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
Printable View
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
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.
what's your budget?
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?
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.
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)
I can see you are going where I didn't want to go :distress:
I know, probably end up buying one one and upgrading it like triggers broom. :whistle:
That's a damn clever printer to print the example they put on the print bed, with one extruder as well !
I have a Wanhao 4DS which is twin extruders, but a small print volume. If I bought one now, I wouldn't bother with two extruders, I hardly ever do two colour prints and when I do it is a PITA to get it right.
For the money i would buy the Steel Prusa. Its cheaper than the Original Prusa and build with quality elements/ the electronics/ . It has unsupported rails, whats typical for cheaper printers, but is not like some funny rollers, rolling on aluminum profile. I dont know of something really better, from an educated point of view. Yeah, many will say this and that, but from CNC point of view, i see that as the best cheap printer around
Boyan,
As you might expect, I spent days weighing up one printer against the other in the required price range. Thought about building one but didn't really want to, I looked at the links to sellers in Spain that you posted in another thread and was just about ready to order the black steel Prusa when I came across the Creality CR-10.
Now in cnc terms there are what we might describe as undesirable elements, single Z drive, rollers for bearings, etc. but in reality on a 3D Printer I'm finding it's not a problem provided repeatability is there.
Also with the steel prusa it was interesting to see the price rise as options were added on, so after many hours of reading and watching videos, my choice was the CR-10, it's size being another positive for me.
These are supposed to be very good for the money.
https://www.amazon.co.uk/QIDI-TECHNO...rds=3d+printer
I didn't think I'd have any use for a 3D printer, but may buy one of these.
In 3d printers there are so many things that may look mediocre but if they are tested and working it just works. At the same time so many things could look engineered properly but with a hidden fault . So the decision is always difficult. I have the Original Prusa MK2. I laughed at it when i opened the box and started to respect it when i fixed some little obvious faults. It just works, and works and works and will work. I rarely stop it at all. Anyway, i am sure there are many options nowadays. But i say it again, crappy electronics is what i hate most.
Yes Gerry, put it side by side with the Wanhao 4DS - you will see the differences are just cosmetic, but if the price is better.............
My friends (correction - friend) said to me 'What are you going to use that for' when I bought the printer. Two days later he asked me to design and print a bespoke cup to hold coins in his Jag.
You get to the point with some things where the question is 'Shall I buy an item - or print it?'.
Some things you just can't buy https://www.dropbox.com/s/yv6cbor60s...8_Pro.mp4?dl=0
Cheers,
Rob
Nice.
Never seen a 3D printed Lithophane before. :beer:
Thanks for all the responses, lots of options to look at. leaning toward the QIDI for a complete machine but also looking at E3d for extruders as they seem really good.
If i was to build, is there a wish list of extruders, heat plates and controllers? not to fussed on looks as long as it will be fast and and produce quality parts. Ta
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.
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
Yes, a dedicated higher quality printer is of course better for longer jobs or if the main activity of a machine is printing. If in the end I decide that I like the results out of my conversion I will build a dedicated printer, but for occasional printing and for testing the concept, the software, finding out pitfalls and so on, at least for now, I will go on with the conversion. Converting is a pretty simple and cheap task and most of the parts are needed even for building one, and in fact, even if I bought one, most parts can be used as spares.
Though, if you can stand the higher noise of a router converted printer, I don't see why that can't run as long as necessary. Generally it isn't a good idea to let a printer work unattended for too long, so non-stop running is at least for me, out of the question unless I install special fire guards and a sprinkler system above or inside the printer.
The point is that while it will work, a router just makes a poor 3D printer compared to something that is designed with 3d printing in mind.
If its all you can do for space/cost/trying out the idea/whatever then fine, as mentioned it will function but an ultimaker or something will run rings around any router conversion in actual day to day usability, productivity and reliability long term.
The reason why I say light is because it's much easier to build something that is fast and can run for hours on end efficiently if it is light. Note that light does not mean flimsy - a rigid printer is a good printer, but it just doesn't need the same bulk as a router, but needs to run for many hours on end with a lot of fast movements... personally I'd much rather have a light machine with belts vs a heavy machine with screws doing that, both for my sanity from noise and from a wear/tear and energy efficiency stand point.
As for leaving it printing, sometimes you have no choice. I've had 20hr+ print jobs and there really is no viable way of pausing in the middle. I personally set my printer up with a monitoring webcam and a smoke alarm tied to a smart power socket that will shut down the power if the smoke alarm goes off, but I've been printing for many years without any safety issues - there are several failsafes built into the printers themselves to prevent thermal runaways etc so they can be relatively safe left to their own devices.
