Dremel DigiLab 3D45 3D Printer - Review 2022

In evaluating a 3D printer, we expect at a number of factors, amid them ease of setup and use, print quality and consistency, build volume, software, filament, connectivity, and price. Although no printer excels at all of them, the Dremel DigiLab 3D45 3D Printer ($1,799) comes as shut as we've seen. It's made primarily for production developers, engineers, and other professionals, and should also be useful in higher education. Although it's priced considerably college than consumer 3D printers, its ease of setup and use, and its power to output quality prints with consistency, mean that it could also be a expert fit for a tech-savvy hobbyist with some greenbacks to invest. Information technology easily earns our Editors' Option equally a midrange 3D printer.

From Tool Manufacturing to 3D Printing

Most 3D printer manufacturers are startups, founded past enthusiasts, and are solely or primarily focused on 3D printing. Dremel, the venerable (86-year-old) Illinois-based toolmaker, is a notable exception. The company primarily makes rotary power tools such as screwdrivers, drills, and sanders. Dremel has a stellar reputation as a tool manufacturer, with its products earning numerous editorial awards from Popular Mechanics and specialized tool and edifice publications and sites.

Although 3D printers such as the 3D45 are far exterior Dremel'south traditional product line, power tools and 3D printers take one very basic thing in common: They're both used to make things. And Dremel clearly put the same care in designing and crafting the 3D45 as it does in making its tools.

Dremel DigiLab 3D45 3D Printer

Design and Features

The 3D45 is a fairly big printer, measuring 15.nine by 20.2 past xvi inches (HWD)—making it best suited for a table or a workbench—and it weighs a hefty 47 pounds. It'southward a closed-frame printer, with a articulate plastic door in front that opens outward, and a clear lid on acme that swings upwards to open. This permits easy access to the print bed when needed, and safety when a impress task is in progress.

At half dozen.vii by 10 past 6 inches, the 3D45's build volume is like to the Makerbot Replicator+ (5.9 by 9.ix by 7.8 inches) and wider than the LulzBot Mini (vi by 6 by 6.ii inches), another Editors' Choice. The printer has a v-inch touch screen for utilise in loading filament, press from a USB thumb drive—the slot for which is only to the right of the display—and other tasks. The impact screen could exist more responsive; sometimes I had to press it 2 or three times before it would accept my control. On the right side of the printer are the on-off switch, a USB port for connecting to a estimator via a cablevision, and an Ethernet port.

Filament and Setup

Until recently, Dremel had a very limited color range for its filament, simply with the launch of the 3D45, the company introduced 11 color choices for its polylactic acrid (PLA) filament (white, black, carmine, blue, pinkish, orange, gold, silver, green, royal, and translucent white). It's even so far fewer than MakerBot, which has twice as many PLA color choices plus 10 colors of ABS (acrylonitrile butadiene styrene) filament. In addition to PLA, Dremel sells Eco-ABS, which is a modified PLA filament with added strength, flexibility, and durability (according to Dremel), and nylon filaments. The PLA lists for $29.95 for a 0.5-kilogram (about i.1-pound) spool, though information technology can be found online for less than $25. Eco-ABS and nylon filaments both list at $34.95 per 0.5-kilogram spool.

These prices are in line with filament spools sold by major manufacturers for their ain printers—MakerBot sells PLA for $48 per 0.9-kilogram spool, for case. You can likewise employ 3rd-party filaments with the 3D45, with a couple caveats. First, the printer won't be able to automatically identify the filament type, as it can with Dremel'southward "smart" RFID-equipped spools, so you volition have to enter the temperature settings—different types of plastic take dissimilar melting points and optimal temperatures—manually with the impact screen. Second, unless the spool you lot want to apply happens to fit the 3D45's built-in spool chamber, y'all will have to feed the filament from exterior the printer and improvise a spool holder that volition both support the spool and let it spin freely. Y'all could even 3D print 1.

Dremel DigiLab 3D45 3D Printer

Loading filament is easy plenty. When replacing a spool, you volition desire to first snip the filament close to the extruder and remove the old spool. Once you lot have seated the new spool in its holder and snaked the loose end of the filament through the guide tube, press the Modify Filament push button on the touch console. The extruder will heat up, melting and extruding whatsoever filament left from the old spool. Then, insert the loose end of the new filament in the top of the extruder. When all the onetime filament has been extruded and the new filament color starts to extrude, printing Done.

Keeping Continued

The 3D45 offers enough connexion choices to keep virtually whatever user happy. You can print from a computer over a USB, Ethernet, or Wi-Fi connection, as well as from a USB thumb drive. Although Dremel doesn't have a press app per se, every Dremel printer can connect via the web to the Dremel Impress Cloud, from which y'all can slice files (set the layers for press), launch print jobs, and monitor prints in progress from the 3D45'south onboard 720p camera.

Dremel DigiLab 3D45 3D Printer

Useful Software

Included with the printer is the DigiLab 3D Slicer software, which uses the open-source Cura platform that nosotros have seen in many other 3D printers. Information technology is easy for beginners to use, and powerful and versatile plenty for advanced users. With the software installed, you can open, manipulate, and slice a file; launch a print job; or salvage a file in printable format—the 3D45 can impress either G-code or Dremel'southward own .3gdrem format. Resolution ranges from 300 microns to fifty microns; the low-resolution setting is 300 microns, standard resolution is 200 microns, high resolution is 100 microns, and Ultra resolution is 50 microns. In addition to the DigiLab 3D Slicer, you tin can transport files to Dremel'south deject-based slicer in the Dremel Print Deject.

Stellar Print Quality and Performance

I printed virtually x test objects with the 3D45, iii in high resolution and the rest in standard. Print quality was good to fantabulous throughout, with no significant difference between standard and high resolution. Even better, there were no misprints, and none of the printed objects showed any serious flaws. It did very well in printing our geometric test object, which includes raised text and various shapes on a steeply inclined surface.

Dremel DigiLab 3D45 3D Printer

Rubber and Noise

Every bit a closed-frame 3D printer, the 3D45 is inherently safer than an exposed open up-frame printer. The front door and lid are generally closed during printing, so you don't have to worry about an onlooker getting burned by accidentally touching the hot extruder. And fifty-fifty if y'all exercise get your hands within the frameduring printing, the metal extruder nozzle, which gets very hot during press, extends only a brusk altitude beneath the extruder assembly and would be hard to reach. With the door and lid closed, the 3D45 is very serenity; when information technology was printing, I often couldn't hear it at all from nearly 30 feet away.

A Great 3D Printer for Makers

The Dremel DigiLab 3D45 3D Printer is a great choice for engineers, product designers, or educators. It's very easy to fix and utilise, and printed with in a higher place-average quality with no misprints in our testing. The 3D45 is more expensive than the LulzBot Mini, the Editors' Selection in its sub-$2,000 cost class, but it has a larger build expanse, ameliorate print quality, and a closed frame, and it succeeds the Mini as our current Editors' Choice. While it doesn't have the MakerBot Replicator+'s wide range of filament choices and some convenience features like the Smart Extruder, it costs $700 less and adds a closed frame. Dremel made its name in designing high-quality power tools, and now it does an fantabulous job in crafting 3D printers equally well.