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My boss got me hooked on Markforged. (Caveat, my next home printer is probably a Prusa.) They are ridiculously expensive compared to alternatives, but the printed parts are on a whole other level, as they are a carbon-reinforced Nylon: They are much more fracture resistant and mechanically stable than PLA or ABS. They're a U.S. company and are very responsive to support requests. The printer build quality is good, I rarely had parts warp or detach, and the ability to print without deformation at a 60 degree overhang and 50 micron layer allowed printing parts pretapped for machine screws. The cloud software keeps a good catalog of your .STLs and allows some degree of slicer tinkering. Also, you can start a print remotely, which is awesome when you want to go home, finish a part, start it at night, and it's already on the build platform when you show up the next day. (The pricier models show photos remotely, so you can abort a failed job from home. The top-of-the-line model can laser scan specific layers and does its calibration automatically.) At that job, we had printers of wildly different price category and technology---Form 2, uPrint, Carbon 3d, NanoDimension, ProJet MJP 5600, Fortus---and the workhorse for getting decent parts out quickly was overwhelmingly the Markforged. ----- With all that in mind, I would never buy a Markforged for my home because I don't print enough to justify the cost. If I ran a general purpose printing lab, it would be my absolute first choice. I also wouldn't buy a non-European/non-American printer as a personal, moral preference. So, I'm waiting until the end of November to buy a Prusa, because that seems to be the only time they are discounted. |