Lets talk "3D printers"

[Runs With Scissors]

So I have, oddly enough, found that I am warming up to this Alibre CAD program that I bought about a month ago.

I'm still not very good with it, but recently have had sort of a "break through" and have been knocking out 3D drawings a lot faster than I anticipated.

This leads me to a new dilemma.

My SIL can't keep up with me sending him files and printing them out. He is trying, but the backlog is getting annoying to me, even though I do appreciate him doing what he can so far.

I have been kicking around the idea of getting a 3D printer, but know "absolutely nothing" about them.

Any advice about brands, features, .......blah, blah, blah???

Now remember, I am a "noob" and I ain't rich neither, so lets keep things in perspective.....$1,000'ish would be doable.

 

[PHPaul]

You can get a LOT of printer for that kind of cabbage.

There are two basic kinds: Filament and Resin.

Filament printers are cheaper both to buy and to operate and are quite versatile with good print quality. There are various sorts of filament depending on how you plan to use what you print. I have a Creality Ender 3 and I print with PLA filament. So far, it's done everything I want. PLA filament is inexpensive, comes in multiple colors and easy to work with. ABS filament is more rugged, they make flexible filaments (think springs) and some others for specific purposes as well. Basic printers are available in the $200 range, printers with larger formats, faster print speed or the ability to print multiple colors simultaneously are available for more money.

Resin printers will print MUCH more detail, better finish and more rugged prints. Downsides are they are expensive both to purchase and operate, more setup is required (primarily in positioning and supporting the print) the finished print needs to have the supports removed and be washed to get resin residue off before painting or using.

If you have specific questions, especially about filament printers, I'd be happy to try to answer them.

 

[LFP57]

I think I can help, I do 3D printing for a living, print full size vehicle (huge) parts for prototype testing. There's many good machines and some not so good, to provide the best answer to your question, what is it that you're looking to print? What is your CAD/STL skill set? There's many differnt types of materials based on what you're looking to print. Are you looking to print a single material or mulitple colors, types, etc???

 

[Speed25]

I'm used to using CAD for laser cutting metal things, but I've tried to avoid 3D printing for fear of all the bad ideas it would spark in my head. Nonetheless, I'm very interested in the responses here.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

You can get a LOT of printer for that kind of cabbage.

There are two basic kinds: Filament and Resin.

Filament printers are cheaper both to buy and to operate and are quite versatile with good print quality. There are various sorts of filament depending on how you plan to use what you print. I have a Creality Ender 3 and I print with PLA filament. So far, it's done everything I want. PLA filament is inexpensive, comes in multiple colors and easy to work with. ABS filament is more rugged, they make flexible filaments (think springs) and some others for specific purposes as well. Basic printers are available in the $200 range, printers with larger formats, faster print speed or the ability to print multiple colors simultaneously are available for more money.

Resin printers will print MUCH more detail, better finish and more rugged prints. Downsides are they are expensive both to purchase and operate, more setup is required (primarily in positioning and supporting the print) the finished print needs to have the supports removed and be washed to get resin residue off before painting or using.

If you have specific questions, especially about filament printers, I'd be happy to try to answer them.

I see.....I like the idea of the better finish and "more rugged" parts of the resin, but my 10 minutes of research so far has me leaning towards a filament printer. It just seems like when you 'Duck Duck Go" it, the filament style seem to populate the screen, not the resin ones.

Of course, this could change at any moment.

What brand do you have?

Pros/cons?

I think I can help, I do 3D printing for a living, print full size vehicle (huge) parts for prototype testing. There's many good machines and some not so good, to provide the best answer to your question, what is it that you're looking to print? What is your CAD/STL skill set? There's many differnt types of materials based on what you're looking to print. Are you looking to print a single material or mulitple colors, types, etc???

Good questions,

I don't really have a good answer for "what are you trying to print"

The best I can say is "doo-dads and widgets"...hahahah.....

My "CAD skill set' is not too far above zero at this point.

Here is one of the knobs that I drew yesterday, and a 'lathe tool holder" which are the most complicated things I have ever done to date.

Currently I am waiting for my SIL to print out a few knobs that I broke on one of my lathe tools and I am going to try and draw up a "phone holder" today for my spotting scope so I can take pics on our "prairie dog shoot" this summer.

kind of like this.

