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[JosephHuntley]

hey guys come dec I have a nice bonus coming from work and would like to get a decent 3D printer. I dont know how much they cost i will have abt 400-500 US to spend and am looking for some suggestions from ppl that have them and what they think of theirs

[BFSMP]

I can't even master an ink jet printer, never mind a 3D jobbie. sorry.


Jim.

[Subculture]

At that price point, your choice will be limited to FDM printers. The results from these printers are no where near as good as good commercial printers, and the finished items generally need a fair amount of finessing afterwards.

They do have their uses,  but I would be inclined to save my money, and have any printing done at a bureau. The results are far better.

[Ron Rees]

Hi Joseph


Choosing a 3D printer for model boat building use is still a bit hit and miss. I wrote an article on just this subject in Model Boats magazine . Vol: 66 No 782. in the January issue 2016. If you can find a copy it may give you some hints and ideas.
The market is flooding with loads of lovely looking printers but with your budget you may get 'more for your bucks' if you self assemble a kit. This gives you the know how on how it all works plus you'll know how to upgrade it as new technology comes in. The 3D scene for us is still advancing at a fair rate with new ideas and add-ons happening all the time.


With about £250 or so pounds to spend, I would research the printers based on the Rep-Rap principle, while a bit clunky they are easy to set up and can produce some pretty big parts. They are also readily available in kit form from the far East.


The plastics commonly used are PLA (Poly-Lactic-Acid) and ABS (Acrylonitrile-Butadiene-Styrene) although others including Nylon are becoming more available with different nozzles to handle them. Rolls of filament range from £13 to £20. depending on type and quality.
You'll also need to download onto your computer a 3D drawing program, I use 'Sketch-up' which is a free download, but there are many others out there, You'll also need a program that will convert your drawing into 'G' Code or Machine code for the Arduino board on the printer to operate. I use 'Cura' another free download, but once again, there are many more out there.


Do some research before you part with your cash. The two machines I have so far made are printing items for the model trade every night as we sleep. They are RepRap Prusa i3s from China at about £275.00 each. A few parts have been worn out, like nozzles and a motor, but when you approach it this way you know what is wrong, know where to get the part and know how to fix it.
It's all still in its infancy but is getting better every day........Have fun.


Ron Rees.

[JosephHuntley]

thanks i dont mind assembling a kit type I figured they had been out for a while now that possibly the prices had dropped quite a bit. I would prefer to use nylon as I know it is strong but studying up on the strengths of the different materials.

I use solidworks to do my cad work and it can save to stl I have a guy i do work for with a 3D printer maybe i can get some practice setting files and gcode up for his printer. he also has a 4' x 8' cnc router table that can use stl files so I want to get some hulls carved out of high density foam for making a couple molds so will see what I can come up with. I will look up those riprap things and maybe go that route as i dont plan on doing tons of printing just stuff for me as i need gears or details etc.

thanks for the comment

[Ron Rees]

Hi Joseph again.


Sounds like you are 'au fait' with some of the tech involved, the hardest part is getting to grips with the two types of software that these things currently use. Any good drawing program that produces 3D images in an STL format will work, so stick with what you are comfortable with.


There are several people who are on this site who are experimenting with nylon, which is a good material for highly stressed parts like flexi couplings and propellors, like John Parker and friends in Australia, I've seen some of their efforts and they are really impressive. The PLA and ABS filament plastics are readily available in the UK as well as USA and Europe and most of the projects I have done have found them hard wearing and strong.
 The Reprap printer concept was designed in England and they are very robust and accurate once set up and you can easily print anything from a grain of rice to a 8 inch cube so gears and the like are perfect subjects to try.


There are thousands of downloads of Gear types in 'Thingiverse', well worth a look.  Also, type 3D printing into YouTube and there are loads of videos in there of how to do 'Stuff!' with a 3D printer. Most of the machines you will see are Reprap based Prusa i3s, so there is a lot of helpful info to be found on them.


Do a search on E.Bay, typing in Prusa 3D printers, there are hundreds for sale on there.


Traplet publications do a new magazine for Drone enthusiasts called 'RC Flight, Camera, Action' and their 04 issue includes a write up on what is called a 'Delta' printer, which is marketed by Traplet, its worth a read but I have made loads of parts for these printers on my RepRap because they are not very robust. (Fisher Delta 3D printer...£298 plus p/p)


Hope all this helps.


Cheers......Ron Rees.

[malcf]

Hi joseph I have been dabbling with a CTC printer for over a year now and have produced some reasonable items for my boats (and also quite a lot of scrap in the process) it is quite a steep learning curve as you have to learn cad drawing I use draftsight a free program on the net and I am really pleased with it for 2d drawings and I also use sketchup for doing the 3d part that is not as easy to learn as the cad in my opinion as the object you draw has to be closed ie watertight or it wont print out properly, when happy with the project it is loaded into another program that converts the object into a format that the printer requires, it slices it up into layers.
When I got the printer I wanted to be up and running quickly so opted for a built unit rather than a kit as it is marine modelling that I want to do and at my speed of building a kit would eat up precious modelling time, there are a lot of different models out there now and prices have dropped considerably , even though I opted for the built printer learning to operate and program  still set back my build a lot but now it is worth it , there is still a lot I need to learn about sketchup but it is getting easier.