Generally, prices are set different because of different value-adding features built on different 3D printers. Just like all mobile phones are capable of calling, sending message, and surfing Internet, but some are expensive and added with higher configuration.
For Flashforge 3D printers, main value-adding features include larger build volume, advanced-level extruding assembly, higher printing temperature supported, diverse filament supported, Internet/WiFi connection, and outward appearance design.
For personal customers, you don’t need to buy a 3D printer with all the value-adding features in there. Just select the one that meets your needs most! This article, considering from different application scenes of customers’, offered some help in deciding which Flashforge 3D printer is right for you!
Some people around you are playing with a 3D printer. They showed off what they 3D printed on various media channels and got many likes! You feel it cool and funny and want a 3D printer trying something fresh yourself! Definitely, 3D printer is a wonderful big toy to show your lifestyle of high quality, high tech, and fashion leading. Just think the big toy as one of your electronics!
Suggested 3D printers:
Adventurer 3 ($359),
Adventurer 3 Pro ($389),
Dreamer NX ($299; no camera).
The three Flashforge 3D printers are easy to start for new beginners and contain such modern-life features as WiFi connection, online webcam, touch screen, and Cloud storage. Treat your 3D printer as a thing of Internet! Just like a phone or a computer to use it!
I once saw a Variety Show on TV in which famous celebrities appear. A snatch of the Episode showed a famous national athlete dropped in a famous DJ and sent a 3D printer to the DJ’s daughter. In such case, you can select a 3D printer with high-end outward appearance, cute bright colors, and with safer friendly structural design.
Suggested 3D printers:
Finder ($279);
Adventurer 3 ($359);
Adventurer 3 lite ($269);
Adventurer 3C ($249);
Adventurer 4 ($799).
Finder, with red and cute outlook, is pretty good as a gift for kids. Adventurer 3 series is an enclosed unit, a little bit larger than Finder. Adventurer 4 is the largest and the most expensive one among them. The elder age your friend is, the bigger 3D printer you can select as the present.
In this application scene, you are treating a 3D printer as a home-use tool, to self-make home use gadgets, such as paste hooks behind doors, garage kits, your favorite arts crafts, etc. Practical usage and cost-effectiveness are what you consider the most.
Suggested 3D printers:
Voxelab Aquila C2 ($179).
Voxelab Aquila X2 ($199);
Voxelab Aries ($289);
Voxelab is the sub-brand of Flashforge. They don’t have enclosed chamber, but open build volume that is as large as Adventurer 4 and set with lower price! You can refit the extruder yourself to upgrade your Voxelab to an advanced-level 3D printer!
After mastering the basic 3D printing skills, you want to go further in 3D printing field and become an experienced user. When others meet issues you can guide them. In this application scene, your right choices are advanced 3D printers.
Suggested 3D printers:
Creator Pro ($429);
Creator Pro 2 ($599);
Guider II ($849);
Guider IIs ($1999)
Both Creator Pro and Creator Pro 2 are with two extruders, which is a prominent feature. Especially the independent dual extruders of Creator Pro 2 mean you can make double printing at one time. Also using them to try the dual color printing and dual filament printing!
Also, advanced Flashforge 3D printers support more printing materials. Besides the commonly used plastic filaments like PLA and PETG, you can also use Guider II and Guider IIs to print with flexible filaments like ABS and ASA, as well as those carbon fiber reinforced filaments like PLA-CF.
Industrial designers, structural designers, or design agencies need a 3D printer to realize and verify the model works they’ve designed. From the perspective of mechanical structure, strength, or surface finish, those creative makers need a physical model.
Suggested 3D printers:
Adventurer 4 ($799)
Creator 3 ($2999)
Creator 3 Pro ($3499)
Foto 13.3 ($1999)
Selecting a 3D printer with diverse advanced features is quite important in such application scene. For instance, to verify the model strength, the makers may change with various printing materials that need extruders supporting higher printing temperature. And, different printing materials may get models of different surface finish. Makers need a 3D printer supporting diverse types of verification.
It’s quite smart of some schools, universities, and educational institutions to purchase 3D printer as a way of STEM education. FDM 3D desktop 3D printers intuitively show students how a physical object is built layer by layer. Teachers can show the children the 3D file, explain how the slicing software works and display them the code that makes the 3D printer move, a way of helping children understand how hardware and software are combined and how a mechanical device is assembled based on chips and processors.
