This topic contains 14 replies, has 10 voices, and was last updated by 
David 1 month, 1 week ago.
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AnonymousI’ll happily sell you mine, when I get it back from the factory. It’s a beta that’s been barely used and will have been upgraded to the same level as the production units by CEL themselves. Hell, I’ll even chuck in 3 rolls of filament!
AnonymousI assume you’re in the US. Selling stuff across the water is never easy. Might be easiest to go via Ebay, I’ll put a link up here if I do that.
I’m going to give it one last try with some of the recent fixes that have been posted on here when I get it back. Can’t say whether I’m happy or not with the printer, as I’ve not been able to use it much.
But I think for me I’ve started to realise that I would be better off with an open source hardware / software type of printer where I can try and fix things myself that are relevant to me. If you don’t want to do that then the Robox is fine.
@biscuitlad do you have some other printer in mind to get instead of Robox?
AnonymousWell, it really doesn’t help having someone in your office who’s using a Printrbot Simple and getting great prints (and I mean crystal clear embossed lettering, etc), morning after morning and bringing them in to show you. Showing me the images from his Pi cam, that he can use to check on and halt his printer during a print (from his phone). It does not help that he’s going to be testing some flexible filament tomorrow for me that I couldn’t print *even* if I had a working Robox - using a modification he’ll print out himself. All of this doesn’t help, when you know he paid a third less than you did and has printed five times more prints in the three weeks he’s had it than you’ve done in 6 months.
Life is not easy for this particular Robox owner, in this particular office… frankly, it’s torture!
All that said, Chris W has just told me he has sent me back my printer. Fully calibrated, and practically every part in it swapped for a new one. So this is it, last chance - if I don’t get it producing great prints this time, I will cave in and admit defeat!
The Robox is a great printer for some people right now with the potential to be a great printer for a lot of people in the near future. The hardware is now pretty solid, many of the problems I have seen on the forums are a result of incomplete documentation, lack of reading the manuals, and deficiencies in the software. CEL is working very hard to solve these issues and I personally think they will do so. In six months, I expect Robox to be a very reliable system.
The advantages that Robox has will be realized once the software gets polished. It is the biggest drawback right now to getting good quality prints. The software is designed with a community in mind, a group of people who can share their profiles freely to reduce the amount of time spent in trial and error.
If you are a person who wants a printer that will work well, is happy with the size, wants versatility, and doesn’t mind some maintenance and waiting for the updated software, I would say go for it. I am happy with mine, the only problems I have is that some of the beta hardware hasn’t been replaced yet, and the software deficiencies that I discussed.
If you are looking for something that is open-source, customizeable, and aren’t willing to wait for the software, the Robox is not for you.
My experience is that the only hardware improvements I would make are a larger print volume and a dual-material head. The larger print volume I solved with a Cobblebot, the dual-material head will be coming.
Most of the issues I see with prints from Robox are software driven. I have seen and have produced some great prints and some horrible prints. Every printer requires learning, the Simple just provides the results of that learning from a company that has been in 3D printing for a lot longer than CEL.
Should you buy it? I don’t know enough about what you want to use it for to tell you, but I am happy with my purchase so far, though I would really like to get updated hardware eventually.
Another happy Robox user here, I’ve been making prints for a couple weeks now both for fun and profit. The bridge fix posted on this site makes certain prints easier (though itself not a perfect solution). If you follow the calibration procedures as they are intended though not necessarily how they are written/expressed (which is a documentation problem) then I’m sure you will have many productive days with a Robox of your own. **Checks his first reel of filament** … ***Yep, almost empty*** … But I ordered and have four or five more still in their boxes.
Hi,
here the next happy Robox user. I have my Robox around 3 weeks now and I am very happy.
Of course the learning period was not that easy because the manual contains a future version of AutoMaker and not the one which comes with the machine.
Key is the nozzle height calibration. If that is done and the 1st layer sticks to the PEI bed then the machine runs like a charm.
