Help to buy a printer !

Hello,

First, sorry for my English, I’m french and I don’t speak English very well.

I’m looking to buy a printer between the TAZ5 and ultimaker 2+.

I want to print props, costumes (star wars), BB8 and modelisme.

I know the TAZ with his big bead is better than the ultimaker for props but I think, ultimaker 2+ is more accurate for smal part in modelisme.

Did you knom where I can find photos of parts printed in a TAZ 5 in high resolution ? I haven’t see so much in the forum.

If you have some advises, I’m ready to read them !

Thank you :slight_smile:

Haven’t really had much experience with other printers, but we have some great forum posts up of what our users have created:

https://forum.lulzbot.com/viewforum.php?f=32
https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/sox-cosplay-props-stuff-i-print/525/1
https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/educational-brake-caliper/3003/1
https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/making-my-3d-props-come-to-life-dark-knight-belt/533/1

And ofc, my personal favorite (love me some star wars):
https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/msi-pro-mod-s3-yazi-venator-class-star-destroyer/2517/1

Hope this helps!

Thanks for your links.

In “high resolution” did we see the layers of the print ? because I must print very small part and I can’t brush them after printing

I did some tests and also prints at various fine layer heights (meaning 0.025 to 0.1mm). Some of my results:
.) Printing slow is much more important for a “clean” look than to print at low layer heigts.
.) If you look very closely, you will always see the layer steps, at last if your model contains areas of flat angles.
.) You need 0.05mm or lower to make your layers hard to see on flat angles (~30°)
.) If you go lower than 0.1mm, artefacts due to vibration in the drive system are clearly visible and make your print look “bumpy”.

That said, you need a well calibrated printer to go <=0.1mm layer height, and for larger prints even than you need to print the first layer thicker, say 0.2mm for example to compensate sag of the X axis. You will have new problems like curling up edges, and your print times can be measured in days if your objects are not very small.

Given all that facts, I respect 0.075-0.1mm as the lowest possible layer height for not-test-only prints. :wink:

Thanks for your answer Sébastian ! If I understand, it is very difficult to print Under 0.1mm ?! I think it is a little bigger for my project.

Do you have some photos of your print ?

It’s not realy difficult, but you have to invest time to get used to your printer and learn how to use a Slicer software like Cura. I often read posts of people here that seems to think they can by a 3D printer and think it’s plug and play like a normal printer. It isn’t. If you are willed to invest time, it’s quite easy.

I made some pictures. First, here you can see a test print at different layer heights, each ramp has an angle of 30°.
The upper ramp is 0.05, the lower one is 0.15mm:


The same part turned upside down, now the upper ramp is 0.25 and the lower one is 0.1mm:

Thats a details of two owls, printed at 0.1mm:

That’s a test print of the owls at 0.025mm. You can see the wobbly lines due to vibration mentioned above:

Here is another picture of the owl: https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/printing-at-0-025mm-layer-height/2901/1

http://www.wired.co.uk/magazine/archive/2015/09/start/uv-3d-printer-disrupting-3d-printing I think he’s looking for something with no lines, so a UV-resin 3-d printer. All filament printers have visible steps, that is the only thing people say or ask about in a curious negative manner when viewing the prints I have made with my TAZ 4, they ask about how do I get rid of the little steps, and I answer “with money.” explaining that the printers with that ability are usually small build-area/super-expensive devices.

http://www.fslaser.com/Products/View/1 When I had the money and the build volume was 12" squared I likely buy one of these.

Here’s a link to a full size Star Wars Snow Trooper costume that was made on a Lulzbot Mini.
https://forum.lulzbot.com/t/full-3d-printed-snowtrooper-armor/2943/1