Any Ultimakers near Tampa, FL?

[dismonio 0]

I'm finally in the market for purchasing a 3D Printer, but I've been following them since the first one was pieced together years ago. The main printer I've been considering is an Ultimaker and I spoke to a (machinist) friend of mine about my interest in buying one. I'm up for seeing any of them in action, though. They're big purchases, as I'm sure any of you can relate, and it'd be nice to sort-of try before you buy.

Anyways, he suggested I make a post towards the community to see if anyone would be willing to show me one, explain what they like and don't like, see the quality in person, hear how loud they are. I'm here to do that and try my luck. He was really avid about the helpfulness of the people who own them and after reading thousands of posts about various printers I couldn't agree more.

There don't seem to be any active hackerspaces locally (around Tampa at least, one kinda-sorta in Orlando). I have investigated the ones on campus (I'm a Senior Mechanical Engineering student at the University of South Florida), but a lot of them seem to be old, abused, and out of commission. I'd be totally up for compensating in lunch, beer, or both.

[lits4formz 0]

I have one in Jacksonville...but of course it's a bit drive. Unfortunately, it's given me nothing but issues so far...mine may not be the best example of what these machines can do. If I could go back I probably would have purchased an Up! 3d printer because they work right out of the box. Does it have as accurate of a Z-height as the Ultimaker claims? No, but then again your Ultimaker may never give you reliable prints.

[inventiprint 0]

I just purchased an Ultimaker and started printing yesterday. So far I've had some promising result. I was wondering if you Floridian Ultimakers were still doing any meet ups and how your getting along with your Ultimaker.