I am about to buy a 3D printer to print out architectural models and try to decide between the ultimaker 2 and the m 200. I heard a lot of good things about the UL2, but judging from the pictures I see floating around in the web, the prints from the m200 look somehow nicer and cleaner... My main concern is print quality speed is no priority.
Maybe someone can help me here:
1. has anybody of you tried both printers? Do they differ a lot in print quality?
2. Does someone know if there is a possibility to see the printer live in Germany ( I live in Aachen so Belgium or the Netherlands would also be fine...)
3. In case I do not have the chance to look at the zortrax itself, could somebody possibly print and send me a file? Of course I would pay for that. If you would be interested to help me here, I would be happy to get an PM, then we could talk about the file (I have not created one yet...) and the payment.
I do medical equipment development. I had an opportunity to use the ultimaker 2 for 3 weeks.
The following is my personal opinion based on my experience and it is not influenced by any e-net info !!
#1: If you are a technical person, who have understanding of 3-d printer function software / hardware, and you have time to tweak (!!), the software "CURA" is excellent software
to create really good looking prints, also the printer itself built well,
​#2: If you not a technical person, and time is something you value , and don't want to spend hours to find the right settings, Zortrax M200 will be your best option.
The Zortrax software Z-Suite a well written , and In my opinion the printer build better than ultimaker 2.
The Zortrax have Self leveling build plate and a true draw and print setup whit out the hustle, not to mention the price difference.
Both have pros and cons, I decided buying the Zortrax. I have my printer for 2 1/2 weeks now, and love it. The prints are look professional,
I did find small problems whit Z-Suite, but the Zortrax team are working hard to make it better. In the near future ​I'm buying two more printer
I'm sorry, I can't help #2 and #3. I live in Los Angeles, and i'm quite busy.
thank you very much for your feedback, I think I am more and more inclined to buy the m200...
Since you are using the m200 professionally ( like I plan to use it ) I would like to ask you another question, have you already printed with other filaments from 3rd party distributors ? Since I heard that in general PLA prints a tad finer compared to ABS, I would be especially interested how it would perform on the zortrax.
Officialy, Zortrax does not support 3rd filaments. It’s not a marketing or something like that. We would not to force Zortrax customers to buy official Z-Filaments. Zortrax M200 3D printer, Z-Suite and our Z-Filaments (Z-ULTRAT and Z-ABS at the moment) is one product. Filaments must have the specific chemical composition to connect it with hardware (M200) and software (Z-Suite). Thanks to appropriate parameters and algorithms in the software, we were able to tune the printer to maintain a constant prints quality.
Here we can compare the prints on other ABS or other material printers. For example, if you will print few models over and over it could fail after few correct prints. On Zortrax M200 you can print these models with exactly the same result even after 100 times.
Anyway, we are working hard on other materials like Z-PLA, Z-Nylon and other.
concerning the new material z-ultrat, what is the main advantage higher hardness, less shrinking also (even) better precision? Is this a kind of pla or something else?
Kann zwar nicht mit einem Zortrax in D dienen, aber immerhin kann ich den Drucker aus Sicht eines im Ausland lebenden deutschen Besitzers sehr empfehlen!
Seriously, get the M200. The print quality will blow you away. There is nothing out there right now that will give you such high quality without tons of tweaking. The only real contender is the Afinia/Up but the build size is limited.
Officialy, Zortrax does not support 3rd filaments. It’s not a marketing or something like that. We would not to force Zortrax customers to buy official Z-Filaments. Zortrax M200 3D printer, Z-Suite and our Z-Filaments (Z-ULTRAT and Z-ABS at the moment) is one product. Filaments must have the specific chemical composition to connect it with hardware (M200) and software (Z-Suite). Thanks to appropriate parameters and algorithms in the software, we were able to tune the printer to maintain a constant prints quality.
Here we can compare the prints on other ABS or other material printers. For example, if you will print few models over and over it could fail after few correct prints. On Zortrax M200 you can print these models with exactly the same result even after 100 times.
Anyway, we are working hard on other materials like Z-PLA, Z-Nylon and other.
Then what? We are be able to use 3rd party material, with user defined material profile? Or not?
Andreas - I have been absolutely stunned with the quality of this printer. I hope I don't jinx myself by saying this, but I've got about 25 hours of print time on mine in the last 6 days and I have yet to have a problem with the printer. I did have 2 prints that were the full width of the print bed pull up at the edges, but I learned a few tricks from this forum and since then, I haven't had an issue. Today my printer has been going continuously for the last 10.5 hours and the part is coming along flawlessly.
From the research I've done, in this price point, this is your best option for "set and forget" printing.
Of course you can't guarantee quality print on 3rd party filaments (it's simple and acceptable i think by everyone), but is there any chance to "user material profile" in one of next update Z-Suite, where user can set different temp settings for not supported (by quality guarantee and warranty) materials?
Anyway, there is one important point to keep in mind. We are one of the few manufacturers of 3D printing things, who provide a guarantee on their products. If we will add feature like “custom material profile” for Zortrax users, there is a high probability that many printers will be damaged. We must remember that many of our customers want ready-to-use and well functioning product and not all of them are familiar with 3D printing technology.
Agree with you. But you can always write in the conditions of guarantee something like that:
Warranty is subject to the printer together with materials approved by the Zortrax (Z-materials). Third-party materials and damage caused by these materials are not subject to warranty.
I think it's simple and acceptable by everyone. When some one has some problems with that then RTFM ;)
And so you have to protect against this possibility, because users will be looking for replacements materials provided by you (like 3rd party inks and toners for normals printers).
Another thing is that the damage can occur with selection of the wrong profile to the used material (I'm talking about the different Z-materials), which also you must take under the consideration some way in warranty, when you create another profiles and materials.
Although I do not own a zortrax yet, I hope you do not mind if I suggest something here…
I think I can understand both sides, maybe a compromise could be to have the possibility to access a hidden menu for advanced users who would like to tinker with different settings. To access this menu the user would have to accept (by clicking on an agree button ) an agreement that after that certain things like e.g. the hot end would loose their default guarantee/support. The menu could be accessed by a weird keyboard combination , so all this would be invisible to the “normal” user.
Anyway, there is one important point to keep in mind. We are one of the few manufacturers of 3D printing things, who provide a guarantee on their products. If we will add feature like “custom material profile” for Zortrax users, there is a high probability that many printers will be damaged. We must remember that many of our customers want ready-to-use and well functioning product and not all of them are familiar with 3D printing technology.
Hi, nizzy. Providing a guarantee is a basic thing, it means that you have faith in your product. I don't see why, given that the core, the hardware of the printer, is very well designed, not allowing the users to use 3rd party material is an issue. Just put on a disclaimer and that's it. User's choice: use it as designed, our z filament - guaranteed. Play with other filaments and temperatures - no guarantee. It's that simple. But make the different temp option available.
Perhaps one approach that protects Zortrax would be to password protect the software so that the "custom filament" menu could only be accessed if the user has the password and Zortrax could require that the user sign a waiver acknowledging the risk of using custom or 3rd party filaments before they are given the password. Tie the password to the printer serial number so that users can't use someone else's password to access the custom menu.
The manufacturer of the somewhat small CNC mill I own did something similar to protect the controller settings they use while still allowing knowledgeable users the option to fiddle if they were willing to accept the risk. That's worked out pretty well for them, I think, and so far as I know, no owners have complained about the policy.
