Any 3d printer experts in the house?

[Paulo uk]

Hi All,

I really need/want to get into this, but dont know where to start!

Anyone into this who could offer some advice?


Cheers,


Paul

[coolice]

Hey.

Good question.

Subscribed, as these printers interest me to.
.

[Gixxer]

My mate has one... the type with the spool of plastic. It's an amazing bit of kit.

[cupracing]

We get a lot of models commissioned for 3d printing. I know it's damn expensive for anything larger than A4 and model cleanup is a PITA as it has to be the right thickness

[mole hunter]

Kinda interested myself, just not sure which of my knackered organs would raise enough dough to fund one yet :sorrow:
A few links here

[URL="http://www.bitsfrombytes.com/catalog/3dtouch"]3DTouch 3D Printer | Bits From Bytes[/URL]

[url=http://formlabs.com/products/our-printer]Formlabs - High Resolution Desktop 3D Printer[/url]

[url=http://www.shapeways.com/]Shapeways - Make & Share Your Products with 3D Printing[/url]


Cheers, Marty

[pk-surfing]

Gordon over on the FPVHUB forum is the resident 3D printing expert (plus another 2 or 3 on that forum) doing all sorts of detailed parts...

A few of the lads have bought/are buying the complete printer kit from what seems to be the main hobby supplier

[url=http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,8921.210.html]3d printing[/url]

PK

[Zeeflyboy]

Any 3d printer experts in the house?

None of the affordable machines can quite compete to the quality or choice of material you get by using a service like shapeways.

So it depends what you would use it for in my opinion, for many things you may be better off sticking to just ordering from a company like shapeways.

Best detail and quality of final part I've seen comes from the formlabs1 or B9 creator. Detail and finish looks to be fantastic. They don't have the biggest build area though and the liquid they use is expensive. I have also read that the liquid based materials are as good mechanically as the extruded type.

There are hundreds of options with extrusion based printers, but the final part quality can leave something to be desired depending on what you are intending it for.

If you have the cash to splash and fancy a nicely presented and built printer, you could do worse than the makerbot replicator 2 or replicator 2X. You can save a lot of money by going for one of the more "DIY" style printers though.

[pgkevet]

I thought you just bought one of these printers and used it to make others for your friends?

[kylelnsn]

I have done a fair bit of research into 3D printing, and have a fair bit knowledge. PM me if I can help.

There are two types of "Home" 3D printing, Extrusion based and SLA style.

Extrusion is what it says, you feed a thread of plastic through a heated nozzle and deposit it layer by layer. This has some drawbacks, jams are a fairly regular occurrence and resolution is fairly poor. This means you can often see the layers. However this is the cheapest, easiest to get into as there are hundreds of thousands of people with these machines. The best in class of DIY for these is the prusa mendel part of the rep rap community. There are also a fair few of these available off the shelf, for example the makerbots. Ord bot is a pretty nice machine in this category.

These are fairly easy to build at home, and the material is coming down in price.

[url]http://www.reprap.org/wiki/Prusa[/url]
[url=http://www.buildlog.net/wiki/doku.php?id=ord_bot:the_ord_bot]ord_bot:the_ord_bot [Buildlog.net Wiki][/url]
[url]https://store.makerbot.com/replicator2.html[/url]

The SLA types are a little more expensive but in my book win every time, they have much finer resolution and use resins to form your objet. If I was to build or buy a 3d printer I think the formlabs machine would be the one I would go for.

[url=http://formlabs.com/]Formlabs - High Resolution Desktop 3D Printer[/url]
[video=youtube_share;YzpVtkwkxMc]http://youtu.be/YzpVtkwkxMc[/video]

There is so much more but this is just a snapshot. If you just want a model made, look at some chinese suppliers, I can put you in touch with some great ones that I have had product design models made with.

[kylelnsn]

[QUOTE=pgkevet;961909]I thought you just bought one of these printers and used it to make others for your friends?[/QUOTE]

Thats RepRap, a great project! :)

[Zeeflyboy]

Any 3d printer experts in the house?

Kyle - same, I think the SLA types are the only ones capable of the sort of finish quality I want.

The only thing putting me off buying a form1 is the lack of resins available at the moment. They plan to add more, but its a lot of money to spend on promised features.

[Paulo uk]

thanks for all the replies. Really want an SLA model, but the resin is far too dear to make it worthwhile, the stuff Ill be making wont need a great finish anyway, so I'll go for an extruder!

Paul