Suggested 3D printers:
Adventurer 4 ($799)
Adventurer 3 Pro ($389)
Creator Pro 2 ($599)
Others
Besides the above mentioned application scenes, 3D printers are applicable for professional use, such as for small-scale business production, for dental printing, and for wax pattern printing. Flashforge Creator 4, Flashforge Hunter, and Flashforge WaxJet400 are the resolutions for those application scenes. Welcome to contact us for detailed info.
The prices for different Flashforge 3D printers mentioned in this article are not fixed all the time. Discount, holiday sales, or other activities are often held. Welcome to follow me for instant price updates.
]]>Unconsciously have a glance at it each time a message pops up on the mobile phone... Always being "dictated" by the mobile phone's notification sound.
The mobile phone nearly never leaves your hand even when eating... If you forget to take your mobile phone with you or the mobile phone is power off, you get uneasy all the time.
Thinking swiping your phone in a few minutes before going sleeping, while several hours passed and you are still awake in there…
Inadvertently, mobile phones are stealing a large amount of time from us, leaving us there unable to concentrate on work and study.
In response to the above situations, Corey Marchetti designed a phone holder aimed at motivating us to leave the phone alone. He made it a real physical stuff through 3D printing. Let’s take a look at it via a magic video:
When you put your mobile phone on the holder plate, it drops and displays "WORK". When you pick up the mobile phone, the holder plate rises and displays "PLAY". PLAY or WORK, it’s a question each time you touch you mobile phone…Motivational phone holder.
Once in a time when Corey Marchetti was working on a project he realized he was always distracted by phone and couldn't get any work done. So he decided to create a little desk device as a solution to the problem.
The design inspiration mainly comes from food scales and electronic page-turning calendars. This phone holder uses rack and pinion gears as the mechanism for the flipping and extension springs for it to return to normal. The following video shows it:
Corey Marchetti named this funny desktop gadget as "motivational mobile phone holder”. “This has helped me to keep my phone distractions to a minimum and hopefully it works for you too”, Corey Marchetti said so. It is indeed an inspirational gadget!
Have an itch to make a motivational phone holder by yourself? Let’s do it now!
Corey Marchetti online shared his model file as well as attached a super detailed installing tutorial. Click to see:
https://thangs.com/CM-Design/Motivational-Phone-Holder-24812
As main operations within 3D printer slicers are similar, getting familiar with one slicer is enough. Since my 3D printer is of Flashforge brand, I used FlashPrint slicer. This motivational phone holder is composed of 10 parts. We need to slice them one by one. My Flashforge Adventurer 4 is big enough so that I can put and slice more than one part at once.
1) Play lettering and Work lettering put together.
Use Rotate and Move in the slicer to adjust the parts’ position to a proper place. I didn’t use Scale for all of the parts, because this is the simplest way to ensure all the parts keep at the same scale and matching each other when assembling them.
Know more about slicer steps, such as scale, adding supports, model slicing, and parameter setting, welcome to read my article:
2) Work and Play panel and Phone holder plate put together.
The same as the above letters, no support is needed for the panel part and the plate part. Just remember to enlarge the distance between the model parts and their raft at Slicing setting, in this way you can easily dismantle the raft after finishing printing.
3) The internal mechanism part
Notice: when adding support, please remove all little short supports within the gear racks, for it’s hard to clearly remove them all in there after printing. The little supports inserted in the small gaps, the rack and gear mechanism of the motivational phone holder will get ineffective. It’s okay to success in printing such rack structure without adding supports.
4)The external enclosure part and others
The external enclosure part and other parts are regular-shape stuff. Easy to lay out and adding supports. Just well adjust its position, add supports as default setting, and click slicing.
Choose filament colors properly so as to get a beautiful final print. I used white filament for the external enclosure part and pink color for other parts. The internal mechanism is inside the enclosure box so that its color is hidden, not causing much difference on the outlook of the final print.
Here is a warm tip. The external enclosure part is a longer project that consumes much filament. Please make sure the filament left on your filament roll is enough to finish printing.