If I am being honest, I have some reservations about all this "plastic' stuff. I am kind of "old school" in my thinking about the "reliability and ruggedness".

 

[Code]

Was basically you two years ago. My main print needs are doodads for think i break and gun stuff.
I had a creality for about a year and its pretty good. I outgrew it and it was a bit finicky.

I bought a bambu labs p series with the ams to print multi color easy. Have about 300 hours of print time and whole heartedly recommend it.

 

[PHPaul]

I see.....I like the idea of the better finish and "more rugged" parts of the resin, but my 10 minutes of research so far has me leaning towards a filament printer. It just seems like when you 'Duck Duck Go" it, the filament style seem to populate the screen, not the resin ones.

Of course, this could change at any moment.

What brand do you have?

Pros/cons?

I have a Creality Ender 3 V2. V3 is the current version, available for around $220.

For what I do - you can see some of my stuff here - it's everything I need. About the largest stuff I print is parts for 1:25 scale models.

Pros: Inexpensive, good print quality with PLA filament, beaucoup support on line.

Con: It's slow. 1:64 scale prints can take 30 minutes to over an hour depending on complexity. 1:25 scale prints can take several hours depending on size and part count.

That's not as much of an issue as you might think since you can hit "Go" and go do something else. I do recommend "Cura" as the slicer. Free, plenty powerful, pretty intuitive for basic printing.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

Was basically you two years ago. My main print needs are doodads for think i break and gun stuff.

Sadly, my guns were all lost in a tragic boating accident years ago, but I get it.

My SIL has a Bambu P1s and says he likes it as well.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

I have a Creality Ender 3 V2. V3 is the current version, available for around $220.

For what I do - you can see some of my stuff here - it's everything I need. About the largest stuff I print is parts for 1:25 scale models.

Pros: Inexpensive, good print quality with PLA filament, beaucoup support on line.

Con: It's slow. 1:64 scale prints can take 30 minutes to over an hour depending on complexity. 1:25 scale prints can take several hours depending on size and part count.

That's not as much of an issue as you might think since you can hit "Go" and go do something else. I do recommend "Cura" as the slicer. Free, plenty powerful, pretty intuitive for basic printing.

Wow, that's pretty cool!

I could definitely see the advantage to 3D printing for that hobby.

I will check out the Creality Ender.

Thanks.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

If you print a lot get a Bambu Lab printer. The short story is an engineer thought printers should be brought out of the "dark ages" at a point 3-D printer manufacturing companies were making so much money from sales that they weren't willing to roll profits back into research and development other than for small incremental improvements (if it ain't broke don't fix it). The engineer put a team together and crushed all competition with their first printer release and continues to dominate consumer markets.

I use FreeCAD 3D parametric modeler. It takes a bit to get used to. I found a logical build progression is needed so it doesn't crash, but once I figured that out it's been stable, fast, and reliable.

Bambu Lab - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Yooper]

Watching this thread and getting excited! Thinking about taking the plunge into the 3D printing world also.

 

[WI_Hedgehog]

Watching this thread and getting excited! Thinking about taking the plunge into the 3D printing world also.

You want to look at actual uses. I customize chainsaws but the vibrations and fuel/oil exhaust will wreck many plastics quickly; I can still prototype with plastic, but permanent parts need to be aluminum. I customize vehicles but direct sunlight is hard on many plastics. (Subwoofer boxes and speaker mounts are awesome though!) There are plastics for automotive use in engine bays and passenger compartment applications but the off-gas while printing is toxic so the fumes require venting.

I'm certainly not knocking plastic printing (nor am I an expert), only saying that to get the results you want there's an up-front investment if you're doing your own printing, so sending CAD files to a professional printer and working with them to get the results you want is often the best launch point. The person with 10-years printing experience running a print server farm is going to do a far better job than I, so I send them the CAD file, my usage needs, requirements, and a wish-list of "desired but not necessary" and they make it happen.

 

[Runs With Scissors]

Watching this thread and getting excited! Thinking about taking the plunge into the 3D printing world also.

Well sir, buckle up, cause it was very bumpy start. (for me at least).

So I started this ordeal/mess/voyage by getting a CNC Plasma cutter.