I'd recommend a prusa www.prusa3d.com
I have the previous to the last model and works like a charm. With the new one they have won best printer of the year and looks like a really good printer on a budget
And very good customer service/ support
Cheers
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.
i just got a prusa mk2s and while it was a long wait and a bit of a headache once it arrived it didn't take long to put together and was printing great quality stuff straight of the bat. its been running nearly solid since it arrived with a few 26 hour prints oh and to add to this the 3d bed level and all the other auto correction stuff is amazing and so simple and the heated bed is also very good and no need for glue sticks just wipe with window cleaner and that's it.
I didn't mean that 9000mm/min was not possible with 3D printers, of course it is, and more than that as well, but the printing speed is ALWAYS lower than that in any affordable printers I have seen, meaning that the speed I have is more than enough and in fact, most routers have more than enough speed. Noise is of course an issue, 3D printers are not as noisy as routers.
While there are guys that push speeds to crazy levels with volcano nozzles and the like, typical print speeds for me are around 70mm/s or 4200mm/min, non print moves are 180mm/s or 10800mm/min... of course given the light weight it's fairly easy to have very high acceleration figures too. There can be a surprising amount of non-print moves (both long and short) so don't discount their acceleration and speed as a factor in overall print time.
I would also suggest that first of all, most of the bog standard routers out there are not capable of reliably doing anything near your 9000mm/s and secondly since yours is fixed gantry you also have an advantage in acceleration over typical routers with a much heavier gantry to throw around. There is also the factor of z-lift to consider - a lot of people, myself included, will have a printer set to lift before each non print move by a small amount (I usually set it to 0.25mm) which help stop scraping the nozzle on already printed regions. That is normally a pretty rapid move so if you are having a weighty spindle still attached to avoid alignment issues each time you replace it, the acceleration of the Z could be another factor slowing down a longer print.
Even still, I think that multiple 20+ hour sessions of your machine continuously throwing itself around at 9000mm/s with acceleration to match a typical much lighter 3d printer is going to wear out your kit much more quickly than normal use of a router/mill due to the weight/speed/acceleration demands, and it's going to be using quite a lot more power (and as your said a lot more noise) than a typical 3D printer.
I just think while it's an interesting side project, you are just better off in almost all respects building or buying a dedicated machine. Not least because tying your Router up with long prints means you can't use it for anything else at the same time!
Happy QIDI owner here, having given away my home-built RepRapPro. Pretty rugged (by comparison) and the print far better. Dual extruder as standard, but as another has said - hardly ever use it and it's just another nozzle to snag on the work piece. But, worked out of the box with just a minor bed alignment. Did have one drive cable fail, but it came with a spare (!)
Andrew Mawson has one, https://www.cetus3d.com/. Fairly well priced, imported machine but uses hiwin rails for the structure. Ive seen the prints it does, really impressive.
The Cetus3d looks really good but resisting the urge to say "I have all the parts to build that...."
the only down side is that it will only do PLA. Do you guys use nylon much or is it really difficult to do the engineering plastics?
Any idea how much to import it though? not available yet either.Quote:
Agreed, for that money, its not worth the time to design, buy, build and test IMHO.
That one is about £1k, are the clones as good?Quote:
I'd recommend a prusa www.prusa3d.com
I have the previous to the last model and works like a charm. With the new one they have won best printer of the year and looks like a really good printer on a budge
Speak to AndrewMawson on here, he imported one.
I'm currently using PLA (and some ABS for tougher small parts) on my (£275) Pusa i3 clone kit, I'm in the process of modifying for Nylon and for larger ABS parts as I have product designs for parts which require the better engineering plastics with higher glass transition temperatures and better durability than PLA.
- Nick
Hows this one if I go the Purusa route http://factory3d.co.uk/
or else there are these? http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/CTC-3D-Pri...3D321930591168
or http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/3D-printer...AAAOSw5dNWtIzU
This Prusa is crazy cheap I'd just buy this if I were you.
http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/2017-Upgra...3D272622069677
Add auto levelling for £2
I like the look of the Wanahao.
I'd avoid plastic framed printers like the plague, Aluminium or Steel construction at least means you have a good base for a rebuild or upgrade project at some future point.
Nozzles and Throats which aren't commonly available as generic spares are a bad idea as are machines not running the most popular open-source firmware versions.
Printers with the hot end and nozzle very close to the extruder drive may well prove problematic should you wish to print one of the more flexible filaments,
- Nick