The Bottom Line
The Monoprice Voxel is an under-$400 3d printer that's easy to lớn set up và use. It exhibits generally good print quality, but it was unable lớn print two of our thử nghiệm objects.Bạn đang xem: Máy in 3d monoprice voxel
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Pros
Easy khổng lồ set up và use. Budget price for printer và filament spools. Supports PLA, ABS, and several composite filament types. Versatile software. Prints over Ethernet or Wi-Fi, or from a USB thumb drive.
Monoprice, a company best known for selling value-priced speakers, cables, computer accessories, and consumer electronics products, has branched out into its own branded 3d printers. The Monoprice Voxel 3 chiều Printer ($399.99) is an entry-level mã sản phẩm that"s easy khổng lồ set up and use. It can print with the most common filament types (ABS and PLA), and it offers multiple connection choices. Print quality, however, was inconsistent; most of our kiểm tra objects looked fine, but the printer was stumped by two of them.
A Solid Budget 3 chiều Printer
The Voxel ($449.99 at Amazon) is a nearly cube-shaped printer (measuring 15 by 15.7 by 15.9 inches), and it weighs 19.9 pounds. The frame is matte black and gray, with a clear door with a magnetic latch in front, and see-through plastic panels on the left side và top. A 2.8-inch màu sắc touch screen is set to lớn the right of the door, và a port for a USB thumb drive resides at bottom right.
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The build area inside the unit is 6.9 inches in all dimensions, a bit larger than the area on the Flash
Forge Finder 3 chiều Printer ($0.00 at Amazon) (5.5 inches, HWD), as well as the Editors" Choice XYZprinting domain authority Vinci Mini. (That model"s build area is 5.9 inches in each direction.)
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One of the Voxel"s strengths is its closed frame. With the printer sitting just four feet away from me, I could seldom hear it printing, and the noise was never distracting. The closed frame also helps with safety, minimizing the danger of anyone touching the hot extruder while a print job is in progress.
You"re safe as long as the door is closed, but a chú ý of caution: The hot tip of the nozzle extends farther down below the extruder than on most 3d printers, which makes it easier khổng lồ touch by mistake when the door is open. Last, the closed frame minimizes the possibility of unpleasant odor from hot filament, a common complaint in general among 3d printer users, particularly when using acrylonitrile butadiene styrene (ABS) as the printing medium. (See our guide to lớn filament types.)
Setup và Calibration
Setup, using the included quick-start guide, is pretty straightforward. After unboxing the Voxel, you remove the packing material, the tape, and the zip ties from the printer"s interior. Once that"s done, you plug in the nguồn cord và turn on the printer. The touch screen initially shows a thực đơn with three main items: Build, Tools, & Filament. The menu system is easy to use, và it helps that items are identified by both icon và name. Depending on what menu you are in, the screen can be cramped, and sometimes it can take several presses before a command will register.
Print-bed leveling (calibration) is not totally automatic in the way it is on many of today"s 3 chiều printers, but it is easy enough. To màn chơi the Voxel"s print bed, you cảm ứng the Tools icon, then the Settings icon, followed by the Calibrate icon. After that, you place a small piece of paper on the build plate. Onscreen is the word "Extruder," flanked by up và down arrows. The goal is lớn move the extruder incrementally so that it is close enough khổng lồ the build plate that you can slide the paper out with a little resistance. Pressing the appropriate arrow (up, if the paper won"t budge, or down, if the paper slides out freely) moves the extruder a small distance; by pressing the arrows & gently tugging the paper each time, you should soon find the optimal distance between extruder and build plate. You then press a button to lớn save the setting. The printer should remain calibrated through many prints, & if the print unique starts to degrade, a recalibration is a good place to lớn start troubleshooting.
The filament spool fits in a bay behind a latched lid on the Voxel"s right side. Lớn load a spool, you xuất hiện and remove the lid và place the spool in the cất cánh so that the loose over of the filament extends leftward from the bottom of the spool. You then go into the Filament menu, press the load button, & feed the loose over upward through a hole và between gears. The gears draw the filament through the feed tube into the extruder, where it is heated. When filament starts extruding, you press OK, & you"re ready khổng lồ print.
