I received a Mod-t 3D printer from New Matter (after a year and a half of waiting, of course it arrived the week I was away on vacation).
The packaging is impressive.

The box itself has instructions for how to unbox the printer:

The instructions were simple to follow and resulted in this:

To set up the printer, you connect it to either a Windows computer or a Mac and download some software. The software sets up the printer’s firmware and helps it connect to wi-fi. Note that you need to be using WPA2. Our router was using WEP, so I had to upgrade it (and enter in new passwords for all of our wireless devices). After changing the router, I tried to connect the printer three times and got a “Failed to connect” message each time, and the printer status said it was disconnected. After the third time, I hit the Refresh button, and the printer was suddenly connected.
Once the printer was connected to wi-fi, the software wanted to print a test print. The test print is nice–it’s a 3D version of the New Matter logo. The print took a couple of minutes. To remove a print, you take off the build plate, which is a plastic plate that sits on top of the build platform. You can bend and twist the build plate, and the print will pop off. There’s a video at New Matter showing how to remove a print.
Next, I printed two copies of the Maker Faire Robot, which is a robot mascot from the Make 3D printer tests from 2014. The first print came out fine. On the second print, the robot’s arm was forward, like it was shaking hands, and the supports were rotated forward as well. I’m not sure what happened.

The next thing I printed was a space-filling (CPK) model of water. It came out beautifully–essential perfect for a 3D model, which means there are small ridges from the layers, but it is smooth and even. I really like the water molecule print. It came out well, and with the default 25% fill it has a good weight to it. This is going to be a nice print to finish (smooth and paint). I will post a final picture when it’s done.

When working on another print, the Mod-t had a calibration error and ended up melting a hole in the build plate. I talked to New Matter customer support, and they were very helpful. They’re sending us a new build plate, and on their suggestion, I sanded out the edge of the hole so it was even with the rest of the build plate and put blue painter’s tape over the hole. It’s working fine. If you’re new to 3D printing, it’s pretty common to put blue painter’s tape on build plates (depending on your 3D printer).
I’ve had one build fail because of a broken filament, and a second print fail because the filament got tangled and failed to feed correctly. That second one was my error–I didn’t feed the filament through the hole in the spool after it broke, so it managed to get free of the spool.
The firmware on the machine is still early–it’s version 0.5.0. New Matter is doing regular updates, and each update improves it.
I’m impressed with the machine–it’s quiet, reliable, and produces nice prints. It has a smaller build volume (6″ x 4″ x 5″ or 150mm x 100mm x 125mm), but I think it’s a good starter machine.