Ultimaker support isnt exactly stellar at the moment, is it?
Regardless... The Mankati is a cheap(ish) china printer.. So expect just that... Probably you are going to get what you pay for...
As for the anti clog hotend I call bullshit... There are a million hotend designs out there with slot of approaches to handling/preventing clogs... I have a very hard time believing that This particular design should Be the answer to all prayers...
Thanks very much for your replies. Good information all round.
...The Mankati is a cheap(ish) china printer...
Hi,
what gives you that idea?
The title of the mankati website 
It says; 'China 3D printer'
This is an interesting discussion for me as I have the same problems as atunci but my problem is with Ultimaker not with Mankati. Other than making a few toys to start I haven't been able to do one full large commercial print on my Ultimaker. The machine always fails in some respect. I have 3 other printers all Chinese which consistently outperform the Ultimaker.
As for ultimaker support, their average response time is 7 days to any query and when they finely respond they seem to have not read the request where as my dealings with Mankati have been in real time. I am trying to run a commercial business here and the Ultimaker has cost me dearly, I was thinking of writing off the Ultimaker as a bad investment and trying a Chinese large printer, hence my interest in the Mankati printer. Wattlo give me a call if you like 0415114410 we are both evaluating the same machines.
Hi Newbie
for what its worth I am a newbie too BUT I have have extensive knowledge of buying from Chinese companies and I would just not go there if the price is low then they have usually cut corners big style either with wiring and electrics or just shoddy machining. Don't Do It.
As for the Ultimaker2 All I would say is that if it s engineering prototypes which I am trying todo then its a bit of between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea. I have a component which I cannot get printed either to be acceptable looking good or Mechanical correctness. I find this is not down to the machine accuracy but todo with Printing Supports and the Flexibility of adding these to the Model. What would be good when its available (if) is dual head so you could print with different Materials giving the ability to remove the supports in water.
Sadly I think this is where I need to be. Cura I find is not good for supports and I have tried Meshmixer but thats not great either.
Ultimaker support seems to get better lately. I got an answer within 3 days this week on a spareparts support ticket...
Hi Newbie
for what its worth I am a newbie too BUT I have have extensive knowledge of buying from Chinese companies and I would just not go there if the price is low then they have usually cut corners big style either with wiring and electrics or just shoddy machining. Don't Do It.
As for the Ultimaker2 All I would say is that if it s engineering prototypes which I am trying todo then its a bit of between the Devil and Deep Blue Sea. I have a component which I cannot get printed either to be acceptable looking good or Mechanical correctness. I find this is not down to the machine accuracy but todo with Printing Supports and the Flexibility of adding these to the Model. What would be good when its available (if) is dual head so you could print with different Materials giving the ability to remove the supports in water.
Sadly I think this is where I need to be. Cura I find is not good for supports and I have tried Meshmixer but thats not great either.
HI Bob, sounds like you and I are having similar experiences. I have several low cost Chinese CNC machines and it is as you say, the engineering is dodgy, BUT I operate on the premise of I can deliver 80% of what a $100k machine can produce on a $8K machine so I am able to absorb much of the 'keep it going' costs'. As for 3D printing I have three 3D up machines and they are just fantastic and I have done lots of prototyping jobs successfully. They seem to be Chinese and I have to admit if you like me just want to push button to print their software is the best., unfortunately I can only get 140mm prints of them, hence my paying top $ for the Ultimaker which for me is a total lemon.
Ultimaker support seems to get better lately. I got an answer within 3 days this week on a spareparts support ticket...
Thanx for that Arjan, I will give the spareparts support a try, so that I am able to get some parts for my brand new machine.
Just curious if anyone out there has one of the Mankati dual extruder printers.
Was thinking about buying one of these, however I noticed UM is having a problem with coming out with a dual extruder for 3mm filament on there latest model, does the Mankati printer work well with 2 extruders and 3mm filament?
I guess since I am a China Chinese living in Singapore, I should give my two cents. There is nothing wrong with Chinese things. Honestly. However, remember this, you pay what you get. If it is suspiciously cheap, you get lousy stuff. That's usually the case there, here and anywhere. Do have that in mind before purchase.