Monoprice sells filament at a very reasonable price: 0.5-kilogram spools of polylactic acid (PLA) filament come in five colors & cost $12.99 each, while 0.7-kilogram spools (in nine colors) are $16.99 each. ABS spools are 0.5-kilogram & run between $14 & $17. In comparison, competitor Makerbot"s 0.5-kilo spools start at $17.99.
Although you could use third-party filament with the Voxel, you"d be hard-pressed lớn get it for less than Monoprice charges. Also, it"s unlikely that the non-Monoprice spool would fit on the spool holder in the bay, so you would have khổng lồ feed the material from an external spool holder.
Software & Connectivity
MP Flash
Print software, which works with the Voxel as well as other Monoprice printers, can be downloaded for free from the Monoprice site. Flash
Print is built on the open-source Cura platform that many 3d printer manufacturers have adopted.
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This software is easy khổng lồ use, and it lets you resize, move, and save objects; load multiple objects for printing; & change the print resolution, filament type, và other settings. You can access an advanced thực đơn that lets you select custom settings for parameters such as resolution (anywhere from 50 to lớn 400 microns), infill, speed, và temperature. Once you have saved your choices, you can send files to lớn the printer over a network connection, or load them onto a USB thumb drive for direct printing.
You have multiple ways khổng lồ print with the Voxel. You can print over an Ethernet or Wi-Fi connection, turn the Voxel into a Wi-Fi hotspot, or print from Polar Cloud, a cloud-based platform geared to 3d printing. (The basic Polar Cloud service is free, while advanced features such as a premium slicer and My
Cloud—your own home page in the cloud—cost $50 per year for individuals.) You set up connections from the Voxel"s Network menu, which offers Wi
Fi, Hotspot, Cloud, and Ethernet as choices. For fields where a password or username are required, tapping the desired field launches a keypad for you to lớn enter the information.
Launching and Removing a Print
When you"re ready to print, you press the middle "Build" icon on the Voxel"s cảm biến screen, and you"re presented with three file sources: the printer"s 8GB of internal memory, a USB thumb drive, and the cloud. The internal memory comes with about a dozen simple files to get newbies up & running. Alternatively, you can launch an Ethernet or wireless print job from the Flash
Print thực đơn once you have sliced your object file.
The Voxel has a built-in camera that lets you monitor a print job, either from the screen or from your computer"s website browser, if you"re working over a network connection. This is an unusual feature for any 3d printer và is certainly unexpected in a budget model lượt thích this one.
The Voxel has a flexible metal build plate, a feature I"ve seen to lớn date only on the Dremel Digi
Lab 3D40 Flex. Based on my experience in having an object I was printing pull off the build plate during printing, ruining the print, I applied glue from a glue stick (not included) khổng lồ the build plate before initiating subsequent prints, và I had no further problems with object adhesion. When the print job is done, you can remove the flexible build plate and bend it a little, until the print pops loose.
Hit or Misprint
I printed nine objects with the Voxel, not counting the misprints I"ll discuss below, using PLA filament supplied by Monoprice. Three of them are pictured below. I printed seven of them at the Standard resolution setting (180 microns) and two at High resolution (120 microns). The unique difference between the prints at the two settings was minimal, but it took nearly twice as long for the prints on the High setting. Unless chất lượng is paramount, you should be fine sticking khổng lồ the Standard setting.
The unique of the completed prints was above average for a printer at its price, with one big caveat: The Voxel was not able to lớn successfully print two of the kiểm tra objects, despite multiple attempts. One was one of the sample objects that Monoprice included in the Voxel"s internal memory, and the other is one I frequently use in testing. It consists of a steeply inclined surface on which raised text và geometric forms are set.
Getting the latter to print (and failing) was not for a lack of trying. I took the PC Labs tệp tin of this object, imported it into the Flash
Print software, mix some basic parameters (resolution, filament type), and sent it khổng lồ the printer. The Voxel would start printing, but at some point not far into the print job, it would stop feeding filament. I would have lớn unload và reload the filament before I could start on another print. I had never seen this issue before, despite having printed the same kiểm tra object on well more than a dozen 3d printers.
At Monoprice"s suggestion, I increased the temperature of the filament & set the resolution to lớn High, but the problem persisted. I moved on to lớn our other kiểm tra objects, which printed out without problem and for the most part looked good.
