I am working on two videos right now. An introduction to Imagemaker – which I am really impressed with, and a review of the Flashforge Creator Pro 2. The Creator Pro 2 is $100 more than the Artist-D Pro, has a much smaller print bed, but is fully enclosed and seems to be designed to plug in and go. The Creator Pro 2 is built like a tank, and the extruder hot end assemblies are quite impressive. Time will tell how well they work.
One challenge with all fully enclosed 3d printers is that you need to leave the top and door open for better airflow when printing PLA. I expect that higher-end products have fans in the enclosure to address this issue. I have noticed the same issue with my Qidi X-Smart, which is also fully enclosed.
Here is a fun photo of the Artist-D and Creator Pro 2 print beds.
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The Flashforge is impressively smaller than the Artist-D.
How easy is it to work on or modify an enclosed printer, meaning this one?
I suspect Irv is going to find that little to no modifications are necessary. As he says, it appears this printer is ready to go right out of the box. In other words it’s a 3D toaster: you don’t fiddle with it, you just make toast.
I own two other fully enclosed printers, a Qidi X-Smart and a Monoprice Ultimate 2. In both cases, it is tough to perform maintenance. Specifically, I live in fear that a belt will break and it will take me hours to repair it. Something that would be 10 minutes on an ender 3. I started to disassemble the Ultimate 2 a couple of months ago, and after about 30 minutes, I gave up as I realized the control board was screened onto the case, and I would have to take all of the cables off just to get the outside case off.
So, yes, this is a potential issue I will investigate with the Flashforge printer.
Seems like an obvious solution would be to make the enclosure totally removeable: undo several latches & lift.
I wouldn’t Like to enclose my ender 3 pro because the electronics especially the power supply would be getting heated.
