Modix Big-60 V3: Review The Specs

The ability to print big is a boon for your creativity. Greater so when you don’t have to spend tens of thousands of dollars to get there.Ideal for exploring product development, proving your prowess with homegrown (printed) props, and any assortment of overgrown things without having to invest in a full-scale industrial additive manufacturing system – a large-format desktop 3D printer can be a versatile solution for your production needs.Considerations such as the distribution of heat on your print bed and the extrusion system’s setup and throughput of filament can make the difference between waiting hours or days for a print. With this in mind, we’ve compiled the good and the promising and left the bad and the ugly at home, giving you a look at the sub-$5,000 options for big 3D printing at home or in your workshop.Oh, and when we say large, we mean machines that offer more print volume than your typical "large" 300 x 300 mm build area. If that sounds like enough, save yourself some time and check out the Creality CR-10 V2.Best Large 3D Printer 2021We’re singling out the Creality Ender 5 Plus as a solid budget pick here. It might not be perfect (really though, which printer is), but handily there’s a degree of parity between the hardware the company uses on most of its 3D printers. It won’t be difficult picking through the mind-numbing wealth of tips, tricks, mods, and upgrades favored by the vast community of users online. It has a larger than average build volume (larger even than the main CR-10 series machines – the larger, pricier variants excepted), and it has a static build plate. Modifications may be required to make it sing, but it can hold a tune from stock.Following this, there’s no denying the sheer insanity of a 600 x 600 x 660 mm build volume for less than $4,000. The Modix Big60 V3 is an absolute unit of a printer and packs the hardware to make the most of that volume, including an E3D Volcano hot end for speedy printing. A Duet 2 Wi-Fi enabled mainboard handles the thinking, paired to a touchscreen controller (also Duet), giving the operator access to macros and other live-print controls. It lacks an enclosure (that costs extra), and you have to assemble it yourself, but it’s impossible not to be drawn to that build volume.Lastly, our spotlight falls on a lesser-known brand, Vivedino (formerly Formbot) and its Vivedino Troodon CoreXY 3D printer. A 400 x 400 x 500 mm build volume and Wi-Fi-enabled mainboard are a couple of the main draws, alongside the fact that it is based on the Voron project’s highly configurable CoreXY 3D printer design. It’s not the cheapest at a little over $1,000, but it has a large build volume and decent feature set. It’s also virtually ready-to-run right out of the box."Why under $5,000?", you may ask. The line between a business machine and that for the prosumer is blurry at the best of times. We’ve kept things simple by cutting off the large-format 3D printers that cost over $5,000, taking into account that most of the interest in printers we’ve typically featured in the various incarnations of this article swings towards the more affordable machines.For a deeper dive on the possibility of larger, pricier, and ostensibly better-fleshed out ecosystems for large format 3D printing for business and industry, our guide, Large-Format 3D Printers Big Enough to Print a Chair, takes a closer look at the latest large-format offerings and companies.Otherwise, on with the show. Oh, and if you’re unsure about printing big and the challenges it presents, we’ve pieced together a nifty guide to the considerations of large-format 3D printing, pinned at the bottom of the article.Creality Ender 5 PlusImage of Best Large 3D Printers in 2021: Creality Ender 5 PlusFEATURES* Build Volume(mm)350 x 350 x 400 mm* Price(USD, approx.)$582* Extruder (Heads)1 (stock Creality)* ConnectivitySD card, USB Type-B* Heated PlatformYes (110 ℃)* Max. Hot End Temperature260 ℃* Filament Diameter1.75 mm* Compatible with 3rd-Party MaterialYes* Bed LevelingYes (BLTouch)The majority of Creality’s current line up of printers strike a good balance between price and performance. The Ender 5 Plus is no exception, topping out the company’s budget line of Ender machines as an enlargened and workable version that gives a decent out of the box experience.With that said, it’s not perfect. You should expect to need to make adjustments to improve your long term usage of the printer – the two stepper motors used to drive the Z-axis could drift, tilting the bed, and in our experience, from testing, the