This Bargain May Come at a Price
As an entry-level 3d printer, the Monoprice Voxel has much going for it: easy cài đặt and operation, a wide range of connection choices, cheap filament, và generally good print quality. Phối against that is the fact that certain objects stumped it in our testing, including one object that all other 3 chiều printers we have tested to lớn date have completed successfully (to a greater or lesser degree), some also using Cura-based software solutions.
Without being able to determine the precise cause of the issue & how pervasive it is, we can"t give the Voxel our unqualified blessing. And indeed, few under-$500 3d printers get everything right. The closest we have seen is the XYZprinting domain authority Vinci Mini ($0.00 at Amazon) , our Editors" Choice budget 3 chiều printer, which is being phased out and is no longer widely available. If you"re willing to take a fling on it, though, the Monoprice Voxel 3 chiều Printer might well come through for you as a cost-efficient machine for 3D-printing dabblers.
I get ridiculously excited seeing people make things. I just want to revel in the creativity I see in makers. My favorite thing in the world is sharing a maker"s story. Find me at Caleb
Kraft.com
Manufacturer:Monoprice
URL:http://www.monoprice.com
Price:$899
Features
The Monoprice Voxel Pro is aiming to supply the optimal machine for people that want high quality 3d prints và a fully enclosed environment. This can be especially appealing to lớn people wanting lớn print more ambient temperature sensitive materials lượt thích ABS.
● Print size: 200×200×250mm ● 9 point bed leveling * ● Filament diameter: 1.75 mm● Printing material: ABS, PLA, PC, PETG, PLA‑CF, ASA, PETG‑CF● Nozzle size: 0.4mm default● Max nozzle temperature: 240°C● Max heatbed temperature: 110 °C● Speed: 10 ~ 150mm/sec● Print tệp tin interface: USB, Wifi
Set up
Pulling the machine out of the box might be the most difficult part of this very easy setup. There was zero assembly required, only removing packing material & loading filament. I was ready to print as fast as I can imagine possible.
There was a small pack of items that came with it. There were a few tools for maintenance & a quick swap high temp nozzle. It looks easy khổng lồ swap the nozzles out, so that’s convenient, & having a spare ready to go is always nice.
Printing
The default settings in the software don’t push the machine in terms of speed, but the unique is pretty great. I think that it would be easy to say the goal was to lớn create the best results above anything else. Look at this picture below. Those surfaces would normally have at least some minor visible z-banding but it is suuuuuper straight.
There is a bit of fan noise, but over all the machine is fairly quiet, as you’d expect any fully enclosed system lớn be. I suspect you can turn off the case fan somewhere in the settings but have not investigated.
As I mentioned, print quality was pretty good out of this thing. They included a flexible build plate, which I will always appreciate. The material they used is very grippy. If you print anything thin (like the rafts that print by mặc định in the slicer), be prepared to lớn have lớn put some effort into scraping it off, because flexing the plate won’t be enough for it to lớn let go. Mine was so grippy that the bed material tore after 3 prints. I’m backing the nozzle away from the bed so that my first layer barely touches now, to avoid further stuck prints. Not huge deal, just something lớn plan for.
The system has wifi capability and a built in camera, but the instruction manual does not cover how lớn interface with either of these things beyond turning them on at the printer.
Since the machine has a camera & wifi, I assumed you could check in on the machine remotely. It was on my wifi but as I said there were no instructions on connecting to lớn it from the network. I opened the slicer và poked around a bit, found a place khổng lồ connect to lớn a printer, but it did not see the unit. I did not put more effort into tracking down this feature.
Thoughts & observations
There was one really peculiar thing I found. The trang web boasts “auto-leveling” as did all the promotional materials I saw. Maybe I did it wrong, but if you select the 9 point màn chơi from the menu, it simply moves the extruder khổng lồ 9 different points where you have khổng lồ manually set the distance from the bed. This is not tự động leveling by my personal definition, nor anyone else I talked to. Other machines who claim auto leveling will have some sort of a sensor (mechanical or magnetic) lớn sense the bed for each of these points and – automatically– mix the offset for you. This wasn’t a problem, just a little bit of a letdown.
Even with the quirk of tự động leveling not quite being auto, I have been really pleased with the chất lượng I’ve gotten out of this machine so far. It’s also nice that it can sit in my office & run without risk of my cats getting into it thanks to the enclosure! The visual quality of the prints has been consistently fantastic.
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