The Flashforge Finder is a moderately priced ($499) home 3D printer that offers good print quality and a variety of connection choices. It has a modest build area and is limited to printing with polylactic acid filament (PLA), but neither of those are deal breakers at this price point. It proved surprisingly tricky to get up and running, as the first several test prints didn't adhere to the build platform. After some troubleshooting, however, the Finder proved to be a reasonably reliable 3D printer that can produce good-quality print.
Design and Features
The Finder is an open-frame 3D printer with a single extruder. It's shaped like a cube, but has rounded corners and beveled top edges. The red and black model we tested measures 16.5 by 16.5 by 16.5 inches (HWD) and weighs 27 pounds. The build volume is a modest 5.5 by 5.5 by 5.5 inches, smaller than the LulzBot Mini (5.9 by 5.9 by 5.9 inches) and the XYZPrinting da Vinci Jr. 1.0 (6 by 6 by 6.2 inches), but larger than the MakerBot Replicator Mini (4.9 by 3.9 by 3.9 inches).
Setup
Setting up the Finder seemed relatively simple and straightforward at first, but turned out to be a bit more complicated. Unlike Flashforge's Creator Pro (stay tuned for the full review), the Finder comes fully assembled. It includes a spool of blue PLA filament, which you insert into a removable chamber that fits in the rear of the printer. You then thread the filament's loose end through a hole in the top of the box, and insert it into the top of the extruder assembly. You load the filament according to the instructions on the touch screen. When the machine starts extruding filament, loading is complete.
The Finder is limited to printing with PLA filament. Most 3D printers can also use acrylonitrile butadiene acrylate (ABS), and others, such as the LulzBot Mini—our Editors' Choice for midrange 3D printers—can use a variety of exotic filaments as well. For beginners, PLA is the best choice; the corners at the base of ABS prints often curl upward, and that's particularly true of a printer with an unheated print bed, like the Finder. Flashforge sells 1.5-pound PLA spools in about a dozen colors for $34, a typical price for the filament type.
Once the filament is installed, you remove the build plate from the printer and cover it with a sheet of blue 3M tape, similar to the blue tape we've seen with many other 3D printers, but with the Flashforge name and logo painted on it. (The Finder comes with several such sheets.) Then you plug the printer in, turn it on, and follow the instructions for leveling the build plate from the quick-start guide.
To level the build plate, you first tighten three thumb screws under the plate as far as you can, and press Next on the printer's touch screen. The extruder will move and come to rest just above the build plate, above the rear thumb screw. You then loosen that screw, which pushes the plate upward against a sensor, until you hear a tone. Then you tighten the screw until the tone stops, press Next, and then repeat these steps for the other two thumb screws. After that, at least in theory, your build plate is level. You then download Flashforge's Flashprint software from the company's site, or install it from the USB thumb drive that comes with the printer. Once the software is installed, you can load a 3D object file, which you can move, rotate, or rescale. When you're done, you press Print, and a dialog box appears; it lets you change the print resolution (the default resolution is 200 microns, and you can set anywhere from 100 to 500), and add a raft and/or supports. Additional options are available from an advanced menu. When you're done, you can save the file to a USB thumb drive, which you plug into the printer, or send the job to the printer over a USB 2.0 or Wi-Fi connection from your PC.
Those Build-Plate Leveling Blues
The Finder's quick-start guide, as well as the user guide, are written in slightly broken English, which is pretty much intelligible throughout, but makes for some interesting turns of phrase, such as "Ensure that the Finder is earthed lest electrostatic interference." More of a practical issue is that the instructions aren't always as precise as they could be. For instance, in explaining how to use the thumb screws to level the build plate, they read, "The Finder will sound a warning. Then rotate the screw in the opposite direction till the sound disappears. After the sound disappears, rotate another half circle and then tap [Next]." I assumed that "rotate another half circle" was still in the "opposite direction" mentioned in the previous sentence, but I couldn't be sure.
This became an issue when the first four or five prints I tried quickly pulled off the build plate and were ruined. I figured that I probably hadn't aligned the build plate correctly, so I tried realigning it, and the same thing happened, again and again. Finally, I contacted Flashforge, and a technician suggested that I try applying a thin coat of glue from a glue stick to the build plate. Fortunately I had a glue stick on hand (the printer does not include one, nor could I find any mention of one in the user guide). Applying the glue worked, and since then I have had only one print pull away from the build plate.
Printing
I printed out five test objects with the Finder. Four of them printed smoothly. The fifth—a relatively tall and thin object that tests a printer's ability to print raised text and a variety of geometric shapes that protrude from a nearly vertical surface—pulled away from the build platform when it was nearly complete. This ruined the text part of the test, but the rest of it printed well—not as good as the MakerBot Replicator Desktop 3D Printer, but better than the XYZPrinting da Vinci Jr. and the LulzBot TAZ 5 3D Printer. It did well in the other test prints it completed, all printed using Flashforge's blue filament, which is flecked with iridescent-green highlights.
Conclusion
You should have no complaints about the Flashforge Finder's print quality, which is very good for a moderately priced 3D printer. You can print with it over a USB or Wi-Fi connection, or from a USB thumb drive. However, getting the Finder to print at all proved surprisingly tricky, as my first four or five test prints did not stay adhered to the build platform, and the quick-start and user guide were unclear enough that I wasn't sure if I had done something wrong or if there was a problem with the printer. I resolved the issue with the help of Flashforge's support, but the glue stick I had been advised to use is neither included with the printer nor mentioned in the user guides. We do not have an Editors' Choice budget-priced 3D printer, and this isn't the breakout consumer model we've been hoping for, but the Finder did show flashes of promise.
The Finder costs more than the bargain-priced XYZPrinting da Vinci Jr. and has better print quality, but the latter was more reliable in testing. The LulzBot Mini, our Editors' Choice midrange 3D printer, is easy to set up and was problem-free in testing. That said, if you're shopping on a budget, the Flashforge Finder is worth taking a chance on, but may require some troubleshooting.
Source → Flashforge Finder 3D Printer
