Hi all! I am very impressed by the UM community so far from what I've seen from of your active forum.
I have been considering getting a 3D printer for a while now, as I increasingly find myself working on industrial design projects, both for my hobbies (Star Trek prop replicas!) and for commercial projects as a designer, and I'm seeking some advice. I'm both looking for advice on what printer to get (understanding that there will be a strong UM leaning here) and also a bit of advice on what to expect.
These are the printers I'm considering:
Ultimaker 2+
Zortrax M200
Up Box
Here are the issues I'm considering.
On occasion, I want to be able to finish parts really well.
Sometimes I'll want to make prints that will be used for mold-making and casting of prop replica parts.
One of the things drawing me to the UM2+ right now is that I am especially interested in printing with the 0.25mm nozzle and at around 60 micron layer heights, on the assumption that it will make high-quality finishing easier. I need to see zero layer lines on finished parts that I use for casting, even if it takes some work to get there.
I have a blast cabinet with Polyplus media, which Stratasys recommends for finishing FDM parts. I have a lot of experience working with urethanes and milled plastics, so I have no problem wet sanding and polishing. (Not such a big fan of working with acetone.)
I'm thinking that perhaps ABS printing is going to work best for me, because I hear that PLA is a pain to wet sand and get a great surface finish, and I have some good results in initial tests in sanding ABS FDM prints.
ABS printing?
Therefore, ABS printing is important to me. Bed adhesion and also a warm build environment seem important for getting good results on larger ABS prints, and this seems to be an area where the UM doesn't hold up as well compared to something like the Up Box or Cubicon, with their closed heated build chambers.
Using ABS, I'm also somewhat concerned about fumes and will probably need to add an expensive after-market filtration enclosure if I get an UM2+ rather than a Cubicon or Up Box, both of which includes those features natively. Adding this cost makes the UM2+ significantly more expensive than any of the other printers I'm considering.
Or maybe I should just calm down and use PLA and plan to use something like XTC 3D to help in finishing? I know PLA is much easier to work with, and (unlike ABS) I'd probably be OK printing with it at home in terms of fumes.
Good support/community.
I know there is going to be a fair amount of tweaking and tinkering involved in any 3D printer. I'm fine with that, but I want to be able to know I can get help when I'm hitting snags. This is one of the main UM advantages as far as I can tell. The Cubicon is a new printer based out of Korea with seemingly minimal English-speaking community.
I don't like proprietary filaments or locked down slicing options (I want to be able to use Simplify 3D). These are major strikes against the Zortrax and Up Box.
Dimensional accuracy.
One of the main applications for me for a 3D printer is for prototyping. Mostly I'm designing parts that will ultimately be machined either in aluminum or ABS. My goal in prototyping will be to a) get a rough sense of sizing of parts by holding my 3D models in my hand in real life but also b) to be able to check things like fits of parts together. Are there software tools or other techniques that can be used to get decent dimensional accuracy on prototyped parts? Prototypes aren't worth much to me if none of the parts of an assembly fit together. To the the extent that this is a priority for me, perhaps with FDM I'm simply barking up the wrong tree?
Any insights and advice on any of the above would be most appreciated. Thanks in advance!