Sign up to our newsletter and stay on top of our latest blog posts.
One of our most frequently asked questions here on the blog is: what is the ideal beginner 3D printer? While there will probably never be a single right answer to this question we try our best by reviewing printers that look like they have the potential to be great beginner machines.
Today we are celebrating a first here on the blog: while we have reviewed several 3D printers before, the Tripomaker review is our very first delta 3D printer review. Ever since I started visiting 3D printing fairs a few years ago, I have been intrigued by delta 3D printers. Their architecture looks exotic and they clearly still constitute a minority in the desktop 3D printing market.
Continue readingRegular readers of this blog know that we started our 3D printing adventure with an Ultimaker Original 3D printer a couple of years back. Although it may have come of age today, the Ultimaker Original is still a great 3D printer, its endless hackability and its very solid printing results speak for themselves. The fact that Ultimaker B.V. still markets it today (for around 995 EUR) shows that machine can still compete with more recent 3D printers.
Continue readingThe first time the Witbox caught my attention was in November 2014. I was analyzing the now famous 3D printing trends report from our friends at 3D Hubs and immediately noticed two relatively new FDM printers which made it into the Top 5. One was the Zortrax M200 (still need to get one of those for testing) and the other was the Witbox.
We have owned an Ultimaker Original 3D printer since 2012. While the Ultimaker has been a reliable workhorse it does lack of couple of features that put some limitations to its use: the lack of a heated print bed makes it difficult to work with filaments such as ABS or nylon and its bowden extruder is not really suited to print flexible filament.
Continue readingThe first time I saw an Afinia 3D printer in action was at the Make Magazine 3D Printer Shootout in August last year. This compact 3D printer was producing good print results and Josh Ajima, who was testing the printer, was very positive about his experience with the machine. The Afinia H480 ended up in the solid mid-field of the Make Tests.
When we visited the Maker Faire in Hannover in June, there was a great many things to discover. As usual, we kept an eye out for anything related to 3D printing and in one of the two main halls we found a stand of a 3D printer manufacturer by the name of Pirx. We had never heard of these guys before and upon closer inspection we learned that Pirx is a Polish start-up who have brought their 1st 3D printer on the market only in January 2014.
If you are a regular reader of this blog then you know that we own two Ultimaker 3D printers, the very machines we use for all the prints you can see in our blog posts. The Ultimaker is a Fused Filament Fabrication (FFF) printer which means that its core working principle is based on melting filament in order to liquify it before extruding it into the desired 3D shape. Find more in-depth information about FFF in this article.
We have some exciting news to share! Three weeks ago we ordered an Ultimaker 3D printer which was delivered last Friday. We spend the weekend assembling the printer and running first test prints. Read on to see how we fared in building our 3D printer.