3D Printing

[Grimmie]

Hello Hardware forum, you scary beast.

With the price of 3D printers rapidly falling I'm in two minds. Do I wait for these crazy machines to fall in price and increase in resolution further, or do I splash some cash and buy an early model so I can get a taste for rapid fabrication?

I know there are a bunch of big kickstarter projects coming out at the moment that promise very high resolution models, but I'm more taken by the open-sourceness of the RepRap builders, and the fact they're about half as expensive. Assesmbly doesn't bother me so much with a DIY dad all kitted out with hacksaws, bits of pipe, and an array of soldering materials, so really it comes down to value for money.

I've been looking at the Prusa Mendel, as it seems to have surpassed some of the more expensive models in production resolution recently. There's a company that'll bag all the parts up with a build manual and send it to you next-day-delivery, which looks really tempting. http://www.nextdayreprap.co.uk/

Thoughts? Experiences? Pearls of plastic wisdom?

[buzzmong]

I'd personally err towards one of the many Reprap variations, possibly even go and do a RepStrap first, but that's because I'd want to do it cheap and build it/improve it myself.

This is good timing though Grimmie, as Make Magazine recently did a review of 23 printers. They've not finished uploading all the reviews yet, and certain ones like the Kossel delta have been put up seperately, but it's a good place to start.

Might also be worth having a scan over Hackaday's new 3D Printering articles. The one about material prices is quite interesting.

[spoodie]

Out of curiosity, do you have any particular you want to print or is it just a case of seeing what can be done?

[Grimmie]

A little bit of both, I'd like to make "stuff" or spare parts, but mostly fabricate cheap, replicable gaming minis.

[ProfHawking]

I've been pondering 3d printers for a while, in the same boat. Would like to dabble but don't have a specific need as such.

What if a few of us interested souls "shared" a printer. We could spread the cost of the initial purchase, then just pay for the materials used when we wanted to print something.
Logistics might be a niggle but I expect it could be manageable.

Thoughts?

[Grimmie]

I suspect it'll be a battle of "Who gets to play with the shiny toy in their house?" :D

[Mr. Johnson]

We should put a webcam on it!

[Dog Pants]

I love the idea of 3D printers but I couldn't justify the expense. However if someone else got one and could produce miniatures I'd be happy to buy them if it wasn't silly expensive. I don't know how legal that is though.

[Mr. Johnson]

Like prof said, you could just pay for the materials.

[Dog Pants]

That would be cool, but I'd also be happy to pay extra to help offset the cost of the printer.

[Mr. Johnson]

Gentlemen I think this sounds like a plan. (for you, I can't afford it)

[Grimmie]

It's a bit murky legal wise. If you scan and reproduce something say.. A certain Workshop of Games produced originally, that's a big no-no.

Technically you can modify it a bit, or reproduce it from scratch and it's sort of grey-area-okay.

Safest bet is to grab a 3D model of a character off a model sharing website and then produce your own weapons and clothes and stuff. I don't think it'd be too difficult. Probably wouldn't be GW quality, but certainly something you could use as a counter.

I've also been looking at painting ABS plastic, and you can buy a primer for car painting that'll allow you to paint on it, so I could make little D&D props like plastic swords or axes.

[Mr. Johnson]

Or tiny magenta cdc's

[Dog Pants]

Or large magenta CDCs.

[spoodie]

Print a hamster powered walker

[ProfHawking]

Print a hamster powered walker

That is the coolest thing I have ever seen.

Can an extruding printer print at that scale without the joints gumming up? I'd have thought that would have to be sintered.

thinking about which printer, well a reprap based kit from maplin, the k8200 caught my eye a while back. It looked sturdier than some of the other reprap kits. Then again, I also quite like the look of the ultimaker2 printer. Pricy tho.

[spoodie]

Can an extruding printer print at that scale without the joints gumming up? I'd have thought that would have to be sintered.

I assumed you'd print the parts and put it together. But no you say that I have seen a video or two of printing moving parts together.

[Joose]

I've personally seen a working bicycle chain that had been 3D printed as a whole, but that was from one of the heug, ultra-costly professional jobbers at work. I say working, it would probably have snapped instantly if you had actually put it on a bike as it was only made from plastic, but you know what I mean.

Also a little toy car, where the pistons in the engine went up and down when you turned the wheels. 3D printing at the high end is bloody amazing.

[ProfHawking]

Yeah, definitey possible to print joints and moving parts with high end laser sintering or resin injecting pro jobbies. They cost megabucks though.

All of the affordable printers seem to be the extruding Fused deposition modeling* type. I would have thought that (because the plastic is warm and sticky) that the joints would solidify unless you left rather low tolerances and loose-gappy-joints**.

Then again, this video for the K8200 kit mentioned above seems to show them printing a layered ball-thing which moves at the end: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... NEZLUXctf8


* Thanks wikipedia
** The technical term.

[Joose]

Theres one in the big office next to mine that uses that fused doodah modeling method (I think. Thats where it just spits out plastic from the end of a print nozzle, right?), but ive only ever seen them use it to make solid prototypes of engine parts. Nothing with moving parts. I shall endeavour to ask them though.