R2 expected May

Trying to do ABS on a regular Robo is ... not well advised (open bay printer) and the C2 has no heated bed at all...

We never use ABS for anything*, but I understand the attraction based on cost. We just use superior materials and pay a little bit more for losing the hassles of dealing with ABS.




*not any more

 

PLA is prefect for testing models. Why print with a more expensive material is you are designing and test printing? I mean I can see cases where MAYBE you need some special property to achieve the print, but never for us....

 

Yes. The C2 is mostly enclosed and some folks have worked on adding a bed heater, but IMHO not worth the effort.

 

I tend to agree with @daniel871 and his last comment about the competition. Once they are tuned I have seen plenty of cheaper larger format printers with equivalent detail and precision as the C2. Which is why I hate the price so much. You are not paying for market leading, you are paying for aesthetics. So average build quality, average to slow performance, average output, above average price side-by-side other 2016/2017 printers currently on the market. Other than looks I am not sure where the value add is for Robo. I would love to be a fly on the wall in one of their marketing meetings when they try to explain to their salespeople what are the key differentiators of their printers vs others in their market segment, other than "ours looks nice in your living room or den."

 

Objection! Your honor, statement assumes facts not in evidence (salespeople? Really?).

 

I don't assume or expect the print itself will fail, but with many different parts that need to integrate I always have test prints of everything... sometimes many depends on design iterations for assemblies and components. PLA is just cheap (we buy the cheapest stuff we can lay our hands on) and works great for testing all of that.

We never use PLA for an actual part that will be deployed and used.

 

You already went through here?

http://community.robo3d.com/index.php?forums/show-and-tell.71/

If so, let me know something specific you want to see and we can see about doing it.

edit: bear in mind that the C2 samples I did were tiny things... Totally pushing to see how much detail I could get, but other folks have more reasonable ones. Also those were "out of the box" configuration for the printer. no tuning or anything.

 

Not everyone can be @Geof and actually make money printing and selling stuff yourself. I make enough money with my Robo R1 but I don't sell nor haven't sold a single item printed directly on my R1. If you are going to justify the extra expense that the C2/R2 plastic case brings with it by telling yourself you will make money on your 3D printer, you are looking at this the wrong way. The C2/R2 isn't a production machine. There are other much more capable printers at lower price points that can do just that. Monetizing a 3D printer is not an easy thing to do and most people underestimate just how much money and other resources it takes to keep them going at peak efficiency and performance and over-estimate just how much money you are going to make.

 

I am not going to tell you how much I make or can be made with a 3D printer but I can tell you if I took my Robo printer in a vacuum and tallied the costs just to keep it running and to upgrade it, compared that to the money I actually made off the Robo prints, I am in the negative numbers. 3D printers in and of themselves are like owning a boat, just a big hole in the water that you pour money into, there should be no expectation of any monetary returns.

In the overall scheme, if you start with very modest expectations, then cut those in half and then cut those results in half again, you won't be disappointed in how much can be made. I started modestly, I have a hobby that does not include 3D printers or computers. I love this hobby, it has literally (used correctly) saved my life. I cannot afford to do everything I want with this hobby, so my expectations were set that if I could make just enough to pay for the maintenance required to keep me in this hobby, that would be perfect, a few dollars more and I would be golden. It took just over two years but I do make multiple times the amount I need to keep this hobby going. I am just a small fish in a big pond and using the Robo as solely a prototyping machine to test viability of a design I paid for my Robo and its upgrades and upkeep many times over.

I would do it all over again with the R1Plus but not with the C2/R2, as the time it would take to recoup the costs go up at least twofold maybe even threefold. I say R1Plus since I know that machine like the back of my hand and know what I can expect from it.

 

Don't base any decision without looking at reviews, not from me or anyone else on this forum. Once you buy something you have a vested interest to justify your purchase and accentuate the best parts of the printer you bought. That applies to me as well as most of all the old timers here. It is just human nature. We might tell you what is wrong with the printer but for the most part we highlight what we like. I would suggest that you look to people like Thomas Sanladerer, Joel Telling, Angus Deveson among others. They have tested, used, bought so many printers that their perspective is less skewed than people on a manufacturers forum.

My statement about skewed testimonials also applies to people that only have one 3D printer and post their findings on YT or other social media outlets.