What to buy

[mutrax 5]

Hey you guys,

Serious question here. What should I buy when I have a buget of 20.000 € ? At home I have a U2, but for proffesional use (and less 3D-printing savvy users), is this still the best option?

Are there any "push print and don't bother anymore" printers withint that price range?

Is SLS an option?

Rather not have something with "chipped" consumables (read standarised consumeables like filament, powder, resin,....)

Thanks!

[SandervG 1,521]

Do you still want FDM?

I don't think there are any ' "push print and don't bother anymore" unless maybe you want it to perform 1 trick and have 0 options.

[mutrax 5]

Well "the bullet is trough the church"

We decided upon the leapfrog xeed. Why?

-no SLS available in current pricerange/buget. Soonest machines will be available Q1 / Q2 next year, but how reliable will these first sub-20000€ machines be?

-Powder jetting, expensive consumeables (how long supported?), brittle?

-So FDM, large as possible build volume without sacrifice in accuracy.

-dual head (support material in hips or sla)

-enclosed

-Machine as proffesional as possible (company, build quality, local support)

-Second place was Creatr HS XL, but accuracy was less, and not enclosed,...

-Looked at Bulder extreme 2000, but specs (even after contact) to foggy, risk of buying a expensive machine that doesn't pay up. and accuracy.

-Concidered many others, but they failed at accuracy, local support or lack of proffesional support (most printers are meant for consumers/prosumers)

The big ones (3dsystems, stratasys,...) offer FDM printers, but overpriced and at first glance and not as future-proof and flexible as their prosumer counterparts.

So anyone experience with the xeed?

PS./ these are personal experiences and research, these machines where not physically reviewed.

[SandervG 1,521]

I hope you did not take a high pricepoint as criteria to label it professional?

I don't know a lot about the xeed, but in my days I have come across some leapfrog users, and most were ex users. Have you seen the machine at work yourself, or used it or was your decision based on specs, pictures and information?

Make sure to let us know about your experience is like!

Would be interesting to know if anything changed and how it relates to your Ultimaker 2.

Enjoy!

[mutrax 5]

thanks for the reply.

ATM, I looked solely to specs, and xeed was the only one that fitted the bill. They will be providing on site training, so we'll se how it will work out.

I'm pretty curious how they handle the oozing...

For the high-end prosumer models, there are little or no user reviews :()

I'm a UM2 fan myself, the single head was the only turndown for that machine (plexi cabinet is easily made).

Personally, I can't wait for the um3 specs.....

Oh, we never watched the pricetag as being "proffesional", just the aftersales support (Leila from UM for example, does an exelent job in making UM support the best i've ever experienced for electronics, machinery,...), finishing grade of the machine, and features.

Edited October 27, 2015 by Guest