After about a year of printing on my Printrbot, I’ve started to feel the “urge” to upgrade to something faster/larger, with better support for different materials. That, and my Printrbot has been down for 3+ weeks and I haven’t been able to get it fixed - and received very little useful support from Printrbot’s “support” team.
I’ve been largely comparing the Taz 5 and the MakerGear M2, and heavily leaning towards the Taz 5. I’ve been doing a lot of research, but I still have a few questions.
First, I’m curious about things like print speed. Since I don’t really have a basis of comparison (altho the printrbot seems awfully slow), about how quickly can a Taz 5 print something like this, at a layer height of about .2mm or so?
https://www.youmagine.com/designs/printrbot-extruder-shroud
And I guess a secondary question related to speed is - how “typical” is that kind (.2mm) of layer height? That’s usually about where I print to get the best time/speed ratio. I can do down to .1mm, but it takes a REALLY long time, and I also have to significantly slow down the print speed.
Second, in the 3D hubs review of the Taz 4, they make a comment about small intricate objects not printing very well. That seems like a rather vague statement, and I was wondering what the typical community experience is with this? Also, is this something that’s been improved in the Taz 5 over the 4? From what I’ve been able to tell, the 5’s only key difference is the hot end
Third, how difficult is it to keep the print surface level? I’m so accustomed to having an auto-leveling probe that it concerns me that I would have to re-level the bed frequently.
Finally, how well do the Taz series printers (and I realize the 5 has only been out for a few months) stand up over time? Do they break down frequently, or are they (general maintenance aside) relatively trouble free? I don’t mind tinkering, adjusting, and making updates to my printer (I’ve done a lot of that), but I don’t want to get into another printer that I end up spending days and days trying to debug without making any progress.
Thanks everyone!