Hi all, does any of you have experience with Polar 3D ? If so,

3D Printing
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Hi all, does any of you have experience with Polar 3D ? If so, would you recommend it for consumers? I basically want an under $1K, high resolution, flexible (accepting PLA from different vendors) printer. I have been analyzing different consumer 3D printers and so far, this one ranks higher in my list

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It does not support Linux, which suggests they use some custom firmware that only works with their host program. Good luck trying to control it with OctoPrint running on Raspberry Pi / BeagleBone Black and have all nice things, like web UI and unattended prints.

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Gotta say, PrintrBot printers meet your requirements.

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The concept is very cool. I don’t see that the print bed is heated.
The first two printers that I built were unenclosed with heated beds. Printing with ABS often led to shrinking and warping.

I bought a FlashForge Dreamer in October. It has an enclosed print area with a heated bed with well thought out ventilation. I have done many hours of printing, mostly with PLA, with very good results.

Because of the performance of the printer with the enclosed design I am skeptical of the unenclosed concept.

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You will definitely want to look at the printrbot.

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Thanks, this is very valuable. I’ll definitively look into the ones you are recommding

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Actually, it fully supports Linux as well as Mac. We have a post processor that does the conversion from Cartesian to Polar coordinates. The firmware is stock Marlin, so you can use any third party software as long as you can run the post processor.

I prefer to use Simplify3D and Repetier host with Cura. We also have a Raspberry Pi on board running some custom software similar to OctoPrint (written in Node.js) but you can load anything on it you want too.

The RPi also enables the wifi access.

Bill

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@William_Steele Thanks for the explanation! I would recommend to put something about that onto your product page.

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Yeah, we’re working on the marketing aspects right now… We will get something up there soon. Please feel free to send me any questions you might have at bill@polar3d.com or post them here… I’m on here all the time.