Plug in the U-disk where you save your sliced files. Now we are doing touch screen operation. Select one file and click “build” and leave it to time! I used 3 days to finish printing all the 10 parts. See my final print:
Write in the end
Owning a 3D printer, you can make what you want. It’s especially good for those who want make customized stuff, helpful to display their originality and creative ideas just like Corey Marchetti, the creator of this motivational phone holder. Welcome to use Flashforge 3D Printers to make your brain ideas into reality. Also, hope everyone who read this article gets rid of the heavy dependence on mobile phones, and use your time to do more meaningful things.
]]>PLA (Polylactic Acid) is the most commonly used thermoplastic filament for desktop 3D printers. It’s degradable and giving off little odors when printing. Best choice for entry-level 3D printer users to print models and to practice basic printing tactics.
Printing temperature
Extruder temperature: 180℃-220℃.
Build platform temperature: 50℃ - 70℃.
The default extruder temperature set for PLA in FlashPrint is 210℃, while I, the writer of this article, always add up several degrees. Making several Celsius degrees up or down won’t cause a big deal. Users just need to do a little bit adjustment and test it. It’s notable temperature being too low easily causes extruder block and being too high is not good to accurately print out model details. Also, please ensure the highest temperature you set in your slicer could be fulfilled by your 3D printer’s extruder.
As for the build bed temperature, some people said PLA printing does not need a heating bed, but my suggestion is using a printer featuring heatable build bed. You know a heating bed is helpful for the extruded liquid PLA filament well pasted on the bed, hence greatly increasing print success rate.
Applicable Flashforge 3D Printers
PLA is the most popular and the most entry-level filament. All Flashforge 3D printers support PLA.
ABS (Acrylonitrile Butadiene Styrene) has good strength, harder than PLA and resistant to higher press impact. ABS filament is more suitable to print industrial-use moving parts that bear high mechanical strength. Nevertheless, ABS filament gives off unpleasant odor when printing. It’s quite uncomfortable to stay at the same room as the printer. Ventilation and tightly closing the door is quite important.
Printing temperature
Extruder temperature: 230℃-250℃.
Build platform temperature: 80℃- 100℃.
ABS requires higher printing temperature than PLA to melt into liquid. The default extruder temperature set for ABS in FlashPrint is 230℃. Usually, I make it higher than that.
For build platform temperature, my suggestion is set it at least 100℃. A drawback of ABS print is warping. When the first layer of a printout cools, it shrinks and begins to peel off and rise at the corners. A warping printout parts definitely lowers using experience in real application. That’s why I suggest a higher build platform temperature. Increasing the temperature of build platform could make the first layers well pasted on as well as keep the enclosed build chamber in consistent warm, hence reducing warping problems.
Applicable Flashforge 3D Printers
Adventurer 4, Adventurer 3 series, Creator series, Dreamer series, and Guider series.
ASA is similar to ABS in strength properties, but is more excellent in thermal resistance. People who want to print parts for practical use in different whether conditions consider ASA most. I seldom use ABS or ASA, because the stingy odor and because most of my printouts are garage kits or funny toys that could well be fulfilled by PLA.
Print temperature
Extruder temperature: 230℃-250℃
Build platform temperature: 80℃ - 100℃.
Applicable Flashforge 3D Printers
Adventurer 4, Creator series, Dreamer series, and Guider series.
PETG (Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol) is another easily extruded polymer plastic material with good thermal stability. Except for PLA, PETG is my second favorable filament option. Somehow I often mix use the two and my print all goes well. According to my personal printing experience, PEFG emits odors even less slightly than PLA. The same as PLA, PETG filament is less likely to shrink or warp.
Print temperature
Extruder temperature: 220℃-260℃
Build platform temperature: 70℃ - 90℃.
PETG generally prints at a higher temperature than PLA. The default temperature set for PETG filament in FlashPrint slicer is 245℃ to extruder and 80℃ to platform.
Applicable Flashforge 3D Printers
Adventurer 4, Adventurer 3 series, Creator series, Dreamer series, and Guider series.
Polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) is also a synthetic polymer plastic. A main difference between PVA and the above filaments lies in PVA’s water-soluble properties. That means PVA filament is fit for working as the model supports.
