I don't think I'd spend that much money on a Kickstarter project. It's too easy to get burned. Also, my experiences of supporting a Kickstarter project at a lower level is I'm a second class citizen when it comes to delivery schedules. Just my $0.02 and your mileage may vary. Also, Kickstarter supporters are more into drinking the Kool-aid dispensed by the project owners and less into being critical consumers and customers. Not my cup of tea.
I like the extra size of the Zortrax, particularly in X/Y, but it doesn't seem to offer the features I'd like to see in a new Ultimaker. The Zortrax head is massive and appears to include the filament drive motor. If this is correct, it's a significant departure from the Ultimaker concept. The Zoltrax probably needs its double printer head rails, because of sag implied by a single supported beam (these rails must also be accelerated during head motion). If I were designing a larger Ultimaker, I'd investigate the use of a stiffer rail shape (like an "I" beam) to keep the mass down. Of course the bearings would need to change too.
I don't see any signs that the stage is any stiffer (or features better return to zero after a disturbance) than the Ultimaker statge and the X/Y steppers are still within the cube frame structure (not good for enclosing and heating the build chamber). It's easy to move the steppers to the outside of the box on an Ultimaker and maybe it will be equally trivial with the Zortrax. In this application, the Zortrax ball screws are a big "yawn."
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ian 32
crazy how good these ultimaker copies are getting...
Ian
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