3D printer buying advice

[heath robinson]

Hi all.

It's been decided that we could do with a 3D printer, preferably for under £800.

I know a few of you have experience with these things, so what should I be looking at?

It'll be used for prototyping and making plastic parts etc, so needs fairly good resolution and to be able to print good solid structures.

Cheers

Jake

[Cynic-al]

First think what software are you going to design the parts on and make sure you can output the format you need for the printer your going to buy. Usually an stl file.

Next look at the software is used to program the parts. The old repraps had some very clumsy software that ran on a pc but ive seen some of the printers have the software either built in or in a dedicated tablet that you can load off an sd card.

Next think about the size resolution and speed you want from the thing. See if you get get different size nozzles etc for fast printing or finer detail.

Then consider the material, 3mm filament can be got in lots of colours and materials but it's not the only choice.

Lastly see if you can get one with a support structure. I don't think you will but I haven't looked at them for a couple of years so you never know. If it can do a support structure either with a second material or with a weaker print of the main material it opens up what you can make enoumously.

[Dave W]

I've just ordered one and TBH at under £800 you have a LOT of decent options - I paid £175 for mine after a lot of research but then I'm happy to learn as I go along and upgrade bits myself. For your sort of budget I think a Flashforge Dreamer is probably one of the best options. A dual extruder means you can use different coloured filament or use a water dissolvable support filament (PVA) and the enclosed design improves stability and safety - one of the reasons it's being used in some schools now. They have a decent heated bed and the extruders are more reliable than some of the cheaper models that can take a lot of tweaking to get them to run right.

The downside, I guess, is that buying a printer of this sort is kind of a dead end with any upgrades coming from the manufacturer rather than the community but then it's very likely that you'll be up and printing within hours of receiving the printer. If you're looking for something as a business machine then it's probably a good choice as you won't want to spend days "playing" with it and you're less likely to want to modify it or upgrade it.

If you go down the Flashforge route one of your first prints will be to create a couple of universal filament spool holders so you can use pretty much any filament supplier. you can download them from thingiverse.com

[simonr]

You could do a lot worse than an Ultimaker Original https://ultimaker.com/en/products/ultimaker-original

This was my third 3D Printer - and even though I now have an Ultimaker 2, in some ways, the original was better. With a few minor upgrades (most of which you can print yourself), it can be at least as good.

You won't find many bad reviews of Ultimaker printers and the quality is very hard to beat without spending a lot more money. It's still one of the fastest printers on the market.

The software it uses is Cura - again the best I've used. You can use Cura on any printer if you set it up - and it's free.

The Flashforge looks good value. I saw one in 2013 and the owner was having trouble with a lot of things such as the WiFi & Card reader not working reliably. The build quality was not all it could be and he never got the duel extrusion to work very well. It may be that over the 18 months since then they have improved - I don't know? He sold it and bought an Ultimaker!

I'll be interested to see how you get on and if they have fixed the gremlins? It could be superb if it all worked. The duel extrusion for support would be very useful.

Si

[heath robinson]

Cheers for the replies all, it's a lot to think about.

Si, it's pretty much your fault we're doing this in the first place - about 5 or 6 years ago I stopped in with my mate Mike to pick up a couple of things off you, and saw the reprap that you had in the office. that planted the seed, and it's been festering in the background, waiting for the technology to develop to the stage where we'll actually be able to use it, as opposed to get half way through building it and get distracted by more pressing matters... Hopefully!

There's another machine (who's name escapes me, I'll link to it later) that you have to go on a course to build, meaning you've a really good idea of how it all works, and can upgrade and fix it yourself. I think it's twin nozzle, open source, and seems pretty good, but the makers are Italian, and have never done a build course over here, although the seemed really excited to come over and do one just for us!

[simonr]

2011 IIRC!

Si

[WHO4 MUD]

if you where going to build yours I would recommended having a look a hot end from E3D possible have a look a Volcano hot end it has nozzle from 0.6mm-1.2mm ive been using 0.8mm nozzel printing 0.6mm layer height parts are very strong and still look pretty good apart from they are obviously slightly lower resolution. I have no affiliation with them just happy with what there product can do.

pronterface the reprap software I have found to be pretty good on a windows machine so I dont think that should put you off. Also slic3r the G-code generating software is very good with lots of options which I personally prefer. Also id have a look at Octoprint which is software the goes on a raspberry pi so that you can run the printer from a web browser over the network probable something to do later on but useful for monitoring prints and being somewhere else.

other suggestion voltage, you can run 24v, controller board I would go with RAMPS 1.4 and there for a normal arduino mega2560 wich means dealing with firmware is pretty hassle free, I would run DRV8825 stepper driver wich are better than A4988 type, P3Steel frame its 3mm steel frame no adjusting just bolt it together job done I think it probable the best reprap frame out there.

anyway just my suggestions after building 2 printers.....have fun