Reliability of Deltas?

I'm more than capable of building and troubleshooting things like this, but I want my first printer to be very reliable.

I was originally looking at the Printrbot Metal, but I'm seeing the clear advantages of Deltas.
Ideally I would save up for a SeeMeeCNC Orion, but I'm not sure if I'm ready to invest that much money.
Instead I'm looking at the Ultibots Kossel Kit.

Can I expect to see similar results with this printer? I don't mind taking the time to build it and tune it, but I don't want to screw with it on a regular basis.
I would also like to be able to print sheets of parts.
Is the Orion the only way for me to achieve a high level of reliability and print consistency?

What you need is auto printbed leveling. It doesn't matter what printer you have, if this is correctly implemented you can save quite a bit of headache and print like a champ every time.

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ConceptFORGE
Wally, GUS Simpson, LISA Simpson, THOR Simpson, Sextupteron, CoreXZ

So in that case I'd actually be better off going with the Printrbot? I did not see an auto leveling probe on the Kossel kit.

You can implement a leveling probe or FSRs on any bot. Kossel was actually one of the first printers to popularize its use.

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ConceptFORGE
Wally, GUS Simpson, LISA Simpson, THOR Simpson, Sextupteron, CoreXZ

Deltas are very reliable and all decent printers tend to print with similar quality, the biggest difference is maintenance, print volume and speeds really. Some also do not like to be moved.

My Griffin deltas would go months without any tweaking if I left them alone, even while transporting them hundreds of miles a month. The only trouble I have is me, I'm trying to push the envelope on speed. While they don't have a probe, I'm working on a probeless system for it, I just need to document and release it. However, the Kossel one directly bolts on.

Mounting a probe on the Ultibots Kossel will be tricky as they mounted the extruder under the effector (it was designed to be cheap). If you want that printer, there are a few things I would do.
First ditch the extruder, the gear reduction on it is VERY limiting. This will increase your print height a couple inches, too. Install a probe for auto level after you do that. Lastly, if the fram eis a bit weak, or can't maintain calibration, I would switch the frame connectors to Griffin, this should up the frame stiffness considerably and increase your print height. This may require changing the carriers though.

I would change a bit on the Orion as well...
First things to go would be the head and diagonals. Switch to a J-head and carbon rods with Traxxas joints or mag joints (no thanks). Those diagonals are very fickle, although I hear they are better than the old Rostock Max ones. The stock head will work, but a J-head is far easier. If you switch to a .4 or smaller nozzle, you should also consider changing the extuder to something with 3:1 or 5:1 gear reduction.

As for the PrintRbot...
The original Simple is probably one of the more maintenance intensive printers on the market. I would imagine the Metal is big step up, but even still. Also, they trend to be pretty slow. Of the three, this is the slowest.

I recently purchased and assembled an ultibots mini kossel and it's working great! It doesn't have auto leveling and it doesn't need it. I can't stress that enough. Auto leveling is all the rage right now but it's lazy. You should ALWAYS manual level a printer and definitely manually calibrate a delta. I highly recommend an ultibots mini kossel! You absolute can't beat the price. Also, if you really want to upgrade it with auto level then it's really accomplished after the fact.

With all factors considered shipping, tax, features the two printers are about the same price. The Printrbot is more robust, but the Kossel should give much faster prints.

My decision has come down to the extruders. Which is better? I have read mixed reviews on both. I'm leaning towards the Kossel because I can get 3mm / .5 I've read that this prints much faster and is less trouble.

The build of the Metal keeps me coming back to it though. It looks like a tool that belongs in a garage, that will last forever.


What do I need to do untethered printing on these units?

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umdpru
I recently purchased and assembled an ultibots mini kossel and it's working great! It doesn't have auto leveling and it doesn't need it. I can't stress that enough. Auto leveling is all the rage right now but it's lazy. You should ALWAYS manual level a printer and definitely manually calibrate a delta. I highly recommend an ultibots mini kossel! You absolute can't beat the price. Also, if you really want to upgrade it with auto level then it's really accomplished after the fact.

Auto level is a bit lazy, if your bed is flat, and you are calibrated, re-leveling should take only a minute or two, and you should at least know how to manually calibrate. However, many newer deltas have no provisions for manual, mechanical calibration (no endstop adjustment).

Remember though, the same probe can be used for auto calibration, which is just starting to make the rounds. You can't calibrate as accurate as the software can, I never could have calibrated my towers with anything close to that sort of precision. Even if you could, my first delta took 10 hours to calibrate, the last time I did it manually it was 6 hours. Auto-calibration took 20 minutes. I'm not doing 6 hours of work, with worse results just so I can say I'm not lazy. I also wouldn't doubt that some of the next generation deltas are auto configuration only. Work smarter, not harder.

