3D Printer / Printing discussion

[E Williams]

Correct, did some research and spoke to the techs UPBOX and H800 are the same except for the front door on H800 unit when opened will not automatically pause the printer.

So will be getting the H800..


Thanks

Good choice - another advantage is Afinia has US based support. Very responsive and helpful, from personal experience.

 

[disposablepal]

i've been using an XYZ Da Vinci 2.0 Duo for a few weeks now. it was definitely an experience getting it configured correctly, but for a $600 printer that is dual extruder, its not bad. I've gotten some really great quality prints after the first weekend of tinkering. My only issue now is the bottom layers coming off the printbed during a long print. Mostly just in the corners of some larger pieces, but its getting annoying even after applying BuildTak to the bed. I was doing the hair spray method before and i was told that BuildTak would be the best thing since sliced bread, but its not entirely the case. Its better, but not perfect. Any advice?

 

[JC3Dprops]

disposablepal Are you printing PLA or ABS? PLA should print fine with buildtak but ABS is a lot ticker to get to stick down to buildtak. What also matter is the extruding temperature and the temperature of the bed your building on. To do ABS justice it really needs to be cooled slowly and over time. Also you might tinker with other building materials. I know a lot of the Proto pasta filament is really forgiving and might help your situation.

 

[MatterMaker]

i've been using an XYZ Da Vinci 2.0 Duo for a few weeks now. it was definitely an experience getting it configured correctly, but for a $600 printer that is dual extruder, its not bad. I've gotten some really great quality prints after the first weekend of tinkering. My only issue now is the bottom layers coming off the printbed during a long print. Mostly just in the corners of some larger pieces, but its getting annoying even after applying BuildTak to the bed. I was doing the hair spray method before and i was told that BuildTak would be the best thing since sliced bread, but its not entirely the case. Its better, but not perfect. Any advice?

One of the best things I found for keeping a print in place has been blue painters tape with UHU gluestick sparingly applied. I said sparingly! It will make your print stick really well or too well. The biggest problem with prints curling at the corners is that it's generally very difficult to prevent if you're printing large flat parts. It occurs because the layers closest to the print bed are prevented from shrinking as they cool by the first layer being physically attached to the print bed, then as you go higher, the successive layers shrink a bit more then the ones below (as the material cools after being deposited in a molten state). This shrinking creates growing tension which pulls at the corners of the part and increases as the part grows taller. Without the bulk of thickness of a taller piece, the moment you pull that large flat part off the print bed that tension releases, warping the part. The corners curling is an indication of that inherent tension building in the layers.

The only other way of minimizing the issue is of course a heated build chamber. It helps but it's still not bullet proof.

MatterMaker.

 

[disposablepal]

@disposablepal Are you printing PLA or ABS? PLA should print fine with buildtak but ABS is a lot ticker to get to stick down to buildtak. What also matter is the extruding temperature and the temperature of the bed your building on. To do ABS justice it really needs to be cooled slowly and over time. Also you might tinker with other building materials. I know a lot of the Proto pasta filament is really forgiving and might help your situation.

I've been using ABS, haven't played around with PLA yet, but the printer can do both. The extruder is usually about 212c when printing, i believe the bed heats up to about 120c. Thanks for the advice, i'll check into other filaments as well. The XYZ printers force you to use their filament, but there are ways around it.

 

[JC3Dprops]

disposablepal Something I do and I am sure you can do with your printer is setup a cube, start out by printing a continues cube and make it change heat settings as it prints more. It will be obvious what is the best print temperature you filament wishes to print on by visually inspecting it. Also then print another cube of the same design but this time start out printing with the feed of about 110% and then lower it down by 5 or 10 percent and you will also notice that you can tell when the filament bonds best at what percent of the feed. Once you have both do a test print and use those settings. This has really helped me out in the past. I then keep a log with the name of the filament and these settings. If something goes odd with my printing I go back and look at this log and adjust. Really saved my bacon in the past let me tell you...Happy printing!! :thumbsup

 

[cheetoh]

I have been looking into this as well. There is a wealth of online information on this one. Looks like a good PLA printer out of the box. With some work, it will be a decent ABS printer.

Ive owned a Di3 for about 6 months now, i've had a lot of issues with it but for the price it can put out some pretty good prints, it prints well in ABS as well as PLA. if you have more money to spend I would reccomend a Taz Lulzbot 5, or an Ultimaker 2. but on a budget its great.

 

[lurch]

I have had the pleasure of owning a Wanhao I3 since November.. best bang for the buck.. I'm not saying it is perfect there are some issues.. like some minor ringing ( waves in the print, usually after printing around a hole, or when t he printer makes a sharp turn), the metal frame is a little wobbly.. but there are supports you can print to make it a bit more rigid.. there are a bunch of mods that can be done to really fine tune the quality.. but out of the box it was pretty impressive..

bottom line I would buy it again if I had to,

 

[Valcrow]

like some minor ringing ( waves in the print, usually after printing around a hole, or when t he printer makes a sharp turn),

Try to reduce the acceleration on your machine. It should help control the ringing. But there's only so much you can do if your frame isn't rigid enough.

 

[lurch]

Try to reduce the acceleration on your machine. It should help control the ringing. But there's only so much you can do if your frame isn't rigid enough.

I'll see if I can find that setting.. thanks for the advice.. ( =

 

[RogueTrooper66]

Have any of you blokes considered the Velleman K8200, homebuild kit - its massively hackable you can bung on a dremel tool alowing light milling/Pcb etching and it won't be long before somebody slips a laz0r in there as well allowing it to cut/etch.

