3D Printer Reviews: An Aggregation

With so many 3D printers available, first-hand experiences via reviews can lead to informed decisions when in the market for a new machine. This aggregation provides a look into some of the most recent reviews of desktop 3D printers available.

TopTenReviews recently reviewed 3D printers in five categories: best 3D printer for print quality (Ultimaker 3), best connected 3D printer (Airwolf AXIOM), best 3D printer design (LulzBot TAZ 6), best 3D printer for wireless printing (Type A Series 1 Pro), best built-in computer 3D printer (AIO Robotics ZEUS), best budget 3D printer (XYZprinting da Vinci 1.0 Pro).

3D Hubs has unveiled its 3D printing trend report for the second quarter of 2017, which includes ratings of 3D printers, based on 8,624 independent reviews. The Original Prusa i3 MK2, BCN3D SIGMA, Formlabs Form 2 and PowerSpec 3D Pro 3D printers continue to take the four top spots for the third consecutive year. In the industrial category, 3D Systems and Stratasys dominated.

The Technabob blog tried out the Overlord ProPlus. According to the site, “it does a great job printing large, complex models, and with fewer issues than I’ve had with some other printers. By using an open, vertical enclosure with a delta-style mechanism, it can print models up to 10.2″ tall x 6.7″ in diameter on its round print bed. It’s got a variety of premium features, including a heated bed, automatic calibration, and cooling fans which help hot materials set quickly after being extruded, and can work with both PLA and ABS filaments.”

MatterHackers recently posted a YouTube product review of the MoonRay S Resin 3D Printer. According to the review, the printer is easy to set up out of the box and makes “some of the most finely printed 3D-printed parts we’ve ever seen.” The printer, which has layer heights as low as 20 microns, creates parts with clarity, the reviews says, and a variety of resins are available to use with the 3D printer.

All3DP reviewed the Ultimaker 3 dual extrusion 3D printer. The site called the printer “a formidable machine, where the dual extrusion system capably lives up to the quality of its single extrusion predecessor.” However, All3DP was not impressed with the machine’s speed as well as the reel holder being hidden in the back of the printer.

3DPrint.com recently reviewed the MakerBot Replicator+. It said that the machine is “nearly plug-and-play,” but the first time the Smart Extruder+ was attended, an error message occurred. However, the second time, it worked perfectly. “I didn’t have a clog or a jam, which I seem to regularly have the first time I run a new 3D printer. It performed nearly flawlessly. I had one problem when I switched filament and the filament didn’t load properly. When the Replicator+ tried to print after the filament change it detected the problem and tried to recover automatically, which was interesting to observe, but was unable to,” the review said.

We will be aggregating the latest 3D printer reviews each month to keep you informed and up to date with real experiences using 3D printers.