The 3D printers that I used

I am very fortunate that I used many of the 3D printers due to my work. Lets just talk about reasonable one. And forget about those that cannot make it.

Felix - The program, print is very good at the price of the printer. But I find that it does not stick to surface of the heated bed well. often need to add additional perimeters to stablelize it. Sometimes, half way through, the object just lift up and drop ...dead...  Other than that it is fine, especially when I print honey comb structure.


Next , I used Uprint. This is a more professional machine than the conventional Reprap family. It used propietry filament and support material. They sell in a carton of 7 sets. Costing about USD 1 K per box. The filament is ABS. The support material is soluble in acid. Print out is very hard, professional. But cost wise, it is higher.  The support material is actually not so hard to take out,  even if you are using simple tools like penknife and screw driver. Unless REPRAP machine, the support material is the same and hence hard to take out. Even if u can, it take a long time to clean up.

 

Also with this machine, I can tilt or adjust my printing to suit the force exerted on the layers. As we know, one of the weakness of  3D printing is due to the layers. If you exert a force parallel the layers, it might give way. So for Uprint, we can tilt the angles of the print  out till the forces are  not parallel to layering. Of course at the expense of the support material.

 

Next, we have OBjet.  

 OBjet is very expensive.The material is also very expensive. I would have though that this machine can print out molding quality. But I discover I was wrong. Conventional 3D printer including Uprint uses material that is quite brittle and not soft like injection molded  plastic. So under pressure, the printout might crack or give up. With OBjet, I thought it will be much better. Later I realised that  this is not the case. It still crack. Although the material is better the PLA or  ABS.

The printout is super smooth. It actually flatten every layers and make a smooth surface.

Another problem with OBjet is, you need to go through washing to clean the parts, as the parts is still wet after printing. Cleaning  will take a you while to do it. You can see it is very well protected, the material could be a bit toxic. The material is VERY expensive.