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3D printers

Discussion in 'General' started by nd4spd, Aug 8, 2020.

  1. nd4spd

    nd4spd Well-Known Member

    Looking to buy a 3D printer for my nephew, he's really interested in the technology. I don't know much about them but hoping to learn along with him. I'm hoping for something better than a toy with a $1k budget. Is this reasonable?
     
  2. Dan Dubeau

    Dan Dubeau Well-Known Member

    An Ender 3 if you can get one, is probably the best bang for the buck FDM printer out there right now. If you have an Iphone, and buy into that type of marketing.....then go the Prusa route. :D
     
    5axis and nd4spd like this.
  3. Rebel635

    Rebel635 Well-Known Member

    I got into 3D printing in its infancy days. A decade or so ago. Made a DIY Prusa kit. 5 years or so stepped up to a folgertech ft5. I believe it’s $400 or so and it’s an awesome large scale printer. You still have to assemble it, but honestly, that’s part of learning. When you assemble it yourself you also learn how it works and can TS it later.

    I see they have a lower spec unit for $349 and an even wider unit.

    Peruse are your leisure.

    https://folgertech.com/
     
    nd4spd likes this.
  4. backcountryme

    backcountryme Word to your mother.

    I got one of the prusa clones a few years back. It is pretty fun to use. I need to get it out again. I have a few things I need to print for my bike.
     
  5. Chasbro

    Chasbro Well-Known Member

    I've got the Creality Ender CR10. It takes a while to learn all the ins and outs. It used to be I was always going to the hardware store looking to adapt stuff to suit my purpose. Now I can just make it. It's fun. Like a sewing machine for men.
     
  6. Phl218

    Phl218 .

    We have a dimension elite FDM at work.

    spares cost as much (or more) as a full modern printer
     
  7. Monsterdood

    Monsterdood Well-Known Member

    Prusa Mini. Best value and easy to use. I have the regular Prusa and highly recommend it.
     
    Phl218 likes this.
  8. backcountryme

    backcountryme Word to your mother.

    I have some carbon fiber filament that I wanna try. I think I am going to make some fork guards out of it.
     
    Phl218 likes this.
  9. talber8

    talber8 Well-Known Member

    What software do you guys use?
     
  10. Dan Dubeau

    Dan Dubeau Well-Known Member

    Fusion360, Rhino, Or mechanical desktop depending on what I'm doing. Fusion is really hard to beat for the price and user base to help one get started in 3d cad.
     
  11. YoshiHNS

    YoshiHNS Mr. Slowly

    Ender 5 or the 5 plus over the 3, but I've found the Ender's need some mods before they are easy to use for regular duty.
    For mine, I designed my own bed support struts. Added the gulf coast robotic base and heater, fixed some of the wiring, replaced the cheap power supply for a meanwell unit, added the microswiss hotend. Working on my own direct drive mod, and bought the PEI build sheet from wham bam. But with those changes I've haven't had to worry about leveling in a month or two, where before it was every other print.
    If it's for your nephew to have as a toy and not do serious work, an Ender 3 or 5 is a decent choice. They do work out of the box just fine for that.
    If you are thinking of a more serious build that will be a serious performer from the start, look at the Voron CoreXY. You order parts yourself and build completely from scratch. But they are closer to $1k. Ender's are around $300.
     
  12. jksoft

    jksoft Well-Known Member

    Their website appears to be down but I found some information on it the FT-6. It goes for $699 and it looks like a beast. It seems like that, the CR-10 or the Ender 5plus are good values for a larger print volume.

    I have access to an early Monoprice Prusa based printer. It has been pretty unreliable but also heavily abused by the people sharing it. It pretty much sits unused these days. I am looking for something of my own now and would like to stay below $500.

    There was a guy at PittRace who has a sponsorship deal with Westby that has 4 of these MarkForged Onyx Pro printers that print in carbon fiber filament. (https://markforged.com/onyx-pro/) They run about $10K. He was actually making parts over the weekend right there in the pits for Scholtz's bike.
     
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  13. Monsterdood

    Monsterdood Well-Known Member

    Carbonsmith aka Ryan was there. Definitely not entry level printers.
     
  14. pittmeister

    pittmeister Well-Known Member

    I have a Creality CR10s and an Eryone Thinker SE. I found both of them for <$300 each while shopping for deals. Both work great but expect some minor fiddling to get them running just right. I use Fusion360 to model and Cura to slice. It is so empowering to have an idea for a custom part in the morning and then have the functioning part in your hands later that day.
     
  15. Dan Dubeau

    Dan Dubeau Well-Known Member

    I recently got into aluminum casting, and it gets even better coming up with a design, printing the pattern, then pouring the part a short time later. Exciting times we live in to be able to do all this in a garage with a relatively small monetary investment. Was just getting started into it then got called back to work and haven't really got a chance to get back and start playing with it again, but the possibilities are very exciting. It's going to be a fun winter.
     
  16. YoshiHNS

    YoshiHNS Mr. Slowly

    Now if useful 3D scanners would come down in price, you could scan a part, clean up and modify in CAD, print the core, sandcast the replacement, finish machine. There's a market for small batch rapid casting. The big guys are 3D printing the sandcasting itself. It's pricey, but 100x faster than machining the patterns. Casting is still a bottle neck.
     
    Phl218 likes this.
  17. Dan Dubeau

    Dan Dubeau Well-Known Member

    Yeah I've thought about that, but I've been reverse engineering shit the long way for so long I doubt an entry level scanner would be any help to me at all, and probably more of a hindrance honestly (too much data). Between a regular printer scanner, hard gauge measurements (mics, calipers height gage, etc), and the CMM at work I'm pretty well covered for most stuff I run into of the mechanical variety

    But it would be fun for some artsy stuff occasionally. Photogrammetry software is a pretty interesting tech right now. Would like to play around with it, but there's only so many hours in a day.
     
  18. A. Barrister

    A. Barrister Well-Known Member

    If you believe (T)Racing Point F1 team, that is how they made their Mercedes clone.
     
  19. Dan Dubeau

    Dan Dubeau Well-Known Member

    No doubt the stuff available at those kinda budgets is much more capable than the stuff us goobers can download :D
     
  20. gt#179

    gt#179 Dirt Dork

    FYI if anyone is considering a budget 3d printer, I've been playing with a Creality Ender 3 pro for the past few months. You can get them on sale for $200 at a local MicroCenter and they work great. I"ve left mine mostly stock (I think I put in a new tube to feed the head) and have been running it a lot since then. Just buy new filament and run with it. Simple machine and gets you up to speed easily and with good support online.

    for software you could do simple stuff in TinkerCad, but I've downloaded and started using Fusion 360. Steep learning curve and still can't do too much with it but will learn it one of these days. Using Ultimaker Cura for slicing. Low end stuff for the most part but have been able to make some cool stuff for reloading, working on the bikes and cars, and around the house. Just printing a oil filter cap removal tool for my TDI saved me $80 over the OE tool (odd size and shape, other oil filter tools don't work).
     

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