Possible Purchaser with a few questions

Zortrax M200 General Discussion
#1

I would like to buy a zortrax in the next few weeks, either used or new whichever I can afford. I am in college and on a budget! :). If anyone has a used one for sale, you can contact me at abeship@vt.edu.

I am still new to 3d printing so please bear with me!

One question I have is has anyone tried hairspray on the print bed, I saw Julia posted she has used a glue stick, and Zortrax recommends a slurry of plastic (that seems like an awful lot of trouble). My friend uses hairspray on a glass bed, I am not sure how it would be on this perforated bed...

Do people still have issue of the prints not coming out the proper size? I had seen a few mentioned that on the forums, and was wondering if a solution (or new algorithm) was ever developed? I know on my friends 3d printer, he was able to print a "nickel test print" and scale his print for it to be the perfect size.

Are software updates pretty consistent/moving towards the goals that you as users have? I saw that they are releasing a new one later this week with a few options (admittedly most of those options seem standard on other printers), but I do understand this is still in "beta".

If you'd do it over again, would you make the same decision? I am torn between this, the M2, and the ultimaker 2 (which is of course out of my budget). Each have their own strengths and weaknesses, but I am leaning towards the Zortrax currently.

Sorry for all the questions!

#2

I think the right choose is only one the Z! http://forum.zortrax.com/index.php?/topic/596-comparison-of-3d-printers/#entry13433

At this moment my company bought almost 15 pcs Zortrax for preparing prototypes for our customers and for us. And really ? If we'll need more printers we'll buy only Zortrax. Because our employees who do not know how to operate complicated softwares Cura, etc. Slicer. after 10 minutes of training will print every thing using the Z-Suite which is pretty darn easy to use. At this moment, I see no better choice on the market, so I personally think that the M200 is the best device on the market, and constantly developed - of course for me.

#3

unfortunately  i would have to recommend the ulitmaker..... they are an established company who sells a machine that is for all intents and purposes, the same exact machine as the zortrax..sure there are some differences but the technology is basically the same and the quality, based on my experience is the same as well....actually thats not 100 percent true......a friend has both machines and i have seen the same part printed on both machnines and the speed and resolution is identical for the most part except the zortrax print did look a tiny bit better..but the difference was so small that its almost not even worth mentioning and considering how , even if the zortrax could consistently print better, its nowhere near that much better for it to be worth not being able to use soluble support or adjusting the extruder temperature....the reason i would recommend the ultimaker is because it offers far more in terms of options....without a second extruder you will pull your hair out and spend hours trying to clean support off anything more complicated than a cube and forget about multicolor and using special effects material.

basically when you buy an ultimaker you know that you have more room to experiment while with the zortrax you have zero room....while there may be some people that think they want a plug and print machine, once they realize that this "ease of use" comes with a huge price(inablility to experiment and create cool stuff) most will wish they just bought an ultimaker because while its true the zortrax is "easier" to use , the ultimaker is far from difficult and considering how much more you can create with the ultimaker, any more time spend fiddling with the machine is more than worth it.

its sad actually because all zortrax would have to do is offer a quick upgrade that allows us to vary the extruder temp and i would immediately change my position and would say that the zortrax would be a great printer to buy..

i work for an embelishment factory and we have many laser cutters...most of the machines we have are from an established company called epilog and cost like 40 grand each...we needed a 6th machine and a bigger one and we met a guy at a trade show who sold chinese laser cutters for a fraction of the price that epilog charged.... 

normally we wouldnt consider a chinese machine because it comes with no parts, no service, no tech support etc but this guy sold a good story, he claimed while his machine was indeed a chinese import,  it wasnt a typical chinese machine because his company offered service, parts as well as promised upgrades etc and by buying through his company we would get the same service and support as well as promised future upgrades like epilog but at a fraction of the cost.

long story short, we bought his  story and after a year the machine did indeed break but by the time we needed to service, he had gone out of business..now we have a 20 thousand dollar paper weight.

