Thread: 3D Printer Kits

I have a Kogan (Wanhao i3 copy) printer. It only required basic assembly. I have put 1590m of ABS filament through it so far. Very happy with it.

It took a fair time to work out the optimum head and bed temperatures and bed adhesion method. I tried glass and several masking tapes but have settled on exterior grade painters tape (very sticky) with a prime of ABS paste.

I do CAD drafting professionally so the model design is the easy bit for me. You have be considerate of the limitations of your plastic material during the design process and also use print orientation to minimise strength and warpage issues.

Happy to bounce ideas about.

Cheers
Chris.

Originally Posted by cjc_td5

....Happy to bounce ideas about.

What are the things you should be looking for in a 3D printer - the essentials, the nice to haves?

Originally Posted by Ferret

What are the things you should be looking for in a 3D printer - the essentials, the nice to haves?

Some points of note are:
- Print volume for what you want to make. Mine is 200x200x200mm, Debacles looks much bigger!. I'm not sure I would want to go too much bigger than mine as to print large items use a serious amount of filament and can take up to 48 hours to finish, and warping would become a major issue with large prints. Large parts can be printed in several components and glued together with acetone (when printing with ABS plastic).
- Availability of support and spare parts. Mine is a copy of a Wanhao i3 which is an open sourced design copied by several manufacturers. It is a tried and proven design and there are several support networks around that can fix any bugs or faults. There is also heaps of information on modifications to make the base unit work more effectively etc. (Much like a Land Rover, it is good basic design that is receptive to modifications to make it better.)
- Price!

A major factor in warping is rapid cooling. I have built a cabinet for mine to stabilise the temperature and try to let the model cool as slowly as possible to limit warping. It also keep dust out of the printer. Debacle, this may be an issue for you if you intend to operate it in a shed type environment, especially in winter.

The design teachers at my work have several 3D printers, but I can't say much about them except the students seem to enjoy printing their designs, particularly dragons.

Originally Posted by Ferret

What are the things you should be looking for in a 3D printer - the essentials, the nice to haves?

I would go for one that utilises the aluminium v slot extrusions for the frame. A lot of the cheaper ones use either plywood or acrylic for the frames. The Ally ones do require a bit of extra bracing but you print out brackets for that once you have it up and running.

If possible go for a core xy system. Most of the current printers for the home/hobby market are based on the original Prusa i3 mk2 design. The bed on which the product to be printed sits moves back and forth on the Y axis while there is a horizontal bar that moves up and down on the Z axis while the extruder slides back and forth on that bar on the X axis. A core xy machine has more of a box type frame with the X and Y axis moving on the same plane while the bed moves up and down on the Z axis. Just after I ordered mine I did a bit more research and wished I had spent a couple of hundred more and gone for one of these such as the Folgertech FT-5. If you want to start out with a cheap printer and get to know how things work but later progress to something better there are plans on Thingiverse - Digital Designs for Physical Objects so you can print out any parts you need on your current printer, purchase the aluminium extrusions and other bits and build a good quality core xy machine, I might do that one day.

As far as build volumes go, they are getting bigger and bigger, one problem with a large bed is that they are aluminium and so are more prone to warping and drooping but most users overcome this by printing on a sheet of glass placed on top. I have seen videos of 300 x 300 x 400 prints on some machines that have been amazing.

Make sure it has a heated bed and a minimum 500w power supply.

Parts for a lot of them are generic stuff manufactured usually in China mainly apart from some brackets but you can print out replacement brackets as long as your printer is working.

If you don't want to do too much assembly Creality make a machine that comes partially assembled and don't take too much time to set up and they claim that all machines are assembled and tested for 20 hours then partially disassembled for shipping.

As far as extruders, the E3D seems the best but things are constantly changing so best to do your own research.

It's all pretty much about budget, your expectations and how much you are willing to put into it. I must qualify my statements by saying that all my information has come from a lot of research and a partial build on my machine, I haven't actually done a print yet but have spent a lot of time looking into this and have only scratched the surface. There is a lot of info online and most of the popular machines have facebook groups where you will generally get pretty good information and honest opinions. There are quite a lot of quality control issues with these and they seem to happen with all brands. Some users report fantastic prints from the start while others spend months enduring component failure, poor warranty back up and poor print quality (does that sound like a certain car manufacturer).

I do like the idea of the kit even though the build time is long, if anything goes wrong you have assembled every nut and bolt on it so diagnosis and repair should be easier.

Sorry about the long winded reply, started off planning a quick reply but the more after work beers that go down the more active the typing fingers get.

Have you got your printer up and running yet Debacle??
C

I will try and get Gordon to reply here.He was telling me he is putting carbon fibre thru his printer.Said it was hard on the nozzles.
Andrew

It sure does. But they're great fun!!
Mines busy at the moment ..