Top positive review
5.0 out of 5 stars3D Printing Beast Mode
Reviewed in the United States on November 14, 2018
I've put about 200 print hours into this printer (printing all day for a few weeks now) and not had a single failed print. I haven't had to babysit it, adjust anything, or fuss around at all. What a beast! I upgraded from a Printrbot which required constant babysitting, and would fail constantly. This printer is a joy to use by comparison, and such a load off the mind. I've printed more on this machine in the short month that I've owned it than I did in all the years I had my old printer. The confidence that a print will "just work" without having to think about it has completely changed the 3D printing game for me.
The build quality, the manual, the support, open source, auto leveling, self cleaning, built in the U.S., SD card support, built-in LCD, etc. The thing is a tank and worth every dollar.
There are only a few minor downsides of the Mini 2. I'll spend time enumerating them here. They aren't deal breakers, but more like "notes" for other buyers so they know what to watch out for to make their experience even better. 1) The build volume, being only ~160mmx160mm, can be restricting. Obviously there's the larger Taz 6, but the Taz 6 is missing some nice features that the Mini 2, being a newer model, has. So getting the Taz 6 instead can be a "downgrade" in other respects. Hopefully they release a Taz 7 soon... 2) The hotend assembly is designed to handle flexible filament, which is _great_ and it's a great hotend overall, but because of this it has to have really tight tolerances. That means it's more prone to getting filament stuck during filament changes unless you're very careful. Now, don't take that the wrong way. Once I got the proper procedure down for removing old filament I haven't had any issues. But if you don't remove the filament the "right way" the filament will deform slightly and get jammed requiring some serious finesse to extract. Overall not a huge deal, but it's not the fool-proof "just works" of the rest of the machine. 3) It uses 2.85mm filament. Ugh. Everything is 1.75mm now, which means it's hard to find 2.85mm filament. So even though a big plus of this machine is that the hotend assembly can handle a wide range of filament types, you'll be hard pressed to actually take advantage of that because of limited 2.85mm supplies. Bummer.
Now I want to end my review with something positive. This printer is incredibly professional and well done. For example the package came with the factory QA checklist, so you know everything is as it should be. And they include a little tool kit with case that has all the tools and other things you'll need for running and maintaining the machine (not that much maintenance is even needed!). All of that professionalism really impressed me. But what impressed me even more was that for such a "commercial" product, the spirit of openness and open source ethos within Lulzbot the company is astounding. You can actually go to their website and download the guides that their employees use to assemble the machines at the factory. Crazy! It's all just ... right there. And of course all the CAD models etc for the entire machine. I've never seen such a professional product also be so open. And to me that's not just "well that's neat". It's also useful. I know I can replace parts in the far future if I ever need to, regardless of whether Lulzbot is still around or supporting my printer. And a huge part of owning a 3D printer is also designing parts for it to print. I've already had a few instances where I've gone "wow, how is this part on the printer engineered?" And I could download the CAD file and see! It's been a wonderful source of insight and a great teaching tool.
I know a lot of 3D printing has its foundation in open source (ala RepRap). But I sort of assumed that the more "professional" 3D printers would shy away from that (and in general they do :( ). It's great that Lulzbot is able to provide such an excellent, professional machine _and_ keep it open source without sacrificing anything. Hats off!