The mechanical precision is really excellent! The closed built chamber is great because it keeps the chamber warm to reduce warping.
Most problems of print results are related to shrinking of material, but this problem exists also for all other 3D printers.
Some people report problems with the print head, but if you take a look at forums of other 3D printers they also have technical problems. This is not a fault of Robox. This is a general problem due to the complexity of those machines.
When I printed the LEGO-brick (http://www.cel-robox.com/forums/topic/lego-brick-there-is-hope-2/) I was really surpriced how precise the machine works.
In the video of the above mentioned thread you can see how the printed LEGO brirck fits to ‘normal’ LEGO bricks. The precision in size and detail is really great!
I think it is a good choice to buy this machine. If you have any problems you can get help here from many ambitous users.- This reply was modified 1 month, 2 weeks ago by René.
I’d like to chime in with another positive review but my experiences differ form those above. When my Robox arrived I couldn’t print anything due to a software flaw on Mac OS. After contacting CEL they burnt the midnight oil to fix this. Then I ran through the, as already pointed out, rather wooly calibration instructions. I couldn’t get my nozzle heights to calibrate, well one time in ten they would and then the resulting prints were stringy and awful.
I will put my hands up and admit that some of this is user error for sure. I probably had incorrectly set the flow parameters, using the equally wooly ‘too tight’, ‘too loose’ and ‘just right’ buttons and having several times tried to calibrate the nozzle height, and failed, probably had a totally incorrect profile for the nozzle height. I also have an issue whereby the reels unload themselves during the print, so that it looks as if no filament is loaded during the print process. I’m not sure how much of an effect that has on the actual printing as it may be that all the necessary data has already been uploaded before the print begins and that the Robox doesn’t actually need that information during the print phase.
I will say four things in the printers defence though.
1). Before I tried to recalibrate the settings I did a single test of a simple model with ABS and the dimension accuracy was surprisingly good. The model was 50mm long and after cooling measured 49.79mm, it was stepped in 1mm increments and all of those heights were accurate to within .2mm, I printed a circular disc of 1mm height on top of one of the steps at 8mm diameter and it measured 7.89mm. So, when running correctly I would say that the Robox is capable of highly accurate prints.
2). If I had left the calibration alone I would probably be printing today without many issues. However, I thought that after the long journey from China that it would be worth doing at least an initial calibration. At least this highlighted some hardware faults with the unit (which are, for the more experienced and hands-on user, probably fixable remotely at home/office. As a retail customer I didn’t want to start disassembling the printer in my home office though!)
3). CEL’s team responded quickly to my support tickets, took note and the unit has been returned to them for checking and set-up. I’m pretty confident that as long as I don’t attempt to ‘recalibrate’ the unit when it returns it will print as well as can be expected.
4). Most of the issues are with the software, everyone, including CEL realise that it needs immediate improvement. However, rather than release another temporary patch I would imagine they are holding off before release in order to ensure that it is stable and fully formed. That is an assumption on my part obviously, I’ve had no direct communication with any of CEL’s team regarding the software issues.
Finally, with any 3D printer there are going to be hardware issues. None will print indefinitely without some form of user maintenance. I have found that what I had assumed would be a fairly simple plug and play approach has been anything but. But there are other who have had exactly the opposite experience (see above). To me it looks a well designed, good looking printer that truly has a lot of potential. I think 2015 will be the year that the Robox comes of age though.
I thought about the Makerbot’s and other alternatives but didn’t want to be limited to printing in PLA only (in fact I don’t want to print anything in PLA). A lot of the alternatives to Robox really only offer PLA as an option. The Robox has also been designed to grow to do much more than just 3D printing too.
A good reminder for me above. I too printed some LEGO bricks. In PLA. They fit perfectly with the real thing.
I would wait until you see people being able to print good quality prints consistently, check whenever you see there’s a new software update since people will be testing things out to see if things have improved.
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