New Matter MOD-t 3D Printer Review: Low Cost, User-Friendly Creation

One feature to consider when purchasing a 3D printer is the quality of the print. Most projects for the MOD-t have three settings- “High Speed”, “Balanced”, and “High Quality”. I decided to print a small, adorable lightening bookmark clip in order to test the settings out.

different qualities

The difference in quality was rather astounding. The “High Speed” clip printed in under one minute and fifty seconds, but it looked horrible. The lines were sloppy and the product was thin and uneven. The “Balanced” book clip printed in three minutes and twenty seconds. The product was definitely thicker and cleaner, however there were still some bald patches in the design. The “High Quality” product printed in five minutes and thirty seconds. Although the product was thicker than the previous two, it was not completely opaque. It was also more difficult to remove from the printer plate, which caused me to chip one of the edges. Walter the Turtle and the other larger products I created were far more opaque than the book clips. However, all of them still possessed a few imperfections.

walter the turtle

Users can play around with the printer settings, however there are not a lot of options. Users can adjust the temperature range between 160℃ to 220℃. Most projects ran around 210℃, so any cooler might lead to a less flexible filament. Users can also decrease the layer thickness and increase the fill density, however these changes could potentially lead to very time-consuming projects. The high-quality bookmark clip had a 20% fill density. This incredibly small item already took a little over five minutes to print and any longer would have felt a bit excessive.

headphone holder and headphones

headphone holder up close

This headphone holder was printed on high quality and took about seven hours to print. As you can see in the closeup shot, there are still quite a few flaws and leftover strings but with a little paint some of this could easily be cleaned-up. 

Brittany Goetting

Brittany Goetting

Brittany first became interested in technology when her dad showed her how to play Diablo II. She is an early-American/Canadian history Ph.D. student and is concerned about incorporating technology into the humanities and digitizing historical resources. When not writing tech news or trying to save old documents from falling into pieces, you can most likely find her playing with her rescued Saint Bernard-mix, Freckles. 

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