Getting that out of the way, Chinese technological products tend to be good in design but lousy in production. The product itself is stellar and cheap but consistency suffers. One perfect example is YongNuo camera flash. Half the price for products of similar range, fantastic quality. BUT, 1 in 10 shipped to you is faulty. They are quick to answer and fast to replace but if it fails when you need it... You get what I mean.
Just keep that in mind and you should be all good.
There is nothing wrong with Chinese 3D printers if you go with well known brands.
We used to use two UM2's but lately we needed to get another 3D printer but this time with two extruders.
We ended up with Flashforge Creator Pro.
Believe me or not but print quality and speed which we can achieve with as you called "cheap Chinese crap" are far better than anything from UM2 !
This printer is just amazing.
Yes, it has smaller build plate but its big enough for our needs.
Right out of the box its missing only two things, glass plate and cooling fan. We've solved these issues already no problem.
Spare parts are very, very cheap and are available just about everywhere. For example pack of 10 nozzles cost about €13-€15 shipped.
UM2 is fast only on the paper, you gonna have to print at 30-50mm/s anyway.
Don't think if its made in Europe and its expensive so its must be great which is simple not true.
Most annoying is its underextrusion issue which is not solved for a very long time.
Would you mind posting some photos and videos of objects printed with the Flashforge, like the Ultimaker robot or some other reference model?
Photos/videos of a more complex dual head print would also be hightly interesting!
We are looking for a printer that can create flawless dual heat prints preferably at decent speed and with at least with UM2 quality for scientific projects at work, that is why I am curious.
There is nothing wrong with Chinese 3D printers if you go with well known brands.
We used to use two UM2's but lately we needed to get another 3D printer but this time with two extruders.
We ended up with Flashforge Creator Pro.
Believe me or not but print quality and speed which we can achieve with as you called "cheap Chinese crap" are far better than anything from UM2 !
This printer is just amazing.
Yes, it has smaller build plate but its big enough for our needs.
Right out of the box its missing only two things, glass plate and cooling fan. We've solved these issues already no problem.
Spare parts are very, very cheap and are available just about everywhere. For example pack of 10 nozzles cost about €13-€15 shipped.
UM2 is fast only on the paper, you gonna have to print at 30-50mm/s anyway.
Don't think if its made in Europe and its expensive so its must be great which is simple not true.
Most annoying is its underextrusion issue which is not solved for a very long time.
Interesting, I'd never heard of this printer. From their website it says, "Warp-resistant 6.3mm aluminum build platform remains perfectly level under the stress of high heat." Does that mean a heated build plate?
Would you mind posting some photos and videos of objects printed with the Flashforge, like the Ultimaker robot or some other reference model?
Photos/videos of a more complex dual head print would also be hightly interesting!
We are looking for a printer that can create flawless dual heat prints preferably at decent speed and with at least with UM2 quality for scientific projects at work, that is why I am curious.
Agreed. Photo would be nice. Video would be really nice. Though I'm perfectly happy with my UM2, I would love to see what my countrymen have pulled out of their pocket as well,
Hi guys.
Sorry for late reply but I haven't had much time to make some comparison for you.
Anyway, here's our setup:
I didn't upgrade our Flashforge with additional cooling fan yet but I gonna do it later this week, everything is waiting for me
You've asked for Ultimaker Robot so here you go.
Slicer used for Flashforge - Simplify3D, 0.2mm layer hight, 40mm/s, 10 seconds minimal layer time.
Slicer used for Ultimaker 2 - I've used original gcode which come with the printed on SD card, so don't know what's the settings are used by Ultimaker team.
Result - 1:0 for Flashforge even without cooling fan
Ok, another round.
