Monoprice Maker Select Ultimate 3D printer

About a year and a half ago I purchased my first 3D printer which was the original Monoprice Maker Select 3Dprinter (Monoprice has release version 2 of this printer now). This printer was an outstanding printer for a beginner and I was really impressed with how easy it was to setup and use.  After using this printer for several months, I purchased another printer from a different manufacture however I did not have the best of luck with it.  When I finally gave up on making that printer work decently, I decided to go back to Monoprice for my third printer.  I ended up purchasing the Maker Select Ultimate 3D printer and after using this printer for several months, I can honestly say that I am very happy with my decision.

The Maker Select Ultimate is a rebadge of the Wanhao Duplicator 6. It seems like the only difference between the two printers is the Wanhao Duplicator 6 comes with an acrylic cover while the Monoprice Maker Select Ultimate does not however I have not used a Duplicator 6 so I cannot say for sure.

The first thing I noticed about the Maker Select Ultimate was how easy it was to unpack and setup.  I was printing within 30 minutes after receiving the printer.  All I needed to do was to cut and remove the packing material, remove the accessory boxes and install the filament spool holder.  I have read other reviews that say the spool holder was too small for their filament spools however I use Hatchbox filament and I have found the filament spool holder works great.

The second thing I noticed was how quite the printer is.  I have always had my 3D printers in my loft and the previous two printers were so noisy that we had a hard time watching TV in our living room while I was printing something.  With the Maker Select Ultimate, I do not have this issue however this has not always been the case.  The first two Maker Select Ultimate printers that I received had very noisy fans (I will talk about why I had two previous Maker Select Ultimate printers later in this review) however this third printer is incredible quiet.  In fact, the fans are so quiet, I can barely hear them.  

The specs for the Maker Select Ultimate says it can print up to 150mm/sec.  I have my Cura setup with a general speed of 125 mm/sec and I have had excellent prints with that speed.  I am using Cura 2.3.1 and have made several tweaks to the various speeds.  The following image shows my current printing speeds:

The first Maker Select Ultimate printer that I received shipped with a default acceleration of 800mm/sec2.  This was way to slow and other reviews have recommended that you change this within the firmware.  I would recommend, instead of adjusting the firmware, adjusting this setting within Cura.  By adjusting this within Cura you can adjust it for each print if you want too.  The latest version of the Maker Select Ultimate now has the default acceleration set to 4000mm/sec2 which greatly increases the print speed. 

The build volume is good with a 200 X 200 X 175 mm build area. Personally, I have only used PLA filament but the heated bed means you can use most filament types.  Leveling the print bed is also relatively painless because the printer walks you through the whole process.  The first Maker Select Ultimate printer that I received I did have to re-level the bed after every third or fourth print however with the new printer I have only had to level the bed once since the initial leveling and this has covered over 20 prints.

The specifications say that the Maker Select Ultimate can print with an ultra-high resolution of

20 microns.  Printing at this resolution gives incredible prints however it does take a while to print anything at that resolution.  The image to the left was printed at 100 microns and took 32 minutes while the image to the right was printed at 20 microns and took 145 minutes.  Both were printed with the same silver filament using the print speeds shown earlier with a raft.

It is very easy to change the filament with Maker Select Ultimate printer. By selecting the change material option, the printer will heat up the hot end, eject the filament and then tell you to put in the new material.  You will want to use the white tubbing that comes with the printer to protect the hole that the filament is inserted into.  The hole on the first Maker Select Ultimate printer that I received was deformed within two weeks by the filament rubbing against the edge of the hole.  You will want to cut a small piece of tubbing off and insert it in the hole as shown in the following image.

Another nice feature with this printer is the ability to change settings while you are printing.  You can increase/decrease the print speed, extruder temperature, build plate temperature, fan speed, material flow and retraction rate.  

Everything isn’t perfect with the printer.  The one thing that I really do not like is what is displayed when the printer is printing.  Rather than giving you the completion percentage and the x/y/z position, the display has a bar showing print progress and gives you an estimated time to completion which is normally not very accurate since it is based on the average print time per layer.  Unless you are printing a solid cube the time it takes to print each layer can vary significantly.

As I mentioned earlier this is my third Maker Select Ultimate printer.  The first two printers that I received had problems with the hot end thermostat.  To be up front, I use my 3D printers a lot.  The first printer I had lasted 28 days with around 200 print hours. When I tried to print anything, it would display an error indicating it had problems reading the hot end thermostat and would not let me print anything.  Not sure what was wrong but I suspect it was something with the main board because I did not see anything wrong with the wires or the thermostat itself.  The second printer I had lasted 35 days with around 250 print hours.  This time the wire coming out of the hot end for the thermostat broke.  In the following image you can see how it broke.

                                                                                                                            

This next image shows how the wires are supposed to look

The wires are held together with wire ties and I believe the wire to the thermostat wiggled lose and dangled down a little too low and got caught on my print which caused the wire to snap.  I suspect this because of the sound the printer made just before it stopped working.  For the third printer, I used some tape to hold the cables up higher as shown in the following image.

You may think with the problems I had with the first two printers that I would not recommend this printer however the customer support at Monoprice was so outstanding that I comfortable recommend this product to anyone looking for a good 3D printer.  Both times that I had issues with the printer I contacted Monoprice via the online chat and had RMA numbers with 20 minutes.  The first printer was shipped out hours after Monoprice received my printer back.  The second time I had to send the printer back it was on back order so it took almost two weeks to get a new one but I was fine with that because it appears Monoprice has made a lot of improvements to this new printer.

Whenever you purchase items like a 3D printer when it is first released, you need to expect issues and good manufactures make minor adjustments to the products based on the feedback they received.  It appears to me that Monoprice has listened to the feedback of users and made excellent adjustments.  The fans being much quieter and having a higher default acceleration speed were excellent improvements.

If I had to rate the printer using the standard 5 star system, I would give it 4.5 stars.  With how great Monoprice’s customer support was, and seeing the improvements made in this latest model I am overlooking the problems I had with the first two printers with this rating. 

My only two complaints with the current printer is what is being displayed while the printer is printing and I wish it came with an acrylic cover like the Duplicator 6 especially since all the holes needed to install the cover are already drilled in the frame.  Overall I would definitely recommend Monoprice Maker Select Ultimate printer for both the new and experience users.  If the Maker Select Ultimate is out of your price range then I would recommend looking at the Monoprice Maker Select 3Dprinter.