TCT 2019
- Thread starter bigseb
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bigseb
Alibre Super User
Visited the TCT Show today. Very good, if a bit smaller than previous years. Amazing to see what innovations are out there and how 3D printing has expanded, not just in the consumer market but also with the industrial grade equipment.
Stalls that I had hoped to see and did: Creality and Flashforge. Creality have an amazing product range of incredibly good printers. Have a look the CR-10 Max, CP-500 (not yet released) and LD-002. Really glad I got on the Creality train. Flashforge have the excellent Creator 3. Expensive but boy, oh boy, what a machine! My first printer (that I got over 6 years and it still works!) was a Creator X. Amazed to see how they have grown and improved.
Stalls that I had hoped see but didn't: Filaprint, Sodick, Anycubic and Tiertime. This year's show was considerably smaller the previous years and a considerable space in the venue had been cordoned off.
Show surprises: Snapmaker!! Not a new concept but done oh so well. The machine was actually working when I visited the stall and it blew me away. The quality was amazing and it looked good too. And the price tag is good when taking all that into consideration.
Overall this year was more about industrial grade equipment and less about consumer printers. And there were also many stalls that advertised periphals eg. scanners, metrology, post-processing, etc.
Stalls that I had hoped to see and did: Creality and Flashforge. Creality have an amazing product range of incredibly good printers. Have a look the CR-10 Max, CP-500 (not yet released) and LD-002. Really glad I got on the Creality train. Flashforge have the excellent Creator 3. Expensive but boy, oh boy, what a machine! My first printer (that I got over 6 years and it still works!) was a Creator X. Amazed to see how they have grown and improved.
Stalls that I had hoped see but didn't: Filaprint, Sodick, Anycubic and Tiertime. This year's show was considerably smaller the previous years and a considerable space in the venue had been cordoned off.
Show surprises: Snapmaker!! Not a new concept but done oh so well. The machine was actually working when I visited the stall and it blew me away. The quality was amazing and it looked good too. And the price tag is good when taking all that into consideration.
Overall this year was more about industrial grade equipment and less about consumer printers. And there were also many stalls that advertised periphals eg. scanners, metrology, post-processing, etc.
I visited the show too, but on the 25th. I agree: there was much more focus on industrial grade equipment rather than consumer printers, but that's the way the industry is going (it's hard to make a profit on consumer printers). However, I was there to see the industrial grade printers, so that was ok for me.
There were many interesting new things at the show, but two were most interesting to me:
(1) Makerbot MethodX: very small footprint, almost (but not quite) industrial quality at a reasonable price. Strangely they forgot to add any filtering to the exhaust so the ABS fumes just leak out. Apparently they are making a filter add-on that you can purchase to fix this. A rather obvious miss from an otherwise well thought-out product.
(2) 3D Systems Figure 4: some of the new materials for this new machine are incredible. The prints I saw from this were better than anything I've seen before; some were even better quality than you'd get from injection moulding. It really was hard to believe.
There were many interesting new things at the show, but two were most interesting to me:
(1) Makerbot MethodX: very small footprint, almost (but not quite) industrial quality at a reasonable price. Strangely they forgot to add any filtering to the exhaust so the ABS fumes just leak out. Apparently they are making a filter add-on that you can purchase to fix this. A rather obvious miss from an otherwise well thought-out product.
(2) 3D Systems Figure 4: some of the new materials for this new machine are incredible. The prints I saw from this were better than anything I've seen before; some were even better quality than you'd get from injection moulding. It really was hard to believe.
What are your objections for each? Are you a candidate for any other brand of SLA or DLP printer?
I'm evaluating options for mostly home shop use, though I wouldn't turn away the occasional paying job. The Form 3 would be at the high end of my budget. My old boss has expressed interest in 3D printing for microfluidics, as an example of potential; paid work.. Form Labs marketing material makes the product look pretty good and the samples I've gotten look really good, but I just started following their user forum and the posts there are not too encouraging.
bigseb
Alibre Super User
My objections? In terms of business model they refused to do any business with me when I still lived in South Africa. I enquired regarding prices and received an email saying that they were not selling to South Africa. No idea why but I don't run after companies when I have money to spend. The product itself is good but very expensive for what it is. There are cheaper alternatives.
And on that note, have a look at the Anycubic Photon. Have you read my review? And there other brands... Elegoo, Phrozen, Creality, Goofoo, Zortrax, Flashforge and many more. I have the Anycubic Photon and it has never let me down. Amazing prints over and over. Constantly on sale on Amazon for as low as £220. These are DLP machines (Zortrax and Formlabs are SLA). Read my review to see the difference.
Understandable that refusing to sell to you would put you off.
I'd agree that they are a lot more expensive than much of the competition, especially the Asian imports like your AnyCubic. The Form 3 feature set sounds good, but I'm not sure how much of that is marketing. IAC, the Form 3 is about 3X the build footprint as the AnyCubic and that spec is an important one to me. There's a medium-long list of other specs that I need to compare before buying. Things like print speed, print quality, consistency, easy of print and support removal, slicer features, etc. I don't mind paying a premium for the features I want so long as the product is good quality and hassle free. I have a Zortrax M200 (their 1st FDM printer) and will probably not be buying another of their products. The others are still in the running, though.
Thanks for your input.
I'd agree that they are a lot more expensive than much of the competition, especially the Asian imports like your AnyCubic. The Form 3 feature set sounds good, but I'm not sure how much of that is marketing. IAC, the Form 3 is about 3X the build footprint as the AnyCubic and that spec is an important one to me. There's a medium-long list of other specs that I need to compare before buying. Things like print speed, print quality, consistency, easy of print and support removal, slicer features, etc. I don't mind paying a premium for the features I want so long as the product is good quality and hassle free. I have a Zortrax M200 (their 1st FDM printer) and will probably not be buying another of their products. The others are still in the running, though.
Thanks for your input.
bigseb
Alibre Super User
If you need a large build area have a look at the Phrozen Transform. Its pretty big. And either Creality or Flashforge have a large format machine too. Don't have any links at the moment so you have to google them.
bigseb
Alibre Super User
It comes the Photon slicer. Its ok, nothing special. Recently I switched to the Chitubox slicer which is far superior.
Thanks - looks like its just coming off their Kickstarter and not available, but I'll add it to my list.