I gonna give another chance to UM2 by using exact same slicer and exact same settings as for Flashforge. This time Simplify3D for UM2
Result - 2:0 for Flashforge Creator Pro also known as "cheap Chinese rubbish printer"
For Flashforge I've used really cheap filament from reprap.me Denmark ( €13.33 for 1kg !) http://reprap.me/filament/pla-1-7mm
UM2 were using white Ultimaker PLA (€31.50 for 750 gram) https://shop.ultimaker.com/product/18/PLAWhite
BTW Flashforge Creator Pro comes with Sailfish accelerated firmware right out of the box which is great.
I've also recorded some video
You compare PLA without addatives (transparent) with pla with addatives (white). The pigments in fillament have a massive impact on how the material prints.
Believe me or not, even if I use different colour in Flashforge it will be the same.
This wasn't transparent material, for test I've used White to Blue UV PLA filament http://reprap.me/filament/pla-1-7mm/pla-1-7mm-white-to-blue.html
Of course if you want I can do another print with different colour on either printer.
I've had much better prints of Ultimaker Robot before, I can't remember with which filaments (Ultimaker Red and Ultimaker Silver Metallic that's for sure).
Don't take me wrong, Im not bitching on Ultimaker, I love both ours UM2's since we got them.
Im just impressed how good Chinese printers are these days, not all of them of course.
For example Flashforge Creator Pro is much much better than Wanhao D4S even if they looks almost identical.
I understood it wasn't bitching. But I just get iffy from all the comparisons that people post that don't fairly compare things (which is my main problem with 3Dhubs comparison, even though UM scores quite high there)
Truth is that you need experience to achieve good results with both printers.
Both printers require good quality filaments, both printers have to be properly calibrated as well.
Calibration of Flashforge is very easy.
Since both our UM2's suffer with underextrusion issue calibration is not that easy.
UM2 on the left hand side (which I've printed Ultimaker Robot with) has iRoberts extruder upgrade which helped a lot but did not solve the issue completely.
Ultimaker Team did not came up with any solution either so don't blame me for that. All you can read on other threads is "print slower", "print hotter" etc.
Thank you for the photos and the video!
Flashforge Creator Pro seems impressive, I have to say.
I have also had better Ultimaker robots than your UM did this time, but it is certainly not easy to get them that much better I think.
In my opinion, the Ultimaker robot is a good example of the disadvantage of having the feeder far away from the hotend.
When switching between infill and walls, or retracting, there is a bit more delay before the plastic flow settles at the new speed.
The impact this has becomes quite remarkable when you print something with thick walls,100% infill and no retraction, like this one for example: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/nozzle-torque-wrench
The torque wrench in the photo was printed with 0.15 mm layers compared to the default setting of 0.1 for the Ultimaker robot at the SD card.
I used some really cheap Chinese ABS and just printed at default settings.
Still, the surface and detail of that kind of object is way better than of an average Ultimaker robot printed by my UM2.
If you print something using both extruders I am very interested in pictures!
I'm wondering about the influence of firmware.
That extruder lag causes so many issues when you try to make really high quality prints. Marlin has no (and presumably won't ever get?) a working advance algorithm. With Sailfish the Flashforge Creator Pro should take advantage of the JKN algorithm. As far as I know a really well working solution for that.
I've decided to do yet another test, I know UM2 can do better.
This time with my favourite Ultimaker Silver Metallic PLA
Not too bad - but 
Since last time my Flashforge have got its fan upgrade already mounted so now it can achieve even more detailed prints.
So time for another run with this printer
Result - 3:0 for Flashforge but this time UM2 was really close
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aaronalai 2
It seems like there are a million 3D printing companies out there nowadays. This does look almost identical to the UM2, and the company even suggests using Cura, lol. As far as the patented anti-clogging head is concerned it seems to be almost identical to the one in the UM2 with a teflon bit inside the head for mitigating thermal creep; and reading closely it says that under standard operating procedures does the nozzle not clog. I've got to say that I've never had the UM2 nozzle clog on me during normal use, and I've only had a few clogged nozzles during abnormal use of the machine. It seems like the only benefit is that it has two nozzles already, that being said though I would wager their support is not as good as Ultimaker support and if you run into any problems you may find yourself stranded.
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