I’m looking at picking up one of these, I’m an industrial designer and mechanical engineer so i need fairly resolution prints (50 microns or less) prints, a variety of materials and a good build size. The creat triple extruder is very appealing, so is it’s build size and it’s price is only marginally more than the ultimaker 2 but creatbot lacks reviews and recommendations. Does anybody have experience with the creatbot in particular ? If you do, please share your thoughts and experiences…

2 Likes

Hi Arthur. i have or have access to reprap’s, prusa i3’s, up’s, makerbots, envisiontec perfactory’s, uprintSE’s, and ultimaker 2.

One thing i can tell you is a big problem in the entire 3d printing universe (especially a lot of emerging crowdfunded printers) is a lot of printers are attempting to be the best at everything. i find the biggest problem is they are trying to increase the number of options a printer has, multiple extruders, multiple materials, wifi, cnc adapter etc etc. The problem with this is they are all become “ok” at everything, but are never “incredible” at the pure task at hand (simple 3d printing).

A lot of these printers are showing a lot of glamour on before they have even received reviews, or even a release date! i feel what makes the best printer is one that after being on the shelves for 12 months is still working great, and to date the only printer i have found to meet that criteria is the ultimaker 1 and 2.

Get the ultimaker, the feedback that it has been receiving well after its release date is living proof of its reliability. Its a simple and easy printer to use, all it does is simple 3d printing with one extruder, but the big selling point is it does this “simple” job PERFECT! mine is well passed its warranty, and guess what, it works PERFECT!

play it safe, get an ultimaker.

1 Like

Hi Arthur

I’m fully agree with whitepuma, UM2 or UM2Extended is the best deal for starting printing. It’s reliable and you can find lost of ressources online, parts and lots of experiences with this material.

Regards

i have an ultimaker 2 i like it minus their bowden extruder when it works it does a great job on prints,but their still is alot to learn its still not plug and play,but their is alot of forums where you can learn i have 4 printers printrbot simple metal 2 makerfarm i3v and ultimaker2 wich i perfer Good luck

In the grand scheme of things, all printers are a wrought! They pretty much all use nema motors, and I dont know of many that are not arduino based. So with that in mind what sets them apart. In general it is the customer support and community.

The Ultimaker is a fantastic brand with a huge community base. They are well liked and produce fantastic results. Dont quote me, but I think they are the fastest at that speed too. I do know engineers that use them on a daily basis for work

Now onto Creatbot, they are a pretty big company again with a huge base. They may have the stigma of “copying” others ideas however that has changed recently with their own branding in the series 3. The current designs are owned by Henan Speed, not Mankati who Henan Speed happens to also build their machines. The software also looks “extremely like” Cura…

Saying this I still bought the Creatbot DX, in reality I may not need the 20 micron resolution and 40 micron will more than suffice. The ability to have 3 heads at up to 400 deg means I can use ANY material made, most likely at the same time. Acknowledged I will probably never get it that hot but its about the future proofing without having to buy constant upgrades.

Like most things the limit is not the machine, but how it is utilized.

I have an ultimaker+ and an ultimaker 2 brilliant printer that does a better job than some high end printers do. I think you already have the answer. get either of these as they are as good as each other

I thought i was the only thinking that FDM printers are almost max out as technology…I agree that the game is now at materials and i checked Creatbox and it seems those guys have got it right they use rods that are the most reliable + cost effective and user friendly also have the 400 deg nozzle …For the moment i owned a prusa geeetech i3 kit acrylic frame and i saw many decent prints from it without any upgrades and i only level it at first prints.Also i see many people go for 3d printers and buy them without see what the potentials and the most basic no 3d drawing design knowledge so end up or buying the designs ,selling the printer etc And many end up having them as people have the rc cars upgrading them but no real usage.

Hi I’m looking at these 2 as well and finding it hard to choose one over the other, plenty good reviews on the um2 but can’t find much on the creatbot. What did you decide on?

I read about creatbot can have a nozzle that reach about 400c. I would go for it and the reason is that fdm is almost maxed out technology only small improvements but the materials is were the battle is so give the aspect to your printer to print with more materials.

