New toy, Afinia 3D printer

[martin54]

The cog or the printer?

The cog has a herringbone tooth pattern, a hexagonal bore and meshes fine and dandy with the little idler. Someone has written a cog to .stl script for some program or other and the print geeks are going wild with it. If you want a cog to look at, ask me quick before it becomes boring

The printer was £1512 including tax and delivery and came with 2kg of white filament. Doubtless someone will now find it cheaper but I don't care.

There are cheaper DIY options but the Afinia comes ready to run and has neat software which sorts out all the support on your overhangs.

Robin what made you chose that particular printer if you don't mind me asking, I know there are a few on the market now from the little I do know about them, fancy one myself but a bit out of my price range unfortunately.
I think they are absolutely amazing & you have to wonder what will come next.

[Robin Hewitt]

Robin what made you chose that particular printer if you don't mind me asking

I was dithering, someone had a pukka laser driven resin caster on a kick-starter scheme. Super accurate and around $2k to those willing to buy in advance so he could raise the capital to make them. The Afinia (UP! Plus) seemed to be the one making the clever stuff, ie: the geek choice.

Then 2 things happened, the resin caster got slammed with a patent violation law suit and Afinia released a 0.15mm layer version of their software.

It lays down ABS in layers and thin is tricky. Some stop at .25mm, .2mm is normal, 0.15mm sounds exciting. There is "The Cube" at a better price but I think it only does 0.25mm and they have put the filament in cassettes so they can screw up the price of consumables. Apparently they give you a hard sell when you register the machine to get the software.

The clincher for me was a YouTube movie showing the Afinia in pieces, it uses profile rails rather than round rail and bushings. I liked that. It has a steel frame which is good. Levelling the table is a PITA until you figure out how to do it. Quite honestly all the home use machines are a bit Mickey Mouse but some are more MM than others.

Every advert you see will print in white. White doesn't show streaks.

There is the PLA filament alternative to ABS. Very eco-friendly because it's bio degradable. Not too keen on my parts rotting so I'm sticking with the ABS.