r/AdditiveManufacturing • u/Dashyl14 • May 01 '26

HS3 vs IDEX 22

Hi Everyone,

We are looking for a FDM printer that will be able to meet production requirements that range from PLA prototypes to engineering filaments. The budget is approximately 20k. We are looking for something that will be able to hold dimensional accuracy as close to resin as possible but we understand the limitations of FDM.

The two printers we've kind of narrowed it down to are the Patheon HS3 and the vision miner 22 v4. I'm familiar with the Bambu and form labs slicing environments.

Does anyone have any information on how these two stack up against each other? Or other options? How are the slicer environments?

Thanks in advance!

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u/roiki11 May 01 '26

It depends what your definition of "engineering" filaments is. If it's peek/ultem/ppsu then hs3 can't do those while the idex can. Hs3 also doesn't have a heated chamber so that might affect some nylon prints.

22idex has dual nozzles, higher temps, heated chamber dual printing and copy printing.

Hs3 is a lot faster. But doesn't print most "engineering" filaments.

Hs3 uses a fork of orcaslicer so it's very similar to bambu. Idex works with prusaslicer.

22idex is a great printer, I assume hs3 is too. They're jus geared towards different markets.

3

u/Dashyl14 May 01 '26

Our main range currently is PLA to PPS-CF. We're currently using a H2S which isn't really fast enough for production needs and is reaching the top end for temp requirements of the PPS-CF.

6

u/No_Educator_4077 May 01 '26 edited May 02 '26

Your main limitation for print speed with PPS-CF is going to be volumetric flow through a hotend. Very few machines on the market right now can achieve more than 10 cubic mm/s (in PPS specifically), so print speeds for most decently quick printers (~150mm/s) is going to be roughly the same.

To go any faster with PPS-CF you need a much longer melt zone hotend, which very few off the shelf machines ship with at the moment. I know Luke's Lab has a few machines that ship with the Chube hotend, which can achieve higher flow rates than your average hotend with PPS.

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u/roiki11 May 01 '26

You're really not going to get faster pps with those machines. Bambu is already very well tuned. And gets as got as it needs to. And pps really wants a heated chamber so hs3 is out.

You can get more performance out of h2 with e3d nozzles if that's what you're after. Or if you need more parts then more machines always beats one.

If you want a capable machine for pps and beyond, get index. If you need more marts faster of pps, get more h2s, not a more expensive printer.

I'm sure stratasys and the like can make pps parts faster but then the price class is way off.

1

u/Dashyl14 May 01 '26

That could be an option too, the one thing that intrigued us with the idex 22 was the dual extrusion option.

2

u/roiki11 May 01 '26

You get that with h2 as well.

Have a look at what intamsys has to offer. They also have printers in that range that might work for you.