Print temperature
Extruder temperature: 180℃-200℃
Build platform temperature: 70℃ - 90℃.
Applicable Flashforge 3D Printers
Flashforge Creator Pro 2, Flashforge Creator 3, and Flashforge Creator 3 Pro, all with independent dual extruders, are perfect to realize PVA support material printing. We just need set on the FlashPrint slicer, with one extruder using a filament printing the model and the other extruder using PVA filament printing the supports.
HIPS (High-impact Polystyrene) is another soluble thermoplastic material fit for printing model support. It’s with low structural strength and with low 3D printing cost. However, it’s not soluble in water, but in limonene solvent.
Carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic filaments
The name of Carbon fiber reinforced tehrmoplastic filaments feature with abbreviated letter CF, such as PLA-CF, PETG-CF, ABS-CF, ASA-CF, and Nylon-CF. From the name we can get that carbon fiber reinforced filament is the one compounding the above mentioned thermoplastic material with carbon fiber material. Due to the contained carbon fiber, carbon fiber reinforced filaments inherit some features from carbon fiber, like with higher rigidity, stronger strength & stiffness, excellent surface quality, dimensional stability, light weight, and ease of printing.
Print temperature
As for print temperature setting, it’s generally the same requirements as the thermoplastic material. For instance, the print temperature of PLA-CF is the same as PLA and ABS-CF the same as ABS.
Applicable Flashforge 3D Printers
Flashforge Guider 2S-CF.
Carbon fiber reinforced thermoplastic filaments are harder than normal thermoplastic filaments, hence causing greater wear on 3D printer’s extruder and filament feeder assembly. Flashforge Guider 2S-CF fully considered that and made updates so that its extruder, filament feeder, and other key assemblies work longer lifespan, hence saving your maintenance cost.
Another highlight of Flashforge Guide 2S-CF is moisture-proof design. We all know that PLA-CF, PETG-CF, ABS-CF, ASA-CF, and Nylon-CF are quite sensitive to moisture. Exposing them bare to air easily leads to print failure. Flashforge Guider 2S-CF has a long filament-leading tube extending out, and users could insert the tube directly to the enclosed filament dryer box (sent free in the Flashfore Guider 2S-CF package), perfectly sparing any inch of the carbon fiber reinforced filaments from bare in the air.
]]>Thanks Ritchie 3D for making this great video!]]>
Now you need to level all for corners and the center. Use a piece of paper. Put the paper between the nozzle and the bed in the first corner. The paper should be just lightly rubbing on the nozzle and bed. If it does not rub at all, you need to loosen the knob at the first corner to push the bed closer to the nozzle. If you can not get paper between the nozzle and the bed, you need to tighten the knob to pull the glass away from the nozzle. Repeat this until the first corner is perfect. Now move the bed and the hotend carriage and do the remaining corners the same. When all for corners are done, move bed and hotend to the center and check level there. You may have to do all 4 corners 2 or 3 times, because the adjustments interact with each other. This takes time and is the HARDEST part for a beginner, but this is also the most IMPORTANT step. If you do not do this correctly, your prints WILL fail.
This video made from Fedor can show you the easy steps to level your bed.
Once the above is done, try printing an object from the SD card. You should notice that the 1st layer needs to be on the glass, not a a round cylinder, but it should be squished, making the top a bit flat. Reference the above link, you may need to use the zoffset in the lcd tune menu to move the nozzle closer or farther from the bed to get the perfect 1st layer.
Thanks Bruce for providing the useful tips! Thanks Fedor for making this great video!
Bruce is the moderator of subreddit r/VoxelabAquila. 8 years of experience in building and using 3D printers.
Fedor is the manager of YouTube channel 3DPrintSOS.
]]>You can find more advices by visiting Redddit r/VoxelabAquila which is an unofficial group for the Voxelab Aquila series printers. We all willing to share and help.
Bruce is the moderator of subreddit r/VoxelabAquila. 8 years of experience in building and using 3D printers.
]]>"Hello 3D Printing Friends! Since I got my first 3D printer in July, 2017, I've been learning the ins and outs of 3D printing and 3D modeling. I love sharing the fun of 3D printing, and the sense of accomplishment you get from designing and printing something that has never before existed!"
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