Repper's delight

No I didn't made any mistake in the price and you're reading correctly.
I only paid 60€ for this brand new tiny 3D printer ! Can you believe this ?

Weedo Tina2 3D printer

When I first saw it in my local supermarket just before Xmas I just couldn't believe it. At that time it was sold for 149€ and marketed forward children as a toy.
One of them was running as a demo and from what I could see it seemed very capable. The print quality was incredible for such a price and I was very excited to get one. But I didn't... because I wanted to read more about it when I get back home and that's what I did.
And from what I have read here and there on blogs and customers reviews there was two main opinions :

• some people where saying this is just a toy that was crap
• while others where very enthousiastic about it

Who should I believe ?
Most enthousiastic testers where saying that they received their printer for free from the chinese brand Weedo for reviewing it and I usually don't trust their reviews. I personnaly never received any printer for free so all the opinions you can read on my blog are not accomodating. If I think something is crap I just say so.
On the other hand, most people that where saying it's crap had never put their hand on it and didn't tested it. Their opinion seemed to be only motivated by the very low price : "if it's cheap it must be crap". This is an attitude I hate ! Snobbery...
I had to make my own opinion...

What can you expect ?

At first I decided to forget about it unless its price was going to decrease after Xmas. It was kind of a bet, and I took the risk that there won't be anymore available if I don't go for it. But I was right !
Just after New Year's Day the price had dropped down to 99€ and there was still quiet a few available. So I decided myself and picked one up. I went back home, opened my new toy, carefully read the manual, and started to play.

First impressions

The manual that comes with it is very well done and color printed on very good quality paper. For that price I was impressed. The printer also comes with a few tools and spare parts :

• 1 screwdriver
• 1 wrench
• 3 different size allen wrenches
• 1 extra nozzle
• 3 extra bed stickers
• 1 extra PTFE bowden tube

And everything to get started :

• 1 small 1.75mm PLA filament roll (but only half full)
• 1 micro SD card (8Gb)
• 1 USB micro SD card reader/writer

The print bed is magnetic and the leveling is automated by a sensor. The micro SD card is full of readymade gcode files, the user manual as PDF, a few videos, and a Weedo slicer install. I personnaly didn't try the slicer and decided to use Cura because I'm used to it. A Cura version with the Weedo Tina2 profile settings is available here.
The user manual says that the printer performs with micro SD cards up to 8Gb but I tried with a 32Gb one without problems.

First prints

The build volume is small : X 100 x Y 120 x Z 100 (mm).

I started by printing a small cube. Nothing very exciting here... It came out perfectly and the dimensions are correct.
I then printed the famous 3D Benchy boat that was allready sliced on the SD card (gcode), and it also came out perfectly.

I was amazed !
So amazed that I decided to buy a second one. But before going back to my supermarket I talked about it to a few friends of mine that also decided to get one. In the end I needed to buy 6 of them. When I went back there was 9 printers left plus the demo one. I asked the guy if he would break the price down for it and he told me I could have it for 60€ when he will have sold all of the boxed ones. I bought all the printers he had left : 9 brand new + the demo one. Yes... I bought 10 of them !
On one of them I changed the original 0.4mm nozzle for a 0.6mm one for faster prints and it works just fine.

More prints

Here are a few more prints made with this printer :

The best 3D printer I ever tested !!!
A printer every designer should have on his desk.