As promised in the last post! Today, I’ll do a review of the Up Box 3d printer. The Up Box (below) is quite the impressive 3d printer (scroll past the picture for more review stuff!).
From an aesthetic standpoint, Tiertime definitely employed a few Industrial Designers to get the look just right. This is something I would display in my living room, not just have in my workshop! Also, there are three buttons on the side of the printer that do a variety of things like pausing the print, extruding/withdrawing filament, preheating, etc. And the coolest feature of all is the error detection! If there is an error with the printer, a particular letter in the green UP BOX text (see picture above) will light up red. the letter that lights up indicates which error occurred. Right above the UP BOX text (not visible in the picture) are a series of blue LEDs that indicate preheat/print progress, so that’s also a nice touch.
Now that all the elements of the form are out of the way, let’s talk a bit about function. There are some very good points with this printer! The bed is much bigger than the Afinia (10x8x8 for the up box vs 5x5x5 for the afinia), and at $1800, it’s a nice jump up in capability without a massive jump in price from the Afinia. It produces prints at 200 micron and 150 micron that are every bit as nice as the up minis and afinias, seeing as it uses just about the same head (with some slight modifications).
Now for the downsides… The Up Box claims 100 micron resolution, but I have had a very hard time getting reliable 100 micron prints… I’ve only gotten 2 successful prints, and then the Up Box developed this nasty issue where it would only extrude 2 layers and then just stop sending commands to the motor. It’s been fairly reliable at 150 and 200 micron resolutions though! Another downside is that, while the heated chamber helps a little bit, warping with ABS is still an issue for large parts. That can be mitigated though, so it’s not a huge detractor. Also, the perf board build plate doesn’t clip onto the platform very securely, so I find myself having to use binder clips on the front to keep the plate on the platform… Again, not a huge detractor, but something to be aware of!
Wow! Looking back over this post, I realized I said a fair bit about the Up Box… I know I promised I’d do a review of both the Up Box and the Formlab Form1+, but I kind of want to give the Formlab it’s own post since I have a lot to say about it (spoiler alert: not a lot good to say about it… read the next post for details 😉 ).
Until next time!
John (aka the Mad Printer)
Edit: Thinking more about it, the only Formlab Form1+ I have used was a very defective unit, so I can’t in all fairness write a good review on it. The next post will skip the Formlab.
The Mad Printer 