While I sit here and wait for another iteration of my OS Lazer Tag grip to print, I thought I'd just say a few things about the MakerBot Replicator 2, which I recently purchased via a sweet deal through Autodesk. In case you are thinking about getting one, now is the time to pull the trigger.
http://www.123dapp.com/education
I actually had a Form1 printer and it was sitting in the garage for a few weeks, completely unopened. I ended up assuming that it would be a less user-friendly experience for me. I tend to print in short bursts here and there, and leaving the resin idle in the reservoir just didn't feel right. On top of that, I was reading through the care instructions and I was a little worried about the special coating on the reservoir that can't be scratched, as that's what prevents the cured resin from sticking to it. I sold the printer on ebay at a small profit, and then reinvested the funds in the Replicator 2.
Let's just say that I'm extremely happy with my decision. I was an owner of the original MakerBot Cupcake, and MakerBot has really come a long way with their software and hardware. As expected, the Cupcake was an endless time sink, where I spent more time tweaking hardware and software settings than actually printing. I always had to buy upgraded parts from MakerGear to get the printer to print reliably. I ended up ditching the Cupcake and going with the PP3DP UP! printer, which I still have and love.
But ever since I picked up the Replicator 2, I have been running it non-stop. I am almost through my first spool of PLA and have yet to experience a bad print. There is slight warping on some of my parts, but all of my prints have completed and because of it, I'm making pretty decent progress on the design of my open source Lazer Tag system.
MakerWare is really quite nice. For some reason, slicing certain parts on Thingiverse takes forever, but everything I've done for my own projects have sliced very quickly. It's still not as fast as Simplify3D's Creator software, but the x3g files MakerWare creates actually work (which should be the case), whereas I haven't gotten Creator's output to work on the printer yet. I'm so glad that the days of using Skeinforge and Replicatorg are finally over. MakerWare really delivers on the experience that PP3DP gave us with the UP!, and it's even nicer. I like the print preview -- when printing parts for others, knowing how much filament is going to be used ahead of time, as well as print times, is really nice. My workflow has been entirely via SD card. Instead of risking issues with my PC crashing or losing power, I just save to SD on the PC and then print from SD on the Replicator 2. I absolutely love the fact that it has an LCD interface with intuitive menus.
The setup process via the LCD couldn't have been any easier. MakerBot did a nice job of the build platform leveling "wizard" by having the user first dial in the Z height with the nozzle directly over each thumbscrew. This just makes so much sense and it's a lot easier to set up than my first generation UP! printer. The Replicator 2 delivered a perfect first print right out of the box after leveling the platform.
My only gripe right now is the way that MakerBot is spooling their PLA. It's very tight and it seems like certain sections of the filament are either slightly kinked or twisted. I have to remember to loosen up the spool during prints to relieve the tension. Last night I had forgotten to do this and the filament snapped in the middle of the print. Fortunately, I was here and was able to recover. You also have to be careful when adding slack to the filament at the beginning of the spool, because it might actually unwind off of the spool and get caught on the spindle if you're not careful.
Ok, well the grip is almost done printing (gotta love the progress percentage display on the LCD!), so I'm going to stop my Replicator 2 review here, and will post pics of the next iteration of parts soon.
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