point is, as much as it pains me i feel that this is what we are dealing with , with zortrax....they are a company that was able to market themselves well and made all sorts of promises but when you clean away all the garbage and empty promises, at the end of the day they are just a company selling a chinese "knock off" of an ultimaker and i dont think they even have the ability to offer any upgrades and this is why we have no seen any even though they promised them.

they didnt develop this machine, they didnt make a single advancement is the industry...this machine is a stripped down , chinese knockoff of an ultimaker and they couldnt upgrade this machine even if  they wanted to...

i wish i didnt feel this way but after what iv seen from this company im afraid to say this is likely the truth.

#4

Julia, if you see this would you mind answering some of the questions/concerns I posted? I know you are very helpful and active on here. I have gotten in contact with the US distributor (3d Proshare) and am seriously considering the purchase!

#5

unfortunately  i would have to recommend the ulitmaker..... they are an established company who sells a machine that is for all intents and purposes, the same exact machine as the zortrax..sure there are some differences but the technology is basically the same and the quality, based on my experience is the same as well....actually thats not 100 percent true......a friend has both machines and i have seen the same part printed on both machnines and the speed and resolution is identical for the most part except the zortrax print did look a tiny bit better..but the difference was so small that its almost not even worth mentioning and considering how , even if the zortrax could consistently print better, its nowhere near that much better for it to be worth not being able to use soluble support or adjusting the extruder temperature....the reason i would recommend the ultimaker is because it offers far more in terms of options....without a second extruder you will pull your hair out and spend hours trying to clean support off anything more complicated than a cube and forget about multicolor and using special effects material.

basically when you buy an ultimaker you know that you have more room to experiment while with the zortrax you have zero room....while there may be some people that think they want a plug and print machine, once they realize that this "ease of use" comes with a huge price(inablility to experiment and create cool stuff) most will wish they just bought an ultimaker because while its true the zortrax is "easier" to use , the ultimaker is far from difficult and considering how much more you can create with the ultimaker, any more time spend fiddling with the machine is more than worth it.

its sad actually because all zortrax would have to do is offer a quick upgrade that allows us to vary the extruder temp and i would immediately change my position and would say that the zortrax would be a great printer to buy..

i work for an embelishment factory and we have many laser cutters...most of the machines we have are from an established company called epilog and cost like 40 grand each...we needed a 6th machine and a bigger one and we met a guy at a trade show who sold chinese laser cutters for a fraction of the price that epilog charged.... 

normally we wouldnt consider a chinese machine because it comes with no parts, no service, no tech support etc but this guy sold a good story, he claimed while his machine was indeed a chinese import,  it wasnt a typical chinese machine because his company offered service, parts as well as promised upgrades etc and by buying through his company we would get the same service and support as well as promised future upgrades like epilog but at a fraction of the cost.

long story short, we bought his  story and after a year the machine did indeed break but by the time we needed to service, he had gone out of business..now we have a 20 thousand dollar paper weight.

point is, as much as it pains me i feel that this is what we are dealing with , with zortrax....they are a company that was able to market themselves well and made all sorts of promises but when you clean away all the garbage and empty promises, at the end of the day they are just a company selling a chinese "knock off" of an ultimaker and i dont think they even have the ability to offer any upgrades and this is why we have no seen any even though they promised them.

they didnt develop this machine, they didnt make a single advancement is the industry...this machine is a stripped down , chinese knockoff of an ultimaker and they couldnt upgrade this machine even if  they wanted to...

i wish i didnt feel this way but after what iv seen from this company im afraid to say this is likely the truth.

Not sure comparing Epilog to a random guy aproaching you with a Chinese version is the same here..I work for a company that makes terrible purchase decisions too..  Epilog makes a great laser!! They are here in Colorado, but they had to start somewhere.. I am willing to bet money that their first laser is nowhere near as good as the current ones they sell. I would have to say for this being a first printer of Zortrax it is amazing!! You yourself said the print quality is better than Ultimaker.. Zortrax is still working on improvements.. As far as the support removal goes, I'm guessing you have never done it.. It's not bad at all.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T1T5Ace8rPY Here is one I found.. I admit some features have not yet been implemented.. They are slowly getting things in order. I love my M200.

