Another Dutch 3D printer - LIKE !

2 Months after i've bought the reprappro(.com) "Huxley".. i'm still tinkering with it.. troubleshooting.. and it looks like this headache isn't going to be over anytime soon...

The website owners screwed up really bad on the assembly instructions that caused customers to waste so much time doing the wrong things... Only after my complaints and others the whole instructions pages were revised ... the software was updated so the X motor is on the left side (per instructions) not on the right side.. as shown on the promotion campaign...
The electronics board firmware had also to be updated since the board left the manufacturer with a wrong resistor .. etc.. etc..

Overall a Bad Bad experience ...

(That's what's known as an "early adopters" experience.. i bought it mainly because Dr Adrian Bowyer, the inventor of the Reprap 3D printer, was behind it... only he failed to build one and double check it before shipping to customers.. )




Anyway.. i just stumbled on this new Dutch 3D printer called Felix.. and i have to say it looks very promising:

Claim of an easy 2 to 6 hours for full assembly!... - not days/week/s!

Ready made Aluminum frame... - not gazillion of metal rods ,bolts, washers and screws...

Larger build area !

0.35mm nozzle (all other repraps use 0.5mm)

799 Euro.


Videos:
http://www.felixprinters.com/media.html


Will have to wait for reviews thou.. before considering it..

Hi.
Sorry to hear of your trouble with the Huxley, but thanks for sharing, I was thinking about getting one myself even though I'm not too keen on FDM, I still think it would be pretty cool to have a 3D Printer!

That's the thing with these Desktop 3D Printers, nearly all the ones I've seen are FDM, I'm just waiting for there to be a Desktop SLS Machine (Affordable), that'll make me happy!

That Printer looks very simple/almost elegant, better than the RepRap, but then again the RepRap is designed to be built with some self replicating parts so it can't be as simply designed as that one.

Thanks,
Tom.

"a reprap replicates another reprap" is bull ! (pardon my french)

At best its a nice Academic slogan that goes nicely with a cup of tea and a biscuit...!

If these guys want to kick off the second industrial revolution they should use the first one to manufacture mass pre-calibrated,easy to assemble Laser-cut / Aluminum / cast ABS frames for starters ..

It was a nightmare to assemble the Huxley...!


printrbot.com is an excellent example of such thinking...

go on then........

The Felix printer looks nice, wonder if it is open source as well?
Very similar to that one is a printer recently made by Barton Dring, see http://buildlog.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=16&t=1035

Looks beautiful and very, very clean.

The only thing I don't particularly like is build platforms that move in x, y or both directions.

"I just learned that they are just 3km away from our office in The Netherlands!"

Hello Michell
Have you by chance paid a visit to FelixPrinters?
I am about to buy one, only have to obtain the total money!

Hi Alex,

Unfortunately not.
As we have a Ultimaker here in the office, we haven't thought about visiting them.

3D printers for at home is not really the quality Shapeways is looking for.

But I'll try to visit it one day in the upcoming weeks!

Oh I see. Ok, if you have a chance to visit Guillaume at Felix printers I will be very interested to know what you think as I am new to 3D modeling and 3D printers but want to make lots of models for my mini science museum project for kids (gears, propellers and the like) with more quality than plasticine. Felix is very good price but I wonder if I will be able to make what I want. I have to investigate about PLA more as printer is not standar for ABS) and I have a Mac so no easy talk to printer either.

I got one today, though I didn't have to assemble it I printed 3 models and all did very well for first prints.

First impressions:
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/BlogKS/Felix_3D_printer_arr ived
http://edutechwiki.unige.ch/en/Felix_3D_printer

Of course, after one day and without owning all the other 20+ 3D models I can't tell if the Felix is the best choice. It's certainly a good choice

To answer 3 questions:
* PLA is better for schools: No stinking ABS that may potentially be harmful if inhaled. Easier printing of larger structures.
* It works with any 1.75 PLA filament. ABS should work too (but I didn't try and don't want to right now)
* The Felix design is not open source, but the board is. That means that it runs with "normal" g-code and that you can use any opensource slicer program. Currently, the open source Repetier-Host control software is recommended and it runs either skeinforge or Slic3r

- Daniel
PS: A "slicer" program will translate a model to machine code and the control program allows to load/run machine code and do a few other things.