7661 miles in 5 days

As I mentioned earlier, I recently purchased a FlashForge Creator 3D Printer.

I believe this is the most under-reported story in the 3D printing world - a Chinese company picked up an abandoned open source design, made changes, simplifications, and improvements, and their printer has been amongst the best selling 3D Printers on Amazon for months - it's currently ranked #2 (behind the $299 printrbot Simple DIY kit) and is holding a five star review average - out of 81 reviews!

This story's not all sunshine and rainbows - The FlashForge company doesn't appear to respect the original design's Creative Commons Attribution / Share-Alike licensing.  I don't see anything other than a vague "based on open source" mention in their documentation, and there are reports that they consider their design files "confidential." So they're not attributing or sharing alike. This is pretty silly considering that their printer really is a Replicator - the changes they made are pretty easy to spot on a side-by-side comparison, and some branding aside, my printer does look startlingly similar to the original Replicator Dual.

Maybe a year ago this would have bothered me, but a lot has happened since then - MakerBot abandoned this design, chose to go closed source, and join Shapeways.  Now FlashForge is the only company manufacturing this design, so if you want it, they're the only people making it.

Here are my impressions after using the FlashForge for a few days:

So far the experience has been really promising - 5 days after ordering the printer, it was at my house. Compared to most other competing 3D printers, this is amazing - a three+ week lead time is completely normal in this sector of the market.

Oh, the things I will make

As mentioned earlier, I'm buying a new thing.

Ok, so the printer has been ordered and I'm excited for it to arrive - I've been looking through the FlashForge Google Group and Thingiverse to see what modifications are recommended and/or necessary.

I have a running list of possible augmentations sitting over here.

As I actually do them, I'll post right here on this little blog.

Things I'm going to do in the short term:

• Filament Feed Support
• X-Axis cable support chain (pictured)
• Hood and side covers (+ modifications for the FFC)

Things I may do after testing to see if they're necessary:

• Glass build surface
• Aluminum build plate support arms

Things I'll do because they look cool:

• Organizer box
• LED lighting (FFC doesn't have the problematic lighting system that the replicators)

photo:  thing 119814: REplicator 1 X-Axis Cable Support Chain by Thingiverse user GeraldO

FlashForge Creator

So I've made the decision to get a FlashForge Creator (FFC), a Chinese made printer based on the MakerBot Replicator 1's open source files.

My history with 3D printers:
I've been involved with 3D printers off and on since 2008 when I purchased a set of RepRap Darwin electronics and parts and joined a local group interested in a collaborative assembly of a Mendel printer. That build didn't go so well. With a roomful of excited engineers, we were unable to get the thing to get together reliably.  After a few months of meetings, we eventually gave up even having a square frame, though most of the electronics did work.

In 2010, I successfully assembled a RepRap Mendel Prusa printer with the help of a lot of friends at my local hackerspace.  That printer was used to make several child printers.

In early 2013, I decided to try building a more modern printer for my prototyping and design business, but eventually got frustrated and decided to sell the printer I built when I realized that I need a functioning printer, not a 3D printer project.

I've also used several other printers through friends and hackerspaces - MakerBot Replicator 1 and 2, ORDBot Hadron and Quantum, Rostock Maxes, SeeMe CNC's AO-101, Up!Mini and more.

So I decided to get a commercial desktop printer.  After doing a lot of research and assessing what I want, I'm going with the FlashForge Creator.

I chose the FFC because:

• I want a filament deposition printer, not a laser & resin or powder style printer (though I may purchase a Peachy Printer kit too)
• I don't want a black box closed source printer (though the UP!Mini and Afinia H are really nice)
• I want to be able to use open source toolchains and/or experimental materials if I want to, but be able to use polished tools when I need them
• I'm not scared of a little DIY and I'd also like a printer I'm not scared to DIY on
• It's a proven design with lots of users (if you count the MB Replicator 1 crowd)
• It has dual extrusion if I want to go down that path
• For the money, I don't see any other printer in its class

Next steps:
I'm writing this on Saturday (to publish on Monday). I'll be purchasing the printer this weekend, so delivery will be about a week or two from today (apparently the printer has already shipped, so I may be tracking it obsessively).