cabling and tubing for filament need better routing to not dangle into the printing area and risk causing issues.Such user-fixes aside, at 350 x 350 x 400 mm, the Ender 5 Plus offers a larger than average build volume, an auto bed-leveling probe (BLTouch), filament out detection, and – important for a large 3D printer – a stationary print bed. Despite needing more assembly than the likes of the Troodon further down this list, you’ll be up and printing in a short time from building it, and its stock configuration is good enough to start with.Tronxy X5SA-500 ProImage of Best Large 3D Printers in 2021: Tronxy X5SA-500 ProFEATURES* Build Volume(mm)500 x 500 x 600 mm* Price(USD, approx.)$880* Extruder (Heads)1 (stock Tronxy)* ConnectivitymicroSD card, USB Type-B* Heated PlatformYes (max. temp unknown)* Max. Hot End Temperature275 ℃* Filament Diameter1.75 mm* Compatible with 3rd-Party MaterialYes* Bed LevelingYes (Tronxy inductive proximity sensor)Cards on the table, we heavily caveat this inclusion, knowing that, for beginners, this printer is most likely not an option worth considering. Tronxy’s X5S series printers are notorious for requiring time and effort on your part to get up to scratch (our review of the X5SA corroborates this), and the X5SA-500 Pro is unlikely to be different.However, for experienced users in need of a shortcut to a hackable platform to large-format modix big meter printing, the X5SA-500 Pro is a starting point. It has a fixed dual-stepper-driven bed, a ridiculously huge 500 x 500 x 600 mm build volume, Titan-style extruder, filament sensor, and power out recovery – enough of the basics to make a start.Not only that, at ~$800, it’s a snip for one of the largest build volumes on this list. Again though, you’ll probably be wanting to make upgrades and modifications, which, of course, will drive the total cost up. Build carefully.Vivedino TroodonImage of Best Large 3D Printers in 2021: Vivedino TroodonFEATURES* Build Volume(mm)400 x 400 x 500 mm* Price(USD, approx.)$1,899* Extruder (Heads)1 (E3D V6-like clone)* ConnectivitySD card, USB Type-B, Wi-Fi* Heated PlatformYes (150 ℃)* Max. Hot End Temperature275 ℃* Filament DiameterYes* Compatible with 3rd-Party MaterialYes* Bed LevelingYes (BLTouch)Vivedino, formerly Formbot, offers a small range of large-format desktop 3D printers that include the Troodon, which comes in two flavors: the arguably modest 300 x 300 x 400 and a chunkier 400 x 400 x 500 mm.The print bed in the Troodon remains firmly fixed in place, with the entire CoreXY gantry moving on a belted Z-axis. A wireless-capable 32-bit board, silent stepper motor drivers, linear guides, dual-gear extruder, and auto bed-leveling probe are some of the standard features that should make it a comfortable printing experience. That, and the mahoosive 400 x 400 x 500 mm print volume, should you opt for the biggie.Based on an open-source Voron CoreXY 3D printer design, this fully-assembled 3D printer seems to be a shortcut to something resembling the desirable, sturdy and fast-printing Voron. Where the original uses copious amounts of 3D printed parts and name-brand parts, the Troodon instead uses stamped and milled blocks and analogous "clones" for the mainboard, hot end, and other parts. Despite the differences, the printer appears to be held in a generally positive light, with the manufacturer responding to requests, and the quality of the kit considered a solid starting point.The ready-to-run nature of this printer helps it makes the cut here, but if it interests you and you’ve time to burn, you should check out the original DIY designs over on the Voron website.Modix Big60 V3* Build Volume(mm)600 x 600 x 660 mm* Price(USD, approx.)$3,700* Extruder (Heads)1 (Genuine E3D Volcano)* ConnectivitySD card, Wi-Fi* Heated PlatformYes (120 ℃ - zonal)* Max. Hot End Temperature285 ℃* Filament Diameter1.75 mm (Can be changed to 3mm)* Compatible with 3rd-Party MaterialYes* Bed LevelingYes (BLTouch)It’s big. It’s ostentatious. And it could probably fit in your home if you really needed it to. Coming in under $5,000, we had to give a big, exaggerated nod to the Modix Big-60, a printer whose 600 x 600 x 660 mm print volume makes it the biggest on this list and a pretty appealing prospect at its starting price of $3,700.Notable features run to an E3D high flow Volcano heater block, plus fully automatic bed leveling, a Duet3D Wi-Fi enabled mainboard, a dual-zone silicon heater for the print bed (meaning power savings for small prints), a PEI print surface, and a filament run-out sensor.Optional upgrades can configure this printer into a dual extrusion high-temp, fast-printing beast. At its stock configuration, though, you will have to make do with a single extrusion hot end, and perhaps most crucially, no enclosure – that’s a $700 add-on, which actually brings the price in line with the smaller but better-equipped Big-40.It seems exceptional value, but the devil lies in the detail – as with the Big-40, you will have to assemble the printer yourself. How handy do you feel?gCreate gMax 2Image of Best Large 3D Printers in 2021: gCreate gMax 2FEATURES* Build Volume(mm)457 x 457 x 609 mm* Price(USD, approx.)