We have been very busy over the past 2 weeks testing out some of the budget 3D Printers for consumers. After having many products designed and printed on commercial printers we decided to go and test out some consumer printers, as I would like to buy one. So the first printer we went and tested was the Botmill 3D Printer.
The printer comes as a kit from botmill.com (you can also buy it prebuilt) the owner said that it was a little fiddly to set up but after getting past some of fiddly bolts and washers he found it very easy. After finding out more about the printer we had a look at one printing some sample prints, and they came out alright, they are not as good as a zCorp or Objet printer but still very good for a DIY printer. The printer is alot like the RepRap printers but made by a different company.
After all of the sample prints finished which took around an hour we had a good look at them and you could see all of the layers that had built up the object. We could not bring home one of the prints so we went on the botmill site and ordered one of their sample prints for our office. After receiving the print we were surprised at the quality. The printer we saw still needed calibrating properly but produced surprisingly good prints. But after the received the sample from botmill we were shocked at how bad the print was. If the company calibrated their printer correctly it would be a bit better but if this was calibrated properly we are not happy with the printer.
In conclusion we liked the botmill printer but the quality of the prints was not good for the price. Below are some images of the sample print we got from botmill.
Tell us what you think of the Botmill 3D Printer by leaving a comment below or pop us a tweet on @Gromfrog