently, I had many homing errors, retraction optimization issues, lack of dimensional accuracy of the prints, warping issues and bed adhesion issues.
I enjoy tinkering and figuring out why things are going wrong, but I have a limit. I understand there will be hick-ups but I just refuse to believe it's this complicated. I'm not necessarily a patient man, just so we're clear.
So please let me know the experience that you guys have had with 3D printing. This community sounds great, and the printer itself seems so much more focused on 3D printing itself (I always wondered why I needed a onboard camera...). I went nuts over a 0.1 resolution so a 0.02 just seems out of this world to me.
Thank you in advance!