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Hy everyone, i’m new here so let me introduce myself, my name is Mihai and i’m a professional 3d Artist and i’m planning on buying a 3D printer next month.

I have been doing some research for a couple of months now, looked at pretty much every printer out there and narrowed my search to the Zortrax M200 since it very simple to use ( downloaded the demo for Z-suite and watched videos online), and since i’m not a tinkerer i just want to print directly some of my models i made through the years with as less hassle as possible. The main thing i care about in a 3d printer is high quality prints, something around 20x20x20 cm build volume, and a resolution of 100 microns or under. I have also looked at other printers that are cheaper in price like the Craftbot Plus but have been told it’s really noisy but the beauty is that it’s open source or a Wanhao ( the D6 just came out that’s like a Zortrax clone but not sure how dependable they are).

In terms of price the maximum i want to spent is what a Zortrax M200 costs, so what printer would you guys recommend?

Thanks in advance.

Cheers

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I’ve got both a Zortrax M200 and an original Craftbot. I love them both and quite honestly the noise difference is very minimal in my opinion. Both output great quality so I wouldn’t rule the CraftBot out.

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Hey Mihai

I have tested several machines and I must say the Zortrax M200 is the most user friendly by far and it delivers impeccable 3D prints.

Wanhao machines are quite nice and the Wanhao printers are some of the better 3D printers from China.

I have not had the opportunity yet to test the latest Wanhao printer so I can not comment on that one.

The Zortrax printers use their own filaments and are a bit more expensive than other filaments but since the Z-suite is perfectly configured for these filaments you will have a lot less “failed” prints and loss of filaments and money.

If you can live with the limited number of filaments for Zortrax then this is your best option. If, as an artist, you would like to print with the more exotic filaments then you will have to go to another machine and invest some time in mastering all the print settings.

If you are mainly interested in the result and do not want to bother with loads of settings I will definitely advise the Zortrax M200.

If the 3D printing process by itself is one of your goals to master I would advise the Wanhao i3 printer and Simplify3D as slicing software.

Kind regards

Karl De Stercke

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Hi Mihai, welcome. My name is Jean-Charles. The choice of zortrax is very good. I hesitated with Ultimaker, BQ. But I’m not at all disappointed in zortrax is a reliable printer, robust and easy to use. Many speak of a closed printer, you can still print the PLA and use other materials as that sold by Zortrax. You now have the ZMorph (https://zmorph3d.com/) which is a mini fablab (laser cutting, machining, 3d printing) is very good also.

If your budget allows you as you mark deltas Mass Portal (http://massportal.com/) Faster and more efficient than Zortrax!

cordially

JC

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I am the owner of 4 Zortrax M200. I use them for business.

If you are in Euro, go ahead for zortrax.

If you are in US. forget Zortrax. a lot of problems like lack of supply of filament, no after-sale service, and huge waste on supports etc

But the good things is ABS, large size, good quality.

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Thanks for replying, the more i look at the craftbot the more i’m leaning towards buying it especially because it’s open source and the ability to print in PLA plus since i live near Hungary shipping and support won’t be a problem.,

I will take another look at the wanhao and see how they both compare, the I3 seem kinda more for advanced users and since i’m a beginner i was thinking of the Duplicator 5 mini or the D6.

Cheers

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Thanks for the infor and for the links, will check them out.

Cheers

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I’m leaning more and more toward the Craftbot, one thing i saw is that some people aren’t happy with Zortrax support ( maybe the users aren’t from Europe) and one other thing i saw is that on the Zortrax website you can only buy a couple of accessories but on the Craftbot website you can buy pretty much every little accessory, do you need to contact zortrax if you need something specific?

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I live in the US and have not needed direct support from Zortrax itself so I can’t comment there. Their maintenance and troubleshooting guides are superb though. I also have found quality US based distributors of Zortrax products that are the same in price and have most of the necessary accessories. Despite Zortrax not being open source, there are quite a few printed parts on the machine that allow for customization and upgrades. Craftbot, also European, has had great customer support and I’ve had no issues there.

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I’ve owned 6 printers and have used a couple more and nothing I’ve used works as easily or reliably as the Zortrax M200. The beauty of the M200 is that you don’t have to become an expert at 3D printing to get good results almost every time. It doesn’t have as much flexibility in materials as open source printers but if you want to focus on your designs and not the printer I would highly recommend the Zortrax. The Form2 will give better smoothness and resolution for organic shapes but costs about 500% more per print and the material properties are undesirable for many applications. I rarely ever use my Form1 anymore. The Zortrax is not the best choice for every application so you may get better feedback if you describe what types of parts you want to print and what you expect in terms of accuracy, finish and strength.

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Zortrax M200 prints really high quality 3D prints with a low fail rate and usually if it does fail a print the error is on your end. Also you don’t realize how helpful auto calibration is until you don’t have it.

The software is easy to use but has some limitations.

You have to buy the doors for it to achieve best quality.

Now the thing I riding like was that it would leave black burns on the prints. Even with a perfectly clean nozzle. Google it and you can see many have this problem. Support were not the easier to remove. Cleaning and removing model from build plate was a pain because it’s perforated. The SD card reader stopped working after 2 weeks. I ended up returning it for an ultimaker 2+.

The Zortrax inventure seems like it might solve a lot of these problems I’d probably look into getting that instead if you want to print abs.

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I just want to print some of my characters( static figurines) and vehicle i made and maybe later try something that i can sell.

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Thanks for the info, do you have any prints on both machines that you can post images, that would be awesome if it wouldn’t be to much hassle, i don’t know what the difference in print quality is between the two, someone said in a review that the Craftbot plus even though in the specs it can only go to 100 microns in the software you can go to 50 microns but craftunique doesn’t recommend it to be used often.

I know that it takes really long to print if you go under 100 microns but what i don’t know is what makes a machine be capable of going lower that 100 microns since most printers use standard 0.4 mm nozzle.

Regarding the noise has anyone measures how noisy it is in decibels,i heard the plus version has noise dampers but the stepper motor is kinda loud, i’m asking because if something will take over night to print i won’t be able to sleep, i won’t be keeping the printer in the same room with me but the walls where i live are pretty thin.

Cheers.

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Here is a newbie question, how do you set up the Craftbot to work with Simplify 3d?

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We are a professional 3D print shop and use 3 Zortrax printers along with industrial printers. We keep checking out other desktop FDM printers and really can’t see any good reason to buy another brand at the moment. They are easy to use, reliable and produce great quality models for the price. Closed environment is not an issue for us since we are not tinkerers - we just need the thing to work. Biggest downside is that filaments are more expensive than generic filaments, but again that’s not an issue for us.

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I have an extra m200 that i’ve used twice and I’m looking to sell. I love it but I’m looking to upgrade to a resin printer for my custom collectibles.

dimfistproductions@gmail.com if you want more info

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I’ll post two Benchy boats and try to match color with them.

As for the noise, my walls are thin too and I can’t hear it the next room over. I can check the noise levels too and get you the decibels, which should be louder since I do not have the Craftbot Plus.

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That would be incredible, thanks a million.

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Hello,

Did you finally bought the Craftbot plus ? Are the prints are as good as Zortrax M200 ? Any usability problems ? I am also in the process of buying a 3d printer and I am between these 2. Difficult decision to make.

Thanks for your advise

George

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