I quickly learned that I was very "short sighted". Especially when it came to the "Computer" part of CNC

So, long story long..........

I HAD to have a CNC plasma cutter, so I did about 2 weeks worth of "head up my ass, pie in the sky, rose colored glasses on", "research" and bought a Langmuir Pro table.

It arrives about 2 weeks later and I am all giddy like a school girl going to prom.........I get it all put together and immediately realized that I was woefully ill prepared "computer wise" in regard to both hardware AND, as it turns out, more importantly software.

In my dream world, you simply buy a $5K+ CNC Plasma machine, plug it in, and it sh!ts out parts magically.........



Not so fast there ..........

So being a tight wad, I decided to try and use my "daily driver" internet computer as my CNC computer, my trusty Macbook Air.

Well trying to use a Mac was a "Cluster F" from minute one. I do not possess the computer skills/patience necessary to try and 'convert' Mac machines to run Windows based programs, and as I found out, "basically" all CAD programs and related software are Windows based.....................

So after much cussing/swearing/yelling, it was off to the Big A to get a Windows based laptop.

Well I should have just kicked myself in the nuts, burned the 300 dollars I spent on that "low end laptop", and called it a day......but not understanding what I had just gotten into, I doubled down and spent another 150'ish dollars on basic software like SheetCam and ViaCAD for my "new" laptop.

ViaCAD was a bust. Worst 50 bucks I ever spent. It kept crashing 1/2 way through a drawing and losing the data.........Now keep in mind, it was taking me 4 F'ing hours just to draw a "square" and round off the corners......so when that thing kept crashing, I was about to have a stroke!!!!!!!!

So I decided to try Fusion 360 the "free version".

Well it turns out that my "bargain laptop" will run the table itself just fine, HOWEVER, it was brought to its proverbial "knees" when I tried to run Fusion 360.....

OMG, I had no idea how much RAM/memory/graphics CAD programs like Fusion needed. I would literally click on a drawing and have to wait 20 seconds (I counted) for the computer to respond.

Anywho, I decided to dump Fusion 360 because it is cloud based, and given my current situation, it was impossible to do that. I needed "computer based" software, not "cloud based".

So off of a recommendation from OTT, (thanks to @Sidekick ) I tried this a CAD program called Alibre

I ended up buying (and returning) 3 more laptops before I got one (I named it "Beast") that would run Alibre Atom 3D smoothly(ish) so that's another $1400 bones out the door......

So here I am, now with 3 laptops (my original Mac, my pos 300 dollar job, and the $1400 Beast) and my "on sale" $200 "Alibre Atom 3d"

Well, that $200 version lasted about 3 weeks........ using "Alibre Atom 3D" for a short while, I find out that it is a pretty stripped down version, and so I said "What the hell!!!............In for a penny, in for a pound", so I upgrade to the "middle tier" Alibre Pro while it is still on sale. (another 800 bucks flying out the door)



So now, here I am, up to my eyeballs in computers and software, ~ $3,000 lighter, asking for advice on a 3D printer...........WTF am I thinking??????

 

[Sidekick]

Glad you're happy with Alibre. I enjoy it. I am using a Creality K1 for prints. I got a enclosed printer because it's cold in my basement and 3d printing doesn't like cold. I just finished a control box for a vacuum pump for a vacuum container to degass epoxy.

I have also printed inserts for all my tools that go in packout boxes. These are just a couple of them.

Just built a computer for Alibre, 3d printing, laser programming, and general shop use using a mini pc and 15 inch monitor. Ryzen 7 chip 32 g memory, 2 t drive that's very fast for under $500 total. Designed and 3d printed the mount to tie everything together plus 2 more video outs when I plug it into my big screen monitor.

Also just bought a cheap 3d scanner to play with for duplication of broken parts but haven't figured out how to get the files into Alibre yet. Only have 3d printed them

I have several hundred hours on my K1 and not any problems at all other then trying cheap filament once and plugging the nozzle trying to high speed print it. Creality has a newer version now also that is supposed to be better. Just be careful what materials you print with an unvented printer because some give off toxic gasses that can make you sick or even kill you.

 

[Sidekick]

Here's the cabinet I built to hold the packout boxes