I set up a website selling 3d print stuff i find to be the very best to use. I use ultimaker 2’s and sell them.I just printed with 2 ultimaker 2’s solid for 3 weeks using formfutura Easifil PLA White for a large exhibition job and not one blockage. Even when you get one they are easy to sort out. It’s up to you but Ultimakers are a solid printer with great accurate finish , dead reliable and the community is second to none.

up to you!!

http://www.mes3dfilaments.co.uk/shop

Thanks, we ordered our ultimaker yesterday. Can’t wait for its arrival

i Agree :slight_smile: due to the speed has a limit also the quality :slight_smile: so it is maxed and what has left is the materials :slight_smile:

Old thread, but perhaps still worthwhile to respond.

I have been 3D printing close to three years. That might not sound like very long, but in that time I have made over 3000 prints and almost 15000 hours. Many of those were prints that took more than 24 hours to print.

I have several printers, two of which are Creatbot DE Plus printers. I bought them because I wanted/needed a big printer. I did bombard Creatbot with lots of questions about their printers before making the jump because there are few reviews on the Creatbot printers and some of those are actually not that positive.

I have no experience with the Creatbot DX printers and I cannot comment on those, but these seem to be an older design with a different print head construction and a fairly standard X/Y-axis movement system. The construction on the DE/DE-Plus printers uses very solid guide rods and a very smart movement system (without separate X-axis rods).

My first DE Plus printer is now six months old. That’s not that much, but it has already accumulated 2570 printing hours.

My second DE Plus is less than two months old (57 days as of December 27th, 2017), but it already has 991 printing hours.

(That’s printing 13 hours & 17 hours on average per day respectively, 7 days a week). Most likely, that is much more than most 3D printer users will be using their machine.

So far, my Creatbot printers have proven to be extremely reliable and sturdy. I have had very few issues so far. The extruder works very well and the printers are relatively quiet. I have had a few clogged nozzles, usually after changing material types (ABS to PLA or PETG to PLA or vice versa). Or using too much retraction (on the Creatbot, 3-4mm should be enough).

Print quality is actually better than I expected.

I did remove the Builtak surface from the printbed though and prefer to print directly on glass using 3D Lac for adhesion. This works very well.

Even though these are big printers (the build volume of 400x300x420 mm is SIX TIMES larger than a UM2), I use the printer for small prints as well. For example, early November, 2017, I finished a large order consisting of 3200 small ABS parts that took more than 700 hours to print.

Although the Creabot printer lack some of the features that some new printers have like WiFi, camera, touch screens etc, they have two features that have really proven themselves. The first is a filament problem/out detector and a power off restart function. In practice, I have found these to be very usefull. If your filament runs out (or breaks), the printer will pause and wait for you to correct the problem. When you have a power outage, the printer also allows you to continue where it stopped. Both functions have proven their value to me.

I have looked at the Ultimakers several times and though the quality is excellent, I have always found them to be quite small and some parts seem to be rather thin/fragile looking.

For the record, I have been satisfied with the Creatbots in such a way that I ordered my third Creatbot this month (the DE model with the 400x300x300 mm build space) and am expecting delivery this week.

When it arrives, it will be put to work almost immediately.

1 Like

Hi there :slight_smile:

I would like to refresh this topic. As we know from above it is probably worth to try work with CreatBot DE / DE Plus but i’m trying to find some opinions about mentioned before Creatbot F430.

I’m wondering why people chooses DE instead of F430 when it’s similar price and the F430 sounds offer really more due to the closed chamber and 420deg extruder.

If anyone that already have F430 could say something it would be great :wink:

Thanks a lot
Szymon

Hi Szymon,

The F430 is only available in the 1.75 mm format.
All my printers use the 3 mm format, so I like to stick with that.

At the moment, I operate five Creatbot DE/DE-Plus printers (latest one just arrived last month) and these perform the bulk of my printing (984 hours so far this month, 17529 hours this year). Every printers has its problems from time to time, but I am quite experienced with them now so it doesn’t bother me too much.

The F430 looks very good, but I haven’t seen one yet.
Creatbot does have a similar build printer in the DE-series which is not listed on their website.
It looks like the F430 but is a bit bigger at 600x400x400 if I remember correctly. It is a smaller model from the D600.