You can get a 2 week trial. I did and am using it now, but only because I've put the time in and it works fine for my needs. There are many issues with it however (ridiculous UI - the fact that they haven't hired a UI person to clean up the mess says something about what's going on there IMO) and I see no reason to think it's somehow superior to other options. Whatever you learn best will be best for you in my opinion. Now, there is the very cool feature of adding supports manually. That can be useful, but I find that for the best results I design such that extra-breakaway supports are built along with my object(s).

J

Many thanks mr. bacon. I'll be ordering this filament or something close.

Hello all. I'm having a bit of trouble finding good information on this topic. Sure, it's easy to find materials with the lowest friction coefficient, but that's not always the most helpful when trying to keep overall friction and noise down to a minimum. For instance, I can have two parts made of nylon sliding against each other, or I can have one part nylon and the other covered in lay-fomm or some other such felty material. Which exhibits less friction? Which is quieter? I realize there are too many variables to come up with a one size fits all answer. The specific application and requirements would be good to know for instance, but I'm curious what others have discovered given their experience with their own materials and their projects/applications/requirements.

I went with a refurbed Taz 5 and will probably purchase a Flexystruder soon. Thanks!!

awesome reply! but you're scaring me off the Rostock by mentioning "just not flexibles". I definitely need a machine that can print elastic and flexible materials like Gel-Lay or Lay-Fomm. Can't do this with the Rostock?

Hello All. I'm here because I'm new to 3D printing and am impressed with the community. I'm also overwhelmed by the number of available 3D printers. I want to purchase asap, but I'm concerned I'm missing some printers that might be more appropriate for me at the right price. I really just want to get on with the actual printing rather than continue to research printers! Not sure if anyone can help, but here are my criteria for finding a printer:

• Large print volume - one dimension at least 11.5" - hopefully more
• lower cost filament - this doesn't mean cheap. just means I'll be using a lot of material
• dual extrusion is preferred. I realize some machines can be upgraded later with a dual head, however after considering input from others I think my best bet might be to get two printers: One mono-extrusion for larger dimensions and another for dual-extrustion for smaller dimensions. I'm hoping to hear others' thoughts on this strategy.
• a large array of filament choices especially flexible and elastic plastics as well as nylon
• build quality does *not* have to be excellent. I want good builds of course, but I don't want my $$ to go into the most precise printers right now. If I have projects requiring such a thing in the future I'll fork out more for a different printer later.
• good warranty
• excellent reliability - regardless of reality I can hope can't I?
• good value (I'd like to stay under $1800 for each printer - ideally under $1000 for the mono-printer if I go in that direction)

Although not a dual extruder, I currently see Rostock Max as being an excellent choice for me to get started with - I welcome the 30+ hours of setup as it will help to understand how it all works and the limitations. I also see the Witbox 2 is affordable and worth more consideration. Any opinions on these two?