Monoprice Voxel 3D printer review: The best value for 3D printing beginners
Our Verdict
Home and educational users will discover a lot to similar with the Monoprice Voxel, a swell 3D printer that produces high-quality prints at a low cost and that'south one of the all-time budget 3D printers you can buy.
For
- Excellent print quality
- Fast print speed
- Piece of cake to utilize with cloud software
- Heated print bed
Confronting
- Lackluster software
- Some Wi-Fi connection issues
Tom's Guide Verdict
Home and educational users volition find a lot to like with the Monoprice Voxel, a corking 3D printer that produces high-quality prints at a low cost and that's one of the best upkeep 3D printers you can purchase.
Pros
- +
Fantabulous print quality
- +
Fast impress speed
- +
Easy to utilize with deject software
- +
Heated print bed
Cons
- -
Lackluster software
- -
Some Wi-Fi connection issues
The Monoprice Voxel is a groovy, low-priced 3D printer that offers a lot for the habitation user. For a relatively low toll, you go a 3D printer that can handle PLA and ABS filament with equally high print quality while also offering a decent-size fully enclosed build space.
The MP Voxel has are some crude edges, however: Buggy firmware then-so software brand printing a bit more difficult than information technology should be. Even so, the MP Voxel is an attractively priced package for schoolhouse or home use, and it produces high-quality prints, and we call up it's amidst the all-time 3D printers you tin can buy, particularly for budget models.
Monoprice Voxel review: Price and availability
These days, yous'll find the Monoprice Voxel available at Monoprice's website for $449. But some online retailers, including Amazon, offer the 3D printer at a disbelieve, with the cost often falling below $400.
That'southward not the cheapest price nosotros've seen on a printer — you can get the XYZprinting da Vinci Nano for nearly $250 less. Simply it's a pretty good value for a printer aimed at novices.
Monoprice Voxel review: Design
The MP Voxel has a uncomplicated, night blueprint, with an enclosed frame of black plastic. Clear panels that you tin elevator off cover the front and top of the enclosure, providing access to the print area and the machinery. The impress volume is six.9 inches on each side, for a total of near 329 cubic inches. That's big enough to handle most objects.
The impress base is heated, which makes press materials such as ABS much easier and more reliable. Information technology is besides easy to remove prints from the MP Voxel, as the whole tiptop of the impress bed slides out; information technology's also bendable, which helps with lifting the print off.
A pocket-sized LCD touch screen on the front of the printer provides on-device controls. They're mostly easy to use, though I found it a little awkward to enter things like a WPA central on the small, on-screen keyboard. Once the MP Voxel is connected to the Polar Cloud service, though, y'all don't demand to utilize it for much, and then it's not a major problem.
Monoprice Voxel: Setup and controls
The MP Voxel is a more often than not plug-and-play printer. All the setup required was to unbox information technology, plug it in and load filament; then, you're set to print. The process is non without issues, though. Despite a firmware update, I couldn't connect the printer to my Wi-Fi network. I wasn't able to effigy out why and concluded upwards using the wired ethernet connection instead, which worked without problems.
Loading the filament for press is also easy. The filament reel fits into a space on the side of the printer body, and the filament feeds up through a tube into the body and the printhead. Once you load the filament into this tube, it'due south fed into the printhead automatically.
The Voxel also works with the Polar Deject, a gratuitous online service that allows you to control and monitor the printer from any spider web-continued device. Polar Cloud likewise supports the Voxel's built-in photographic camera, and then you tin see the print in progress from a smartphone or tablet. Nosotros establish this service to be simple to employ, and it is definitely the easiest mode to apply this printer.
One time registered with Polar Cloud, you lot tin can upload 3D files or create them in a basic editor. These models can then be prepared for printing and sent straight to the printer from the web — no PC required. Alternatively, you can download and utilise the MP Flashpoint software, available for Windows and Mac, to control the printer over USB or your local network. This software is fairly easy to use, offer the usual approach of loading a 3D model, basic editing and and then outputting it to the printer or a file. This software was somewhat decumbent to seemingly random crashes in our tests, though.
Monoprice Voxel review: Impress speed
We found that the MP Voxel was a fast printer, producing our Thinker test print in between 3.five hours and 5 hours and 21 minutes for draft and normal quality.
That's a curt time to produce a 4.5-inch tall impress, and is comparable to more expensive printers such as the Lulzbot Taz Mini two, which took virtually the same time. It'due south likewise much faster than XYZprinting'due south daVinci Nano, which took more than vii hours to produce the same print. Some other budget printer, the Polaroid PlaySmart 3D, is faster, though information technology unremarkably costs more than the Monoprice Voxel.
Monoprice Voxel review: Print quality
We were impressed with the quality of prints from the MP Voxel. Our Thinker model came out with great detail and shine, natural curves and surfaces. At that place were some glitches in the typhoon mode, which looked like random bumps on the surface of the print. These were much less evident when we printed again using the Standard way of the Polar Cloud software, though, which produced a much cleaner, smoother print.
Our test model of a set of gears likewise came out well, with the gears fitting and screwing together neatly. We just needed to practise a little trimming to get rid of the odd, stray whiskers of filament.
Monoprice Voxel review: Verdict
The Monoprice Voxel represents a sugariness spot of 3D printing at the moment, delivering a lot of features, high print quality and fast printing for a decent price. For around $400, information technology is more expensive than some entry- level printers, costing twice every bit much as the XYZ da Vinci Nano, though it's still not as costly as the Polaroid PlaySmart. The MP Voxel gives you a lot more for your coin than less expensive printers for novices, with support for cloud printing and the heated print bed that makes printing both easier and cheaper.
For that reason, the MP Voxel is a slap-up option for the coincidental user who is interested in 3D printing or a school or small office that wants to have a printer that several people can use.
Source: https://www.tomsguide.com/us/monoprice-voxel-3d-printer,review-6402.html
Posted by: carryousky2001.blogspot.com
0 Response to "Monoprice Voxel 3D printer review: The best value for 3D printing beginners"
Post a Comment