#6

Julia, if you see this would you mind answering some of the questions/concerns I posted? I know you are very helpful and active on here. I have gotten in contact with the US distributor (3d Proshare) and am seriously considering the purchase!

Hi Abe,

I recommend the Zortrax very highly, especially for someone "new to 3D printing", as you say you are. The comparison made to Ultimaker, is in my opinion, absurd. The only similarity is the overall shape of the machine. The Zortrax is made of much heavier-duty components throughout. The biggest difference is of course, the Zortrax's integrated software. With the Ultimaker, you are stuck with open-source programs, a hodegpodge of stuff written by a hodegpodge of people and designed with a "one-size-fits-all" approach - it has to work on every printer. In order to achieve this, there must be a huge number of parameters that need to be properly set in order to get a good print. Imagine if when you wanted to print a paper document to your office inkjet printer that you had to tell the printer driver the droplet size of your inkjets, the paper feed speed, the carriage speed, the viscosity of the ink, etc. etc. Of course, this is not the case - you tell it what kind of paper and what quality level you want, by selecting from a few options. This is how the Zortrax works. The software has been optimized for the printer. I can hear the open-source people screaming now about "freedom!" and "flexibility!" but if you just want to print parts and have them come out really well, and with easily-removable support, there are currently only two options in my opinion: Zortrax and Up. These are the only two consumer-grade 3D printer companies who have invested the resources to create their own software. To me, open-source means "We don't have the skills and/or resources to do this - you're on your own."

#7

I like the way Julia put that. I myself was new to 3D printing.. I have a CNC mill and very familiar with computer controlled machines. This is VERY easy.. No expert level involved. You get great prints once set up..

#8

Julia,

Thanks so much for the excellent reply! I will say that I do understand the thought behind 3d printing, and my one "hold-back" of purchasing a Zortrax is the inability to adjust heaterbed and extruder temp. I would LOVE to see Zortrax add those options, and if they had I would have purchased the printer a week ago when I first saw it (admittedly it was a hard find, at least for me. It took quite a bit of digging). I do have faith that they may one day allow this temperature control, and with the beauty of prints I am seeing from Zortrax printers it has sold me on the printer.

I plan to purchase mine tomorrow morning from 3d proshare, hopefully arriving here sometime late next week or early the following!

#9

Hi Abe,

I recommend the Zortrax very highly, especially for someone "new to 3D printing", as you say you are. The comparison made to Ultimaker, is in my opinion, absurd. The only similarity is the overall shape of the machine. The Zortrax is made of much heavier-duty components throughout. The biggest difference is of course, the Zortrax's integrated software. With the Ultimaker, you are stuck with open-source programs, a hodegpodge of stuff written by a hodegpodge of people and designed with a "one-size-fits-all" approach - it has to work on every printer. In order to achieve this, there must be a huge number of parameters that need to be properly set in order to get a good print. Imagine if when you wanted to print a paper document to your office inkjet printer that you had to tell the printer driver the droplet size of your inkjets, the paper feed speed, the carriage speed, the viscosity of the ink, etc. etc. Of course, this is not the case - you tell it what kind of paper and what quality level you want, by selecting from a few options. This is how the Zortrax works. The software has been optimized for the printer. I can hear the open-source people screaming now about "freedom!" and "flexibility!" but if you just want to print parts and have them come out really well, and with easily-removable support, there are currently only two options in my opinion: Zortrax and Up. These are the only two consumer-grade 3D printer companies who have invested the resources to create their own software. To me, open-source means "We don't have the skills and/or resources to do this - you're on your own."

Lovely analogy Julia, hope you don't mind if I steal it ? ;)

#10

To me, open-source means "We don't have the skills and/or resources to do this - you're on your own."

+1