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C0rpse
With all factors considered shipping, tax, features the two printers are about the same price. The Printrbot is more robust, but the Kossel should give much faster prints.
My decision has come down to the extruders. Which is better? I have read mixed reviews on both. I'm leaning towards the Kossel because I can get 3mm / .5 I've read that this prints much faster and is less trouble.
The build of the Metal keeps me coming back to it though. It looks like a tool that belongs in a garage, that will last forever.
What do I need to do untethered printing on these units?

Is it more robust? Just because one looks like a tank means nothing. All that metal cantilevered out over the build surface puts a lot of leverage on the bearings. Metal can rust and destroy bearing surfaces and finish. I don't think anyone has ever called the Simple a great printer without qualifying it with "for the money", that was what made the Simple great, nothing could compete with it dollar for dollar. Making it metal and upping the price makes it have to compete in ways it never had to before. Granted it looks a lot better (great in fact!), and it has progressed a lot, but I question how far you could push that design before alternative designs make more sense.

If you go 3mm, the Kossel extruder will probably work fine, on 1.75mm is lacks the speed for retraction. Unfortunately, by design, deltas much prefer 1.75mm.
The Orion's extruder is actually a favorite among those who have used it with a larger diameter nozzle (.4m or larger!). I keep one around as a spare, just in case.

Deltas prefer 1.75mm for it's weight and flexibility, smaller nozzles prefer 1.75mm. Even though they can run 3mm, many cartesians are switching to 1.75mm for this reason and there are calls for even smaller diameter. For a while many used 3mm because it was more prevalent, these days it's about even, and 1.75mm may even be starting to take over.

Untethered printing...
On the PrintRbot, you will have buy ($69) or find a compatible lcd. The one PrintRbot sells is wood, so you will probably want to make something that better matches the rest of the printer.
The Orion and Ultibots Kossel is ready out of the box for untethered printing.

One last thing, the PrintRbot also has no heated bed, so you will mostly be limited to only PLA plastic. The others can do a variety.

A delta printer is art in motion in my opinion. I'm building another MK right now.

Ordered the Ultibots Mini Kossel today! I also ordered a roll of their ABS, its gonna be hard to work this week.

Oh man! You won't regret it! Brad at ultibots is great. Keep in mind it's a beta kit. The parts and assembly really aren't beta, its the assembly instructions that arent done. Don't hesitate to ask for help. I going the only really lacking area was the micro extruder assembly. I went to their ultimax build guide, though, and find it there. Good luck.

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C0rpse
Ordered the Ultibots Mini Kossel today! I also ordered a roll of their ABS, its gonna be hard to work this week.

Congrats!
I would consider ordering some PLA. ABS stinks, bad and it's advised to avoid the fumes if you can. ABS is also a bit fickle to print with. If you are printing indoors, you will appreciate PLA.

I have printed both PLA and ABS on my ultibots MK. It prints both well with no specific problems noticed so far. Ultibots has begun shipping their machines with a combination hotend/print cooling duct/fan system in place which helps tremendously with printing PLA and with finely detailed ABS.

As for the fumes associated with ABS. There has yet to be any scientific evidence to show the "fumes" are harmful. Some people are more sensitive to it than others and prefer not to smell it. That's find and to each their own. Experience it for yourself. If you're printing in a phone booth then you might not like it. If you are in a big room then you may not even notice it unless you are right over the machine. At work, people occassinoally mention a smell after I've been printing for 6 hours in a relatively small (20x20) room. I don't smell anything and lots of others don't either. PLA just smells "sweet" when printing.

Let me know if you need any help with that MK. I built mine off and on over a week or so and had it dialed in and printing the first calibration cube (very successfully) in about 45 minutes.

I've already got a Phoenix3D but I had so many problems in building this printer that I'd like to try a new design. Maybe to print the parts that came bad on my first (and frustrated) printer kit. Anyway... back to the original point. From what I've read, Kossel is the way to go as I also agree with what @umdpru said after watching some YouTube videos, Deltas are really art in motion. Like robots sculpturing in plastic

Regarding the US (or Canada) based makers of these kits. I've only found: DeltaBot, Ultibot (cited here), MakerGeeks (Joshua was also great replying my questions), MixShop (Canada). The MixShop's kit seems to have already the calibration process (not sure...). As I'm Brazilian, I'm looking for a supplier that could ship me the printer within 10 days slots as I'm going to NY in October and planning to pick up my kit there (it would save me shipping costs...)

Can anyone point to a good source of information on auto-leveling / probing a delta (Rostock Mini Pro) with Repeiter firmware? I am constantly having issues with the first layer of my prints and was contemplating adding a probe to try to resolve the issue. Just can't find a good resource for how / what to do.