Flashforge Inventor Dual Extruder 3D Printer

This is a really nice printer. Build quality is very good, setup and operation is straightforward, and the software included is quite good.

After playing with the Inventor II for about a week, I have decided that I like this printer. It is just about the easiest printer to setup and get printing, making it a good choice for newcomers to 3D Printing World. I have two other 3D printers that required hours of assembly, leveling, squaring and tuning. Flashforge has taken those steps out of the picture. Build plate moves through the Z axis, making it easy to access the leveling screws and set extruder height. Included in the builtin LCD control panel is a leveling subroutine with a retractable height adjustment gauge.Sweet! Very easy to set up. On the subject of the build plate, instead of the usual glass/masking tape/glue stick printing surface method, the Inventor II comes with an builtin print surface that adheres nicely, but also releases the work easily after printing. Don’t know yet what it’s life cycle will be, but replacement cost is about $10 Canadian Dollars. Print filament resides neatly in a cassette at the back of the printer frame and feeds smoothly. Now for a couple of negative points. I wish it had a larger build size. It is a touch small for this price range. While it is WIFI enabled, the character set in the LCD WIFI setup subroutine does not include ALL the WIFI password legal characters, so I couldn’t add it to my network. It will attach to a PC via USB, but I had issues on longer prints where it lost connection to the PC and the build had to be aborted. Most reliable method is to ‘Sneaker Net’ a USB drive with your G-code on it to the printer. While the cassette housing is nice, it requires a smaller diameter spool than the standard 1kg PLA spools, so you have to purchase special 0.6kg spools. Not a huge problem, but something to remember. Price/kg about the same as 1kg spools though. Overall a nice printer that would be great if the WIFI issue were addressed . (A future firmware upgrade?)