Want to buy, got the newbie fears

[DavidF]

Ok, I had a little problem with this print (cooling related) and the top blistered up a bit. my cooling fan sits off to the side of the bed and I have been in the process of moving it along with upgrading the stock arms to the trick laser ones and mounting the e3dv6 below the effector. but blisters aside, hopefully this shows you how the print surface looks. Might help you out on those corners as well. Bottom pic coming up in a min...
[img]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g446/davidflowers1/Mobile%20Uploads/20150126_230543.jpg[/img]

[DavidF]

ok heres the bottom shot...
[img]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g446/davidflowers1/Mobile%20Uploads/20150126_230644.jpg[/img]

[DavidF]

high res top (covering blisters) LOL
[img]http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g446/davidflowers1/Mobile%20Uploads/20150126_231945.jpg[/img]

[J_Man]

I do thank you for the print! I'll look over the manual and try reading some other stuff too. I'm just an overly cautious type and plan out my purchases.

[DavidF]

I do thank you for the print! I'll look over the manual and try reading some other stuff too. I'm just an overly cautious type and plan out my purchases.

I cant blame you there. Atleast you have some printing experience. When I went to buy a printer I had NONE! I really wanted the ultimaker based on what I had seen on line at the time, but it was out of my price range. Then I stumbled across this big azz printer the rostock max (shortly after thier kickstarter campaign) and there were some very mixed reviews. But I kept researching and saw that the company reconized there were some problems and acted upon them to build a better product. Hell they even sent out free replacemnt parts to fix know issues!! To me this really meant something, They were standing behind thier product. Thats something that has been lost here in the US over the past few decades. At the time it may have been a bit of a gamble, but I felt the need to support them even if the printer was not the best of the best at the time. So now im sitting here a year and a half later (with no regrets) and reading the reviews, seeing the rostock at the top of the pack and thinking to myself " you made the right choice".
Right now I am in the market for a new printer, and im looking for MORE!! so im looking at the sla printers and am having a hard time making a decision. Right now the fsl3d pegasus is on the top of my list but im having a hard time pushing the button as the technology is rapidly advancing. I do investment castings and it looks like the sla is the way to go, but i know what the rostock can do as well and keep reverting back to it thinking if only there was a better filament.
I have no affiliation with see me cnc. They have never given me anything for free. And I probably get on Genes nerves (lol) from time to time. But I fully support this printer. My question to you is can you handle the build and the learning curve? The only thing I see you having to gain is an increase in your z resolution and build volume. You are getting very good prints from your current set up, but you are bound by a leash to what they have to offer.
Make sure you know what you are getting into. And make sure you know you are all ways welcome here reguardless of you choice.

[bot]

I'm late to this discussion, but wanted to chime in on the layer height thing. As DavidF said, 70-80 microns is the best practical resolution with the stock .5mm nozzle. With the .35mm fine nozzle, i've gone down to 20 microns. That said, 20 microns and 50 microns are hard to distinguish by eye.

[Polygonhell]

In practice the limitation in layer height has little to do with the resolution of the movement, i.e. a delta has no real advantage or disadvantage in this regard.
Ignoring extruder resolution for a minute, at some point the plastic just snaps as it's stretched out of the printhead, with a 0.5mm nozzle I couldn't even reliably print at 0.1mm layer heights without almost 100% infill, the plastic would simply break trying to bridge over the infill.
As your nozzle width goes down you can get away with lower heights because the plastic is stretched less, but there is a point at which the lower layer heights don't provide an increase in quality because of other factors.
About the best FDM prints I've seen were done using custom (really tiny) nozzles on an Ultimaker.