Hands on with a Wanhao Duplicator 6 3D Printer

[Joules]

I got the enjoyable task of setting up a brand new Wanhao D6 3D printer for a friend.   This is a brand new machine just released, it still has a few teething troubles but Wanhao are being very responsive in dealing with them.



The machine has a capacity of 200mm x 200mm x 185mm.  Whilst it's not an entry level machine  I think it will make an excellent starter for anyone with engineering design experience.  The frame is welded aluminium, very rigid and during testing, it was printing at 75mm/sec with no issues at all.  I also tested the machine with my own Simplify3D slicer, we did get better results than Cura, however we also had one print glitch.  Might have been a file error, but not enough time to investigate with further prints, but Simplify3D would seem the way to go for maximum print quality if your looking for pro results.

Wanhoa has a tie up with Cura and release their own version on the supplied SD card, you can also download from the website if you want to have a look, or require the Mac/Linux version.

A bit of fun was had levelling the bed, I think the instructions need a bit more work and thought into how to do the process.

The print quality straight out the box was good, after tweaking the settings it got better.   I am very impressed in the print quality from this machine, though it's still early days and needs a fair bit more use before a final verdict is made.

I give the machine a  with better to come.   More details as we get comfy and familiar with this machine.

 

[RobWilson]

It looks very well made Joules 


Rob

[Joules]

It is Rob, despite the minor issues it's well worth the money.   The printbed stick on surface Wanhao are using is great.  We made the mistake of letting the machine do its own thing with PLA.  It ramped the bed upto 50℃ and printed at 215℃  WAY too high for PLA, the print welded to the surface.   The best we found was the bed at ambient or 20℃ and print at 190℃.

In Simplify3D you can specify extruder temperature by layer, so after say 5 layers you could ramp upto 200℃ for better interlayer bond and surface finish.   I'm looking over the last test print we did at 75mm/sec and the surface did suffer more at that speed, it would seem the optimum quality setting is around 50mm/sec in Cura.

The single wall spiral extrusion test, Simplify3D managed <0.43mm wall thickness, whilst Cura (running over speed at 75mm/s) came in at around 0.75mm  ±0.05mm   0.1mm accuracy over the prints we did, this could also be tweaked a little better in software with more time.

[awemawson]

"it's well worth the money"

Key question though Joules to evaluate that statement - how many arms and legs do they demand in exchange for this wonder ?

[Joules]

Around £750  legs worth.....

Or put another way 12.7 thou off one of Heidi Klum's legs.....

[awemawson]

Shows that I lead a sheltered life - I had to Google that reference