I’d been curious about 3D printing for a while and I ended up going for an offer at Sculpto.dk for a Sculpto+ printer at roughly half price, provided I sign up for at 6 month subscription on filament, so I’d get 1kg every month. It’d wind up costing about the same as the printer normally would, only I’d get a bunch filament ‘included’. Seemed like a good idea.
So the printer itself is really pretty and tidy and is really simple to set up. Everything is neatly laid out and apart from the fan noise it’s really quiet. There’s zero assembly and although I did struggle a bit getting it connected to my wifi, there wasn’t really a trick to it…I just tried a couple of times and it suddenly worked. After that there’s been no connection issues and the software side of things has worked flawlessly. The app is simple and easy to understand, and hooks right into Thingiverse.com where you can find an endless supply of fun, cool and weird stuff to print. Really easy. Just select one and start the print.
There’s also a maintenance menu for switching filament, printing your own .STL files (I recommend Tinkercad for easing into that) and for calibrating the Y- and Z-axes, which we’ll get back to in excruciating detail.
While setup and usage leaves absolutely nothing to be desired for the newbie enthusiast, results are a bit mixed. I started out printing smaller models, mostly stuff for my son like Pokemon, Green Lantern rings, name tags and the like. Whenever I tried printing something larger than half the diameter of the plate, the prints were plagued by noticeable warping around the center of the build plate, typically represented by a big old ugly hole, as can be seen in the gallery below.
Ultimately, results improved but never impressed. As you can see, the first round of calibrations reduced the center hole but didn’t get rid of it. The articulated butterfly wing above is about as good as it would get. I printed the Empire logo again, and I obviously won’t be printing any vases on the Sculpto+ if I value my furniture.
Smaller models are good and strong and details are fine, but in reality I was stuck with a somewhat expensive 100x100x200mm printer.
So I came to the conclusion that I would be better off getting a more advanced printer that, although more challenging to set up, would produce better results with generic filament and different types too.
Although Sculpto customer service was polite and forthcoming throughout the process, I hit a snag as they said my 14 day return window had expired, not taking into account that it was the time spent working with customer support to calibrate the Sculpto+ that made the return window expire.
A misunderstanding that was eventually cleared up.
Pros:
- Fairly large printing area, at least for its… ⮐
- Small form factor.
- BuildTak coated buildplate for better adhesion of first layers.
- Build plate is flexible for easier detachment of model after print.
- Pretty inexpensive if you go for a subscription or seasonal offer.
Cons:
- Pretty expensive if you expect to print large models or vases or whatever, which it appears you can’t.
- Sculpto branded filament is rather expensive and seems to come in only few interesting colors.
- Using other filaments than Sculpto branded filaments voids… ⮐
- Subscription deal
- Warranty altogether