looking for a good 3d printer

[Ross77]

Im in the market for a good quality 3d printer. £500 if possible

I don't need a large work area but does need to be accurate.

Whats the best around?

Thanks in advance

[EddyCurrent]

I see what you said about size but check this one out especially youtube review videos http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/HICTOP-CR-...QAAOSwA29Y55JL
I have one and it's working just great. ( I didn't have the time or inclination to build one, for a change I just wanted to plug it in and use)

It does not have auto bed levelling but I don't find that an issue.

[Zeeflyboy]

what's your budget?

[Ross77]

Thanks Eddy
Might be a bit tall but will have a look.

Is it possible to convert a router type machine with the z moving up and down to a 3d printer or does it affect the print head?

[Zeeflyboy]

Routers don't make good printers, they really have opposite requirements in most respects.

Printers ideally need to be fast and light in the moving parts. It is of course possible to put a print head in a router but it won't make an ideal printer.

[Ross77]

Thanks. i have an engraver that is solid and about the right size so thought I could start with that. guess it would be a pain swapping over the heat table and print head etc.

Maybe have to dig out the belt driven stages I have kicking around and see what will work. ;0)

[EddyCurrent]

I can see you are going where I didn't want to go

[A_Camera]

Routers don't make good printers, they really have opposite requirements in most respects.

Printers ideally need to be fast and light in the moving parts. It is of course possible to put a print head in a router but it won't make an ideal printer.

I think this statement is wrong and a bit simplified. Yes, printers need to be fast but no, they don't need to be light in the moving parts, why would they? But... hopefully I have first hand experience about this soon because I have just recently started a 3D printer conversion project for my own router and just recently ordered some parts which I think may be needed. I have no experience in 3D printing, but what I have seen is that it is in fact very slow. Just made a model of something which a 22mm tall 70mm diameter cylinder and test printed in Slic3r and according to that, it would take over one hour to print it. To mill it will take about 10 minutes. Of course, that's because all the void must be filled with plastic, but having a look at the G-code, it clearly shows that even most Chinese routers with moving gantry and a maximum speed of around 4000mm/min can easily keep up the pace. My router with 9000mm/min will definitely outrun all the most popular 3D printers in both speed and acceleration. But this is just theory so far. I still need to build the necessary parts together to be able to easily switch between 3D printer and router, since I don't want to permanently convert but want to switch between the two.

The only real advantage of a dedicated 3D printer I can think of is that routers are normally noisier than 3D printers and also much larger and heavier. But I don't think size and weight can be a disadvantage for a 3D printer, except that if you only want a 3D printer then it is unnecessary to make it heavy and large because it only makes it more expensive.

Anyway, this is going to be my autumn project, currently just collecting parts and playing with different software. Maybe I'll start a thread later on about it.

[Boyan Silyavski]

The advantage of a dedicated printer is that the thing runs 24h non stop for months and the router soon you will need for sth else. Print jobs are ridiculously long if you want a quality piece as a result

[cropwell]

My router with 9000mm/min will definitely outrun all the most popular 3D printers in both speed and acceleration.

My Wanhao 4DS is currently set at a safe 150mm/sec (9000mm/min !) and it doesn't chuck itself all over the shop. Print speeds have to be lower as you need to feed filament into the extruder and melt it before squirting it out all over the workpiece in some sort of controlled fashion.