I wanted to posted a quick warning to others here who may be considering a CubePro from 3D systems. We got one for our office to do light duty prints. All of the reviews online were good and the examples at MakerFaire look good.
Bottom Line... This printer is not worth the money.
1.) The dual print head looks attractive as you can do support. Unfortunately the software to drive the machine is severely crippled. You have little to no control on how support is created. The problem is that it will always fill a solid volume with a cross hatch. The problem comes in that when it starts to lay down a continuous surface on top of the support, everything gets mangled. The engineer running the machine has had experience in developing models for many other 3d printers. He felt if there was simply a way to tell the software to hot cross hatch support, it would be reasonable (that is what we get when we pay for another local service on a pricer machine). We tried many iterations to get a model right. Nothing, worked. Everything was warped or mangled in some way.
2.) Jams.... we have not gotten any model (other than a trivial test piece that takes 20 minutes) to complete without a Jam in the extruder. Once it stops, there is no way for the machine to restart without ditching the model.
We had about 60 man hours into the test/debug as well as multiple calls into 3d systems. The admitted #1 is done on purpose to reduce quality and #2 is "stuff happens". This printer is simply unusable.
We told purchasing to not pay the invoice and get an RMA. The machine is going back. There are about 4k in initial cost + the 60 man hours of time in setup test. It was a very expensive experiment.
If you are considering this printer, beware!
Bottom Line... This printer is not worth the money.
1.) The dual print head looks attractive as you can do support. Unfortunately the software to drive the machine is severely crippled. You have little to no control on how support is created. The problem is that it will always fill a solid volume with a cross hatch. The problem comes in that when it starts to lay down a continuous surface on top of the support, everything gets mangled. The engineer running the machine has had experience in developing models for many other 3d printers. He felt if there was simply a way to tell the software to hot cross hatch support, it would be reasonable (that is what we get when we pay for another local service on a pricer machine). We tried many iterations to get a model right. Nothing, worked. Everything was warped or mangled in some way.
2.) Jams.... we have not gotten any model (other than a trivial test piece that takes 20 minutes) to complete without a Jam in the extruder. Once it stops, there is no way for the machine to restart without ditching the model.
We had about 60 man hours into the test/debug as well as multiple calls into 3d systems. The admitted #1 is done on purpose to reduce quality and #2 is "stuff happens". This printer is simply unusable.
We told purchasing to not pay the invoice and get an RMA. The machine is going back. There are about 4k in initial cost + the 60 man hours of time in setup test. It was a very expensive experiment.
If you are considering this printer, beware!
