Thread: 3DPrinter

I am not sure how much you will learn just by a few hours with someone. There is a surprisingly lot to learn and it seems every brand of printer is different and even the same type of filament but in different brands is different.

I suggest if you want to get into it, just buy one and go for it. Start with simple items and go from there. Of course buying a printer alone is just the start of the costs. But I think they are now at the stage they are an item that goes hand in hand with a lathe and mill.

Thanks for the feed back guys. Some food for thought.

I used to have soildworks but my license has expired and I’m not paying the $1000’s for another for limited home use.

I have a need to make several small patterns for a foundry casting project and some for some soap moulds. Which led me to considering using a 3D printer.

Some of my considerations are:

I’m not sure if the surface finish is smooth enough and what can be done to improve it without loss of details

Durability of printed parts

Upfront costs and ongoing consumables vs need

Cost, availability, ease of use and learning curve of quality modelling software. I.e. not a fan of software like sketchup

Life cycle vs investment




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I'm somewhat skeptical about 3D printer purchases. The mens shed asked me to get involved with a 3D printer purchase but I declined as I said I already have one at home and still can't think of a single item item I want to print with it. I have though of printing out electronics project boxes with it but my printer has too small a print base for the size of box I want. Besides I can get these boxes from China for $8 and I'd rather spend my time doing the electronics or in my shed rather than printing boxes.

My 3D experience is limited and comes about from most Saturday mornings in the last 4? years when I chew 3D printer fat with my son and check out what he has come up with on his 3D printer during the week. The things he has made include models for prosthetic hands, toys for his son, electronics boxes for his white hacker work related activities, endless calibration models, and of course the latest parts for the 3D printer. He has rebuilt his printer about 3 times over to try and improve on its performance. Many months will go by and all he has done is make it print out a poofteenth of a % better in someway or other. We spend hours watching the 3D printer usually screw up yet another calibration model and I help him make fine adjustments etc. I have done some metal turning for his printer upgrades and supplied various pieces/shapes of metal etc for him to use on it.

We also had/have 3D printers at work where they really came into their own making custom parts for lab gear and experiments. This is an environment where they really shine and can save $$ if the operators know what they are doing. Now they have a full 3D printing lab with half a dozen different types of printers and I drop in from time to time to see what they are up to.

Anyway back to the Mens shed 3D printer where the purchase process was taken on by our very capable Shed IT guru who spent ~$2k on a printer last October.
The guru set it up and ran 2 demo/workshops for it last November.
I did not attend but apparently it was well attended although none of the members could think of a use for it.
I suggested it could be used to make toys or parts for toys but as I expected the members would rather make the toys out of wood.
So far in 4 months it has printed out 1 (yes ONE) semi-useful item for the shed - a dust collection ducting adapter which could have been made from PVC plumbing fittings.

I agree with what RC said in post #17, unless you are a special sort of visionary and magician you have to live and play with the printer over an extended period and learn its limitations and features before you can do anything really useful with it. Expect to go through a lot of filament spools in the process.

Now to your specific questions - bear in mind most of this comes from watching, reading and talking - my actual experience of 3D printing is assembling a small printer and printing out a couple of blobs of molten plastic that were closer to dog poo than anything else I can thing of.

I have a need to make several small patterns for a foundry casting project and some for some soap moulds. Which led me to considering using a 3D printer.

Assuming you start with no knowledge of 3D printing you can almost certainly hand carve the patterns faster than you can get up to speed with 3D printing.
How big are the patterns likely to be? - budget level 3D printers have a very small print volume which is a major limitation.

I’m not sure if the surface finish is smooth enough and what can be done to improve it without loss of details

This will be a suck it and see situation, and then lots of practice operation. Most lower end printers need some finessing to achieve a good finish. Like most things, some dudes are able to produce silk purses out of sows ears and VV.

Durability of printed parts

This depends on many things like filament material and how they are printed with print design and density of printing etc which are usually operator controlled.
I have to say I am surprised at the strength of some of the stuff that is made. long term durability is less of an issue if you can print the part out again for a few $$.

Upfront costs and ongoing consumables vs need

The main cost seems to be filament. 1kg rolls of filament start at around $20 for fine filament but the better/thicker stuff is closer to $40/kg. Typically your will end up buying rolls of different colours and material type. If you have several different printer head sizes you will need different filament thicknesses. It's not unusually to end up with a stash of several dozen different rolls. Not sure what you mean by "need"

Cost, availability, ease of use and learning curve of quality modelling software. I.e. not a fan of software like sketchup

There are so many different types only you can determine these by buying one and trying it out.
Generally you get what you pay for.
It really depends what you want to do with it. If you are happy enough to down load plans from the web and print these out then you can get going pretty quickly.
OTOH if you have specific (complex) designs you can spend as much time or more on developing designs as perfecting the printing.
9/10 3D printer buyers end up regretting buying a printer with too small a print volume but this volume rapidly increases in price for larger volumes

Life cycle vs investment

3D printers are still on a significant development curve - todays $2k printer will be next years ~$1.5k model etc.
OTOH if you buy something cheap to learn on today you will be way in front when you buy an upgraded model in a few years time.
But also bear in mind that many of the very time fiddling requirements (like setup and calibration etc) are being quickly automated in newer models.
The print volumes are also likely to get bigger in the next few years without increasing much in cost.

I hope I am not too negative about the process.
Budget level 3D printing has many useful applications but I refuse to try and make what I'm doing compatible with what current budget 3D printers can do. Instead budget 3D printing has to suit what I want to do, so it looks I'll be working with metal and wood for some time to come.

I think you might be being a bit harsh. The development curve is just the same as any other electronic product, even CNC lathes and mills, something better is always coming out when you buy one. Cars the same.

I only have a handful of filaments Depending on what you are wanting to do, you can get away with only one or two rolls. Printing with PLA is very easy and if you are not requiring any heat protection (PLA softens at 65C) then many people just get away printing that.

3D printing is just different and requires a different mindset then the usual manual machine tools. You need CAD knowledge, but CAD is not very hard.

I have had a need to get a few things printed in 3D, but I don't have the time to learn CAD, I don't even have a computer at home and cant justify the room for a printer. I have found a lot of free downloadable designs on the net and then found this site. https://www.3dhubs.com/service/podzi Hub. They put me in touch with a local guy that did the print job for me and it is the current solution for me. I was surprised how extensive the network is. Hope this helps someone.
Rgds,
Crocy.