![]() ![]() The difference between the two comes down to focus. They are both excellent, quality 3D printers that have decided to outsource to 3rd party vendors. LulzBot uses a Mean Well power supply, while Prusa gets theirs from Delta. They both source parts from E3D, Bondtech, Ultimachine and LDO Motors. When you look closely, they have a lot in common. For the last 10 years LulzBot and Prusa have placed their focus on quality, name brand parts. Or make them cheaper.Īnd what about Prusa? The wildly popular Prusa MK3S+ is nearly $200 cheaper for the prebuilt version and even less if you’ve got time for some DIY. Ideally, this allows others to take these designs and improve upon them. Both LulzBot and Prusa Research are companies dedicated to open source – meaning their designs are publicly posted for all to see. I’m not an economics expert, but it’s safe to say that Chinese companies have both cheaper labor and access to less expensive parts. They’re also roughly one half to one third the price. The Creality Ender 3 S1 and Anycubic Kobra are both excellent 3D printers with similar build volumes, direct drives, auto bed leveling, stock flexible bed surfaces and large touch screens. There are, after all, a lot of really good machines on our Best Printer list, and most are nowhere near this expensive. You might be wondering why this printer is so expensive when compared to more popular brands. Is a LulzBot Taz SideKick Worth the Price? Hotends come from E3D and Slice Engineering and have options for both 1.75 mm and 2.85 mm filament. This lets you select the color, build surface, hotend and whether you need a display controller. Speaking of options, when selecting your printer from the LulzBot site, you can choose the prepackaged Standard edition, or customize your machine. There is also an option to choose an OctoGrab magnetic flex plate, also coated in smooth PEI. ![]() This plate is held down with screwed-in corner pieces, so you can take it off for cleaning but you’ll have to leave it in place while removing prints. Our test machine is the Standard Edition and came with a borosilicate glass plate covered in a thick sheet of smooth PEI. There is one flaw with this system – if the machine loses power while printing, there’s no brake and the hotend will fall into the unfinished print. When parked at the top of the machine, the X gantry is held in place with neodymium magnets. ![]() The TAZ SideKick uses belts for all three axes, which eliminates potential Z wobble from a wonky metal axis. Taking the open source spirit to heart, I printed a tube to fit over the peg and smooth out the filament’s journey. It’s a square sided peg that produces a bit of drag on cardboard spools. The spool holder was also a bit rustic for such an expensive machine. Eventually I cut the tube down to a few inches at the filament guide and it hasn’t been a problem since. I wasn’t particularly fond of it, especially since it kept popping off every time I unloaded filament. It turned out to be a “reverse Bowden” and the tube is to help guild the filament from the side mounted spool holder, over the gantry and into the hotend. I was surprised to find a Bowden tube on the SideKick, as this is a direct drive machine. This makes it look quite different from any other machine, though I’m not sure if this was done for strength or just style. The TAZ Sidekick has a double gantry of slim extruded black aluminum, with all the bars set at a 45-degree angle. I was given some basic advice, told where to find photos of my tool head online, then walked through how to dismantle the direct drive to pick the gears clean. I tried it after getting a clog – I’m purposefully rough on my test machines – I called up to see how good the service might be. The service team is most useful to US customers, as they’re located in the Midwest and only available during the business week. Anyone who’s ever attempted to troubleshoot a weird noise via email knows this is worth a few bucks. Designed to take on the best 3D printers and win, this is a well-built machine with quality, name brand parts that’s assembled in America where labor costs are more expensive than overseas.Īnother premium perk is a customer service team that can be reached by phone. Retailing at $1285 for the Standard Edition, the TAZ Sidekick 747 is not going to fit everyone’s budget. It feels solid and makes a cool humming noise as its belts whip the Z axis up and down. I really enjoy using this whimsical, old school 3D printer. ![]()
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