$3,995* Extruder (Heads)1 (Genuine E3D V6)* ConnectivitySD card, USB Type-B* Heated PlatformNo (optional extra)* Max. Hot End Temperature300 ℃* Filament Diameter1.75 mm* Compatible with 3rd-Party MaterialYes* Bed LevelingYes (BLTouch)The New York City startup gCreate cut its teeth making large-format 3D printers, and the gMax 2 is unquestionably a large-format machine.At 457 x 457 x 609 mm, this massive build volume sits in the middle of our list for area but is one of the tallest printing machines on this list. Despite being a "bed slinger," a mechanical arrangement that generally seems problematic for large-format printing, the gMax 2 uses dual Hiwin linear rails to support the print bed carriage, which should help account for the hefty mass of print bed slinging back and forth in the Y-axis.Made in the US, the gMax 2 appears to benefit from a wealth of support material online, with a kind of "by makers, for makers" vibe to the operation. Certainly, there’s a small list of respectable 3D printing OEMs present on the machine, with the hot end being a genuine E3D V6 and the mesh bed-leveling probe coming in the form of Antclabs’ popular BLTouch. Dozens of tested filament settings that work for the gMax 2 are listed on the company’s site, too, which should give users a good starting point with their printing.There are a number of official upgrades, including a dual extrusion print head, plus a Wi-Fi touchscreen interface, which takes over from the traditional Marlin-rotary encoder UI and plug the printer into the cloud via a gCreate labeled AstroPrint portal. These cost, of course, and the Wi-Fi box seems a little steep compared to a Raspberry Pi with Octoprint, but the basic gMax 2 printer is a behemoth. Just keep in mind that the footprint it requires will extend beyond the frame’s bounds since the print bed slides back and forth.Modix Big-40Image of Best Large 3D Printers in 2021: Modix Big-40FEATURES* Build Volume(mm)400 x 400 x 800 mm* Price(USD, approx.)$4,500* Extruder (Heads)1 (Genuine E3D Volcano)* ConnectivitySD card, Wi-Fi* Heated PlatformYes (120 ℃ - zonal)* Max. Hot End Temperature285 ℃* Filament Diameter1.75 mm (can be changed to 3mm)* Compatible with 3rd-Party MaterialYes* Bed LevelingYes (BLTouch)The Modix Big-40 is, as you might have gathered from its name, big. But not as big as the Big-60.The Big-40 is 400 x 400 x 800 mm big, to be exact, making it the tallest volume available on any printer in this list. The smallest of Modix’s current printer line up, the Big-40’s feature set appears to tick all the boxes for successful large-format 3D printing.The Big-40’s build area has dual heating zones and is the stage for a high flow E3D Volcano hot end to dance the dance of fused filament fabrication. Coordinating things is a Duet3D Wi-Fi mainboard, which in addition to keeping prints flowing smoothly, allows you to set and forget jobs from another room.A PEI print bed surface should grip the garden variety of filaments when hot and release them when cold. Trickier prints that demand a stable printing environment are also taken care of with a full printer enclosure that keeps the chamber toasty.Modix offers configuration options to customize the printer, too, meaning you could tailor the machine to suit your need – a high-temperature heater cartridge that reaches 500° Celsius, for example.The one big catch with the Big-40, though, depending on your perspective, is that it is a kit – you have to assemble the entire thing yourself. Plan a long way ahead.There’s enough to consider when you’re printing small objects on a 3D printer, never mind the complications of large printing. But complications they are. And addressing them head-on should be your number one priority for large-format 3D printing success.Here are some starting points to help you consider what you may need in a large format 3D printer, if at all.Do you actually need a big printer?Bit of an obvious one, but do you really need a large 3D printer? Really though? Do