 Notice. New forum software under development. It's going to miss a few functions and look a bit ugly for a while, but I'm working on it full time now as the old forum was too unstable. Couple days, all good. If you notice any issues, please contact me. |
Forum Index : Other Stuff : 3D printers
| Author | Message | ||||
| Lee3 Regular Member  Joined: 17/09/2014 Location: AustraliaPosts: 57 |
I'm starting to contemplate adding one to my xmas list.... But I really know next to nothing about any of them.... Does anyone have any buying advice, suggestions, recommendations, warnings, specs to look at?? Would prefer to be able to use OSX to drive it, but would buy a Win laptop if needed.... cheers Lee |
||||
Bryan1 Guru  Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1344 |
Hi Lee, With store bought 3D printers one really gets for what one pays for and the cheaper ones simply don't have the resolution. Last year when I doing a job I talking with the home owner who was a tafe teacher and he had 2 machines at home. He showed me the results of $1000 one and the tafe one that was 10 times that amount. The difference in smoothness and accuracy was noticeable. Now the Arduino crowd really brought the 3D printer to life so the DIY crowd can make their own. To date I'm sure this hasn't been done on a pic and I reckon the maximite could be up for the challenge if it can read a text file line by line off the SDcard. As far as the hardware printer steppers can and are used and 4 axis's are needed. So wrecking old printers is the way to go to get parts. Going DIY would be the cheapest option and if one made the cnc rigid enough it could be used as a cnc for milling circuit boards etc. It is one I have looked at as I have made my own cnc so only a 4th axis is needed to convert it to a 3D printer. Cheers Bryan |
||||
| VK4AYQ Guru Joined: 02/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 2539 |
Hi Bryan Just a question from a tech dinosaur, I have seen them on TV as demo things but was wondering what useful purpose they perform, it seemed to be a novelty at the moment for model making. To my mind a CNC router would be more useful, but I am way behind the times. All the best Bob Foolin Around |
||||
Gizmo Admin Group  Joined: 05/06/2004 Location: AustraliaPosts: 5078 |
I'm thinking the same way Bob, in a live demonstration I saw, the 3d printer was making parts for a toy train set. I remember the parts were a little fragile compared to moulded parts, and took an awful long time to make. Plus he had a collection of parts that had gone wrong, usually because they lifted off the bed. I can definitely see how a 3d printer would be handy for hobbies, for making little parts with a complicated shape, or parts with fine detail. The 3d printer is a cheap way to make complicated parts that hand tools would struggle with. From a ex-production managers point of view, I certainly would not invest in a range of 3d printers to do the same job as say a cnc router. In the time a 3d printer made one part, the router could spit out 10 to 100, in stronger materials with a better finish, and at less cost. But having a single 3d printer in the shop would be a handy prototyping tool if you wanted to see if parts fit together correctly before sending off to the CNC to get hundreds made. I'm thinking of adding a printer head and feeder to my hobby CNC table though, just for fun. I figure I already have the XYZ table, which gets used from time to time, so adding a print head might make it even more useful. Glenn The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second best time is right now. JAQ |
||||
vasi Guru Joined: 23/03/2007 Location: RomaniaPosts: 1697 |
That would be nice to see. Also, a laser diode, burning black painted PCBs  Hobbit name: Togo Toadfoot of Frogmorton Elvish name: Mablung Miriel Beyound Arduino Lang |
||||
| Bryan1 Guru Joined: 22/02/2006 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1344 |
Yea the guy that showed me his 2 3D printers was making replica model trains and he showed me his show setup totally made from the 3D printer. It was the best setup I've seen and one could clearly see the difference in quality from the 2 printers. Glenn yea I've had the same thought of just making an add on 4th axis for 3D printing and I did some research to find no-one has ever used plastic chips from everyday plastic bits, all seem to use over priced filament wire. I am on getting that back room in the new shed done and my cnc will have it's new home and come off the back burner and finally get totally finished. Really just need to put in limit and home switch's. I'll be doing the same for the power supply just running the 24 volts circuit directly from the house bank via a circuit breaker. Cheers Bryan |
||||
| Georgen Guru Joined: 13/09/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 462 |
I tried few times to melt few plastic bottles to get kind of plastic stepping stones, instead of puting plastic bottles into recycling bin. Didn't get far with project, but with some kind of press with small hole in it one can make plastic wire for 3-D printer. Few plastic bottles that I melted, gave quite hard plastic discs that could be cut, drilled even filed. George |
||||
powerednut Senior Member  Joined: 09/12/2009 Location: AustraliaPosts: 221 |
the early prototypes had some issues with the chips melting unevenly and clogging the extruder. there was a project a while back to create a machine to extrude filament from pelletised plastic. couple that to one of those "shred anything" shredders and I think you'd be fine. To me the 3d printers seem like they'd be good for people like a lot of people on here. Tinkerers, prototypers, builders. Can't see them being much good for most homes - i work in an office, and many of the people havn't built a thing since they left school (if they even did then). |
||||
MicroBlocks Guru Joined: 12/05/2012 Location: ThailandPosts: 2209 |
I use them often. Like for testing out parts that are later CNC'ed. For encasing electronics it is nice. Many shapes are easily made. Model working etc.. I have realized that the 'bigger is better' in the 3D printer world is false. When a part gets big it is much better to divide it into smaller parts. One big expensive printer or 2-4 smaller and cheaper ones. The smaller ones are definitely a better deal. Smaller parts print faster, especially when you have more smaller and cheaper printers, can be rotated to prevent having to use support material. And because they are smaller a print failure is not a complete loss of the model. Seen too many prints that take 24 hours or more fail when 75% or more complete. What a waste of time and plastic. I now almost never print anything that takes longer then 2-3 hours. Failures are much less and if they happen not everything is lost. Smaller parts can be glued together easily. That is what superglue is for. :) Above is about FDM style printers. Microblocks. Build with logic. |
||||
 Print this page |
