looking for a good 3d printer

[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

[A_Camera]

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.

[Zeeflyboy]

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.

[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.

[charlieuk]

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.

[A_Camera]

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 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.

[Zeeflyboy]

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!