you?Large-format 3D printers that are built to the standards of your smaller, more typical desktop 3D printers are hampered right out of the gate with hot ends that can’t necessarily handle high volume filament flow, nor the nozzles and other hardware to lay down a print in anything close to a reasonable time frame.Getting a machine that can produce large prints at an acceptable quality and speed costs a lot of money, so unless you have the dosh to invest, planning carefully is key, lest you end up wasting exorbitant amounts of filament and time on a print that might even fail before it completes anyway.If you have the specific need for a single or few large-format 3D prints, then outsourcing the printing to a 3D printing service is likely to be cheaper than buying and operating your own printer to do the job. It’ll certainly be less stressful, especially if you’re working to a deadline.For personal use, though, why not. You could print your own furniture! Sell furniture to your neighbors. Side tables for everyone!Does time matter to you?Logically, the larger a print, the longer it takes to complete. Right? WRONG. Not if you have planned and invested in hardware properly equipped for larger printing. We principally have the nozzle and hot end in mind when we say this. The brains over at Prusa Research illustrate this excellently with a neat video comparing the effect of different nozzle sizes on the same print.This very much applies to supersizing your printing with a large-format 3D printer. When you’re taking advantage of the full build volume at your disposal, thicker layer widths and taller layer heights are your best friend and can be the difference between hours for a print instead of days.Here’s where you’ll be investing in wider-gauge nozzles than the 0.4 mm bit that is the industry standard. Progressing along the chain from the nozzle is the hot end itself. If you plan to print big and fast, then you’ll be chewing through a lot of filament quickly. That means your hot end will need to be up to scratch at melting the filament as quickly as it is fed from the extruder. Wider and taller extrusions and fast printing mean a filament feed of a magnitude greater than your typical desktop printer, so – if this is your plan – a hot end equipped to handle this is also sensible.While not as essential as the two parts mentioned above, an extruder designed to give better grip and applied torque to the filament may not be a bad idea, too.Controlling the shakesSome large-format 3D printers feature print beds that travel laterally, typically along Y-axis. While a simple and cheap solution for kinematics that works for countless desktop 3D printers, this potentially poses a challenge to a large-format 3D printer in that it’s putting a lot of moving mass on one of the two main axes engaged in travel during printing. A large moving mass consisting of the print bed, the carriage it’s riding on, and the increasing weight of the print being deposited on it means greater inertia to overcome with each direction change in that axis.A printer’s belts and rails may be tight and tough enough to handle this, but such frequent direction changes can leave a mark on your prints as print artifacts such as ghosting. Not only this, a print that has poor adhesion to the print bed, moving vigorously back and forth through the Y-axis, is a risk to the success of the print.The problems above are not an issue for large-format 3D printers that use a static bed that is either completely stationary or moving only through the Z-axis for layer changes. While the motion systems might be a little more complicated, they pose less risk to long-distance prints than their "bed-slinging" counterparts.Large vs QuantitySome may consider a large format 3D printer a solution for batch printing, but an alternate solution could be found in a farm of smaller machines. A typical single-object print job that could be arranged to a 15-object print on a large-format 3D printer may give the false impression of being an efficient move. Still, in reality, a farm of 15 printers with the volume to complete one object each will complete the whole job some fifteen times quicker – taking only as long as it takes the one object to be completed.Similarly, a batch such as this spread across machines builds redundancy into your process. If one print fails, only that one print is affected. The problem is isolated, and the machine can be fixed or replaced without affecting the rest. A failed print on a large-format machine tackling a batch print has the potential to ruin the entire job.