Not surprisingly, Ares isn’t in scored in this year’s Make magazine 3D printer scorecard. I bet that it’ll score quite well if selected. Such a shame that EasyArts cannot keep it up after Indiegogo. The features and price point alone would win much favour.
I was the first one to note Ares’ limit on printable area. Then another user pointed out that Ø160mm is 20mm shorter than the Ø180mm promised in the campaign. Browsing through Make magazine, I notice that near this price, all deltas have printable area of Ø120mm or less. (There is no Cartesian near that price.) Overall - and I slide all the way up to $900 to Prusa i3 MK2, this year’s top rated machine, for Ares’ features and the fact that it is free of several common troubles (once tuned up), I can see it stack very favourably. I can see why the new Prusa is the best value, and I see Da Vinci Pro ($700) as the most serious contender in the entry level. Both of them Cartesians. Below $700 you really only see deltas. I would consider Ares’ Ø160mm build area something of a basic practicality.
The question, then, is whether Easy Arts is for real with the plan. They did deliver most pledged perks, if not all. But the cost of delivering the quality may not be as low as they have imagined. And out of the box difficulties are many. So even if they manage to stay above water, it will take more effort to be bubbled up the best list. (Most product tests stick to the “out-of-the-box” rule.)
http://makezine.com/comparison/3dprinters/scores/shootout/