3D printing machine parts

[hiflyer]

First thing to create with a 3D printer is..............another 3D printer!

[johnstevenjacob]

It’s cool you found a cheap 3D printer. That’s a great start for creating anything you want. Anyway, does it support various types of plastic filament? It would be great if it can feed not just standard filament, but also the premium ones like nylon and rubber filament. See more of the premium plastic here: http://www.3d2print.net/shop/product-ca ... -filament/

[yaksplat]

I know that's one of the updates that they're going to be providing hopefully sooner than later. I know that they're trying out different filaments other than the standard ABS and PLA.

[slotalot]

It is not just the filaments that you have to consider These 3D printers are a little like paper printers, to get a good finish to your product you will need a 3D machine with good resolution printing capabilities, and as usual the better the machine the more it is going to cost you, but as with everything else over time the prices should start to drop...

[yaksplat]

The one that I have listed above has a layer resolution up to 50 micron. That will leave some very slight ridges, but nothing that some minor sanding can't take out. From there the piece could either be used to make a mold or chromed and used as is.

I figure for $200, it's well worth the shot.

Any part designs that I draw, I will make available to the community here.

[slotalot]

On the subject of 3D printing, take a look at this.... https://www.thisiscolossal.com/2014/04/ ... n-the-air/

[badpenny]

Right! ... I am now officially scared.

[pennymachines]

Maplin also recently started selling a similar device (3Doodler). I think it's a glorified hot glue gun - fun for craft projects but not much use to us. I'm holding out for an affordable metal laser sintering 3D printer.

In my view, considerations of cost, limited resolution and maximum print size disqualify the current crop of home printers. A commercial print service might be feasible, but you still have the task of creating suitable 3D modelling or scans. For most purposes I think old fashioned hand-crafted patterns are still the easiest way to make custom parts.

BEYOND THE HYPE AND HOPE OF 3D PRINTING: WHAT CONSUMERS SHOULD EXPECT

[pennymachines]

I'm holding out for an affordable metal laser sintering 3D printer.

It looks like this may not be so far away. At least a working prototype of a consumer level (sub £3000-ish) metal printer has been built and tested using bronze (other metals should also work).

It uses a novel technique called Selective Inhibition Sintering. Basically, to keep the price down, a standard inkjet printhead deposits a chemical sintering inhibitor together with the metal powder so that "once all of the layers have been completed, the entire part is removed from the machine and bulk sintered in a conventional sintering furnace".
Torabi Payman, Petros Matthew, and Khoshnevis Behrokh. 3D Printing and Additive Manufacturing. September 2014.

[operator bell]

I've had some experience with inexpensive 3D printers and it wasn't encouraging. They do well on very small flat parts, but if there's any significant depth you get slump and occasionally a step. I look at the things other people claim to have made with incredulity. Expensive 3D printers, on the other hand, can do fantastic jobs. Like this rook, for example. 2 inches high, it has a spiral staircase running up the inside wall and a double helix between the roof and floor. It was a sample showing capability but I think the machine cost well into six figures a few years ago.

About the best you can do with a cheap printer is use it to make a model, then sand and fill the model until it's decent and use it to make a mold for a casting.

[pennymachines]

I'm sure that's right OB, but the consumer technology is still in its infancy. I fear the impracticality of the present generation of printers may destroy the current market before the technology has time to mature. But I believe in the long run we'll see the arrival of low cost, high quality, multi-material 3D printers.

[operator bell]

I didn't mean to be disparaging. I think the state of the consumer technology, particularly for the price, is quite remarkable. I just caution that when shopping for one of these things, treat the examples they show you with healthy skepticism. You don't know how many attempts it took, how many hours, or even if it was really made on the same machine.

[slotalot]

You are not thinking big enough!!!
Take a look at this link
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/lunar-3d-prin ... y?cmp-ukfb

[badpenny]

So that's why you didn't show me your workshop when I last visited.

[pennymachines]

I started this thread in 2009, so it's time to see how things have progressed.

The simple answer is that affordable 3d metal printing has arrived, in the form of two reliable, high precision American machines; one just above $100,000, the other just below.

Desktop Metal and Metal X

OK, so maybe we won't all be rushing out to buy one, but the point is, the quality these lower priced machines now achieve will hopefully trigger a surge in low cost metal print shops. I'm thinking of how Prontaprint et al provided digital 2d print shops before the home printer quality/price revolution. Although currently the demand for metal printing is largely industrial, when it becomes relatively cheap and simple to reprint a worn, broken or lost metal component, the market is bound to expand.

[coppinpr]

I wonder what the chances are of the expansion coming from being able to walk into a 3d print shop and buying a household product or display item picked from a catalogue and printed out for you. The beauty of the 3d print shop would be it would not be restricted to one type of item, only the format of the item, so a saucepan, statuette or slot machine part would all fall into the same bracket (we hope).

One of the problems from our point of view is that, at the moment, 3d printing either works by printing the item from a code already available from a memory source or by copying another item it can scan. As it's unlikely there would be a code for the part we need and scanning the original would produce an exact copy of the worn or broken part... so there is still work to be done.

I remember seeing one of the first laser printers at a computer expo in Las Vegas in 1986, it was 5 feet high and 6 feet long and banished to a stand at the back of the hall. We asked if we could see it in action... When the guy, who seemed to be glad of the company, tried to run it... it wouldn't print. We left.

[liquorbox]

3D printers are only restricted by x, y and z axis and material used.
A worn part can be scanned and a few perimeters for size input so any wear would be corrected in them perimeters.
They are even printing smaller campers now and any layout changes can be done quickly and easily.
See the link below.
The print process is slow but improvements in materials are speeding that up the more people exepiment with them.
I wouldn't doubt that soon you'll see them using two part epoxies in them if they aren't already.
This would reduce the thickness and weight of material needed thus speeding print times.
https://globalnews.ca/news/4044823/3d-p ... saskatoon/

[scottie]

Hi
If you're thinking of making parts with a 3d printer I strongly agree... They work well and until original parts show up at least the game is up and running.
Have been doing it for a few years now.
Scottie

[youngerap]

That is fantastic, Scottie. Are the dimensions of that part true? It certainly proves that 3D printing could be a solution for replacement of low-load components.

[badpenny]

I keep hearing people say it's expensive, but I don't think thruppence is a lot.