I bought mine back in August and built it over the next few months, taking my time, even so I did make a few mistakes, but the customer service is good with plenty of backup and a knowledgeable forum to boot!

 

[Pixelinfected]

my small experience in 3d printing in the last year is that most of problems are from :
- bad software, i bought simplify3d and solved most of my problems
- too much hurry, fdm need time, and right speed printing to obtain quality
- good abs filament is good print, too often i saw error and problem from bad filament, bad storage of filament that cause a lots of problem
- not enought time to setup printing bed, calibration can change a lot the result, few seconds against hours and hours of wrong print
- good heated bed give me good print. a 6mm glass with a good base of hair spray keep print on bed and print come out clean and good.
- before print load ever 40-50 of filament to clean up warm camera from old abs, you have good result and reduce problem later
- don't try to print all in one piece, often give you problem, like to do a single piece mold of prostetic makeup, is often a bad idea.
- try to build less support than you need, change orientation and position of piece on bed to reduce it
- avoid temperature change in the room, especially if is open printer. My printer was open, i boxed it and reduce a lots of problem.
- try to use only natural abs, is between milk color and beige, without pigment often give you fine and more quality than pigmented abs.

- abs vs pla, pla is simplier to print, but it cristalize and is delicate, if you warm too much it cristalize and seal your extruder, and clean it is long and boring, ABS need temperature stabile and have cons of size reduction since 1-2% depend of its infill, but is elastic, workable with sand paper and more. Too often people start with pla be cause many people told is simplier and that discourage them to print more. Abs is better on long time.

fdm is an old tech, since 80' than you cannot ask so complex result for few bucks, but you can obtain some good result.
i used a makerblot clone called migce cuble, and a wahnao 4x, last is good for its cost, and result could be very fine also to print 0.05 layer.
but remember low cost 3d print CANNOT BE FASTER, i talk about a simplier replica of Saffo's statue 10 cm ask since 5-6 hours of print.

 

[ultraman]

i'm still waiting for the "TIKO" it's suppose to be plug and play right out of the box and only cost $179!!!!!!

 

[Mockle]

Solidoodle Announces Suspension of Operations

March 28, 2016 by Sam


There gone..

Can read here: http://www.solidoodle.com/blog.html#

 

[Reeves]

Those prints look awesome do you know what smart lcd setup you added ? also is simplify 3d a free software or do you have to buy it ?

Hey can you show or sent me a more detail pic of rays gun, this should be also my next... and i m really interessted in your print quality

 

[Mach]

This review helped me choose the MakerGear https://www.3dhubs.com/best-3d-printer-guide#

I've had one since December. I'd recommend it.

3D printing reminds me of Edison's quote on his light bulb experiments. “I have not failed. I've just found 10,000 ways that won't work. Expect a lot of tinkering. Filament, print slicing, object design...the list goes on. Getting a solid printer can eliminate many of the variables to start but it does require experimentation to fix other things that affect your print. A few suggestions: take notes, copious notes, get Simplify3d, figure out how to check your bed leveling, use PEI on your build surface, learn to 3d model. For me, those are all things that made a big difference in my enjoyment and print quality.

 

[ScribblesOnNapk]

I have a Form1+ at work. The SLA process is a pain to clean up but I don't really even notice that. If you go SLA that is just something you knew you were getting into when you got the machine.

I know that Formlabs has a newer machine out now (Form 2) but I don't have any experience with it. With the Form1+ I have been able to make some wonderful parts in house. That said I strongly advise against the machine unless you really need the SLA process. At work we do acoustics and that required the high density and for other reasons we needed the resolution. First off the fumes from the machine were causing me to get headaches. It emits them at such a low level that I didn't really smell it until I opened the cover after a print but just sitting next to it was unpleasant. We have a biochemist at work who does drug discovery among other things. He once refused to use a chisel properly saying "Skin is cheap, it grows back fast, I married a doctor." That guy was terrified of the fumes and so we ended up with a fume hood. The fume hood was $1K more than the printer.

We started by trying to print parts that were items we had already ordered from SLA printing services that were comparable in resolution and etc. The prints were problematic. Looking on the forum there were people with similar problems. It was clear from the posts that some of those folks were having unsuccessful repairs done to their machines by the company. Wanting to help we joined in the process of debugging the problem. It was a laser issue. The beam was just not producing a clean enough dot on the bottom of the resin tray. First they denied the validity of our testing methods. Then they denied the conclusion. Their refusal to engage with their customers on the forum and actually explain what they thought it was really drove us up a wall. I get that the tech is proprietary but they really hated our attempt to break out of the cycle of buy, test, fail, return, test, fail, return, test, fail, return... I was later told in a trade show that they considered us to be just causing a flame war.

Eventually we won though. They admitted the issue was the laser but only wanted to act on a case by case basis. Before ours could be fixed they had me replace the main mirror and clean all the optics. For a hobbyist product I accept being my own service technician but for a commercial product that is supposed to just work out of the box this was a fail in my book.

Bottom line.. I really dislike their customer service. I hope someone else makes a similar, safer product.

 

[The5yearSquirl]

The best "bang for the buck" printer is the printrbot play for $400 and printrbot simple metal for $600 but if u can afford it go for a ultimaker original plus+ if you can handle building the kit

 

[phunkymunky]

Recently purchased a flashforge Finder, decent price at 499. Putting it to the test as I type. I'll update once my print is 1st complete.

 

[RocFoamArmory]

What kinds of kits are the best at low cost? I've heard a lot of the Prussa i3 types are great for only 300-400 dollars