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The LulzBot TAZ SideKick 747 is a premium American made 3D printer with roots stretching back to the first consumer level machines. The TAZ Sidekick comes stock with a direct drive, auto bed leveling system and PEI coated glass bed. It doesn’t need any tools to assemble and arrives folded up in a neatly packed box.

I really enjoy using this whimsical, old school 3D printer. It’s fun. It’s green. It’s covered in octopi arms. It feels solid and makes a cool humming noise as its belts whip the Z axis up and down. Retailing at $1285 for the Standard Edition, the TAZ Sidekick 747 is not going to fit everyone’s budget. 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.

Another premium perk is a customer service team that can be reached by phone. Anyone who’s ever attempted to troubleshoot a weird noise via email knows this is worth a few bucks. The service team is most useful to US customers, as they’re located in the Midwest and only available during the business week. 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. 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. They were really helpful.

Built with over 50% of 3D printed parts is a confident move, as is sticking with LulzBot's long held ethos of uploading all plans to the company's GitLab site. Still, this openness pays off with a machine that excels and reflects its Open Source origin. In use, the Taz Sidekick 747 is every part LulzBot, a workhorse that's ready to print with precision and reliability. Print quality is superb, and with customizable options alongside plenty of room to tinker, this is a printer that supplies quality and enjoyment at every level.

Pros
+Open-source plans
+High-quality prints
+Strong reliability
Cons
-BL Touch sensor can be temperamental

Rarely gets to it's full speed, few fast printers do. But it definitely races along at a fair whack and makes a bed slinging ender 3 look and feel ancient. 8 hair prints on an ender 3 are down to around an hour. Stuff I would never print on an ender 3 is within reach on the k1 max. Good print quality, built in bed levelling via a lidar, inbuilt camera is OK, not stellar but usable. Filament runout sensor built in. It does timelapse on every print, though I haven't worked out how to delete them. Prints over local WiFi, so a bit octoprint like as you can send your files over WiFi instead of using a USB stick, though that USB option is still there if required. Using a USB stick you can also pull timelapse videos direct to the USB stick. Biggest downsides of the k1? No cura profiles at the time of purchase so stuck with creality slicer. Creality slicer works fine but is limited with only 3 profiles, basically high quality slow, medium still slow, and average quality fast. Options are intuitive in creality slicer. Considering it is basically cura they make things difficult when they shouldn't be. You can monitor prints over WiFi, but for me it can't be done from the program itself on the pc, I have to copy the ip address (there is a copy ip option on the print screen so they obviously planned for this issue) to then paste in a browser window which then works fine. If you use a trackball or mouse without a scroll wheel you are in for a miserable time adding custom supports as I cannot find an option to zoom in on the model without that wheel. The only thing to truly HATE with this printer? The phone app. It is full of ads. Ads on ads, ads everywhere. The app is basically an ad app with the printer options you want to access hidden in amongst all the ad misery. Simply put, do not use the phone app if you value your sanity.

The best 3d Printer for clay printing

Built with over 50% of 3D printed parts is a confident move, as is sticking with LulzBot's long held ethos of uploading all plans to the company's GitLab site. Still, this openness pays off with a machine that excels and reflects its Open Source origin. In use, the Taz Sidekick 747 is every part LulzBot, a workhorse that's ready to print with precision and reliability. Print quality is superb, and with customizable options alongside plenty of room to tinker, this is a printer that supplies quality and enjoyment at every level.

Pros
+Open-source plans
+High-quality prints
+Strong reliability
Cons
-BL Touch sensor can be temperamental

SHARES
The stereolithography apparatus (SLA) 3D printer kit is no new thing. Autodesk tried to pioneer an open SLA platform with its Ember. They soon dropped it (but its memory lives on in the open source ether).

For those with the engineering savvy, there are countless options for DIYing an SLA printer from scratch. But for the average consumer without the technological know-how, this technology is prohibitively out of reach. You could buy plug-and-play, but these SLA 3D printers often far exceed the price point of high-end desktop FDM machines.

Knocking on the door of its molten plastic spewing brethren however, is the Peopoly Moai SLA 3D printer kit. Initially, a Kickstarter campaign during the spring of 2017, the project’s goal of $30,000 dollars was cleared within 3 days. Over a 33 day funding period, it hit the lofty grand total of $254,412.

The Peopoly Moai shipped to its 266 backers over the summer of 2017 and now, this kit SLA printer is available to everyone via the company’s own site and a number of third-party resellers.

Read on for our full verdict on the Peopoly Moai SLA 3D printer kit.

PEOPOLY MOAI

COMMISSIONS EARNED
Check price at
MatterHackers
PEOPOLY MOAI REVIEW
Pros
Simple assembly
Solid, sturdy build
Comprehensive build guide + support material
Open to 3rd party resins
Slick aesthetic
Excellent print quality
PEOPOLY MOAI REVIEW
Cons
Messy print process with no official apparatus to help
Access to bed for leveling tedious
Claustrophobic print chamber
Not sealed/no air filter
PEOPOLY MOAI REVIEW
Verdict
Image of Peopoly Moai Review: Verdict
The Peopoly Moai is pretty easy to sum up.

It boasts an insanely simple build and operation that would lead one to think of it as an introductory SLA 3D printer. For getting to grips with the inner workings and parts of a SLA 3D printer, you couldn’t ask for a more beginner-friendly machine in the Peopoly Moai.

On the other hand though, you are left at the deep end of working with an SLA 3D printer. There is no complementary washing station, no prescribed documentation for dealing with the mess of SLA 3D prints nor official software solution for preparing models for slicing (which is far more involved than FDM).

The Peopoly Moai is pitched as the machine for experimenters, with its openness to 3rd party resins a bold frontier for its users to collaborate and build a knowledge base on. But it’s undeniable that the Moai’s tantalizingly slight price point means total SLA newbies will come flocking to the fold. This duality could be a little off-putting for those expecting a walk in the park and instant excellent results.

Putting this quandary aside, in our experience we have found the bulk of issue with using the Peopoly Moai lies in the learning curve of SLA, not the printer itself. The kit, its build, and living with it day to day is a joy. The aftermath of printing, the crash course in SLA 3D printing (if you are new to the technology) and having to finish the job of assembling basic post-processing equipment, is not.

If you’re prepared to get your hands dirty (wear gloves!), then the Peopoly Moai is possibly the finest jumping on point for the gloopy, stinky world of SLA 3D printing.