Ultimaker or something else..?

[rvh 0]

We are in the market for a 3d printer. Currently our preference goes to an Ultimaker, Orca V0.40 or a Rapman 3.2

Ultimaker and Orca are both developed by Dutch companies which is a plus for us because we are based in Eindhoven (NL). Orca has a heated bed, that's a plus to.

Ultimaker seems to be a little more plug and play than the other two. I don't mind building the printer (actually, that's part of the fun I guess), but once build, I'd like to start printing right away.

Wile reading in this forum and other places on the internet I got confused a little by all the info going around. So I need some help to pick the right printer.

I do have experience with a ZCorp Z450 so I'm not entirly new to 3d printing, but the filament extruder printers are a little diferent. I don't expect to get the same quality or resolution as on the Z450, but we would like to be able to make or own proto's in house in stead of having them SLS-ed (or something like that) at an external company.

Is there anyone in Eindhoven or surroundings, who owns one or more of the pinters as described and who is willing to print us some parts (willing to pay for this) so we can compare a little better? If possible I'd like to come see the printers in real life.

Other advice regarding the choice is also very welcome!

Cheers.

Roel

[Daid 306]

Hello fellow dutchguy!

The Orca is a RepRap machine as far as I can see? Unless you don't mean this one:

http://reprap.org/wiki/Orca

What I've seen from RapRap machines is that they look unstable, and take a look of time to tweak for usable results.

The RepMan looks like a crossover between an early RepRap (Darwin) and an Ultimaker.

From personal experience, from unboxing to first print took me 8 hours with the Ultimaker. Community support is good. But currently has some lead time issues (hopefully solved soon)

The Ultimaker should get a heated bed upgrade option, we've seen the prototypes in the Ultimaker HQ.

As for finding someone with an Ultimaker, mine is in Amersfoort. But check the fab-labs. There might be a fab-lab near in in Eindhoven that has an Ultimaker.

[mr_seeker 0]

The Ultimaker should get a heated bed upgrade option, we've seen the prototypes in the Ultimaker HQ. There might be a fab-lab near in in Eindhoven that has an Ultimaker.

The heated bed option is being prototyped, but the problem was the heating itself and the time it took to get the correct heat. You wont need with with PLA.

Currently I got prints with 0.025mm layers using experimental software, but I think that if you use netfabb you can even get lower than that...

[ddurant 0]

Currently I got prints with 0.025mm layers using experimental software, but I think that if you use netfabb you can even get lower than that...

Layer height really doesn't depend on the software.. Skeinforge is just as capable (possibly more so) at producing gcode for very thin layers - it just takes longer to do it.

[rvh 0]

The Orca V0.40 I refered to is the one from http://mendel-parts.com/ (temporarily website down).

Looks a lot more stable than most Mendel based printers.

If Ultimaker is offering heated print beds in the (near) future, that would make the choice even harder

We found a company that is willing to print us a testprint on the Rapman 3.2, now we would still like a sample from an Ultimaker and an Orca so we can make a choice.

Anyone who can print a sample for us (if in Eindhoven area, we would like to see the printer in action in real life if possible)?

[micha 0]

Well, I went trough all the available kits and ever came back to ultimaker.

For me, it was the pictures of the quality the machine produces and that the moving head is kept as light as possible.

I didn't regret buying the kit yet. But one got to know, that there is a lot to learn and that you can't do everything with that kind of machine. At least not without serious postprocessing when support is needed.

As for heated bed, I will definitely try to make one, as I indeed see a lot of warping, when printing longer filled parts. At least with the supplied PLA. I want to switch to ABS soon and what I read so far, it will become worse with that.

[hisense 0]

I do have experience with a ZCorp Z450 so I'm not entirly new to 3d printing, but the filament extruder printers are a little diferent. I don't expect to get the same quality or resolution as on the Z450, but we would like to be able to make or own proto's in house in stead of having them SLS-ed (or something like that) at an external company.

 

If is about printing prototypes then you really need something which generate removeable/soluable support for parts - I was not able to print any of our prototypes with Ultimaker and RepRap only UP! was able to do so, RepRap and Ultimaker printers are good for statues and very solid objects but for example if is about prototype for TV remote controller then too many "flying" sections which are impossible to print without support. But if your prototypes are very solid or self supported models then is no problem.