What kind of printer do you use?

I use a wombot xl its been a good printer and worked first up after I built it. It has a good build volume of 250mm by 250mm by 330mm a heated bed .

I bought a Prusa i3 kit from Folgertech LLC. It was cheap and have had it almost a year. Took a bit of troubleshooting to set it up, but it gets the job done! Has a heated bed and I can print up to 8x8" and 7" tall

I use Flashforge Dreamer i use it for 2 Year it helpfully on my DIY work.

There are so many variations. Tons of manufacturers.

Question for you guys, Do you think the newer Prusa i3 Mk2 is worth the extra $$ they are wanting...or will the Ebay knock off unit work just as good ? I see this unit is rather new and on backorder, But im in No rush persay, I just want a quality unit for as cheap as possible.

http://prusaprinters.org/original-prusa-i3-mk2-release/#_ga=1.33336637.2040013602.1447881636

Haveing a measurement probe is awesome, self leveling should be standard on all printers. Thats the biggest pain in the ass to my POV

Not exactly sure what benefit the Measurement probe offers And i can assume that self leveling would be handy not having to screw around with that. But the question still remains, Is the MK2 worth the extra coin.

Thats what the measurement probe does, it goes to certain coordinates, usually 4 or 9 and the the self leveling happens one of 2 ways....the plate adjusts in the corners or its dont in software which uses your steppers on the y axis to compensate for a high or low spot.

Hi All

I'm thinking of pulling the trigger on a printer at the minute to help with parts for my sim

Was thinking about the new duplicator i3 plus that's just released. Money is tight at the minute so that's probably top of my budget.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Wanhao-I3-Plus-3D-Printer/222201963657?_trksid=p2045573.c100033.m2042&_trkparms=aid=111001&algo=REC.SEED&ao=1&asc=35377&meid=f01532393c6e40659af5558636155430&pid=100033&rk=5&rkt=8&sd=262466591052

@wannabeaflyer2 I noticed you bought the duplicator i3, how that going for you,

how much of a pain is it not having an auto leveling bed?

My other alternative I thought is a prusa i3 mk2 kit but its a bit outside my budget at the minute and TBH id rather just get on with printing rather than messing about with a kit right now.
(the sim building is already taking all my spare time)

http://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/59-original-prusa-i3-mk2-kit.html


thanks for any advice

Hi @paulg100 I have to say bang for buck my Wanhao printer does what it says on the time , have had some great parts made form this machine and any that failed was due to my fault not the machine so far , <£300.00 and great performance , ease of use etc , Once you've mastered the bed levelling is easy , maybe one day i'll do a Auto bed level upgrade but for now its fine . My only gripe would be with the supplied Cura software ( excellent and very user friendly, but I'm having issues trying to talk to printer via the software , if I use Repeiter there's no problem , the fix apparently requires me to open the Control case , but I'm releuctant to do that yet ( warranty would be void I guess ) ...other than that I'm more than happy how quickly I had the machine up and running, and knocking out great parts ..

Great thanks for the feedback,

I actually bit the bullet last night and ordered a new duplicator i3 plus for £399 so hopefully that works just as well as the original duplicator i3.

I expect some loose screws etc on delivery and see theres already some issues with the plate bearings in this model but its easy and cheap to fix.

Once i have some spare money ill probably buy simplify 3d.

did you take a look at this mod?:



or updated version.



Its probably one of the first things ill look at adding.

EDIT: good news, the duplicator I3 plus already comes with a ported fan for the nozzle opening

So decided on a i3 Mk2.....anything i should pick up while i have the order in the cart ? should i order a couple rolls or will one suffice for now ? Looking at the Fancy 20% carbon stuff.....is it worth 50$ ?

Looking at the Fancy 20% carbon stuff.....is it worth 50$ ?

Was doing some reading on that, it seems that particles and fibres are two different things and that to be effective the mix should have fibres at least 7mm long to form the lattice.

these carbon impregnated filaments are particles rather than fibres, so marketing hype??

like sprinkling pixie dust into some resin and expecting it to do something.

Ah icic, thanks for the heads up Paul,

What would be the strongest most user friendly material to print overall ? Whats your go to filament you prefer ?

There's better people to ask then me i dont even have a printer yet (being delivered this week).

Spent quite a bit of time reading up on it though. Theres some good utube vids going through the different properties and doing tests etc, compressive force, ductility, brittleness etc. For structural stuff and for ease of printing id say the newer gen PLA's seem to be good? stronger than ABS but still print like PLA and allot more eco friendly than ABS.

for gears and parts with frictional wear nylon looks real interesting.

First things ill be printing are pot shaft couplers and brackets, then i need mounts for gearstick, jotstick etc and also a box to house some switches etc.

The gearstick mounts need to be fairly strong so im hoping to try one of the newer gen pla's for those, unless anyone has a better suggestion.

I printed these two models with PLA and they are solid.

The Premier League trophy is hollow but very rigid. The FA cup is 50% infill and heavy and hard.



Colours used:
Black
Silver
Gold
Green

All PLA.

I've not printed with ABS, but have to say I've not been able to find anything I needed to print that PLA was not useful for.

Picked me up an Prusa i3 Mk2

I did have a slight issue with my first BIG print, Tho i think it was a power glitch as there was a rather intense rain storm about the exact time it cut out (I was out at the time so dont know 100% what happened) I did the Test Tree frog in .100 as well and it turned out Awesome. Haven't tried the .050 yet.

but here's the re print as a headless buddha just wasn't gonna cut it. First one is .100 layer 10% infill with 4 walls which proved to be INSANELY strong, I can stand on him No problem, so Version 2 i went with .100 1% infill and 2 walls thick, 13 hr print vs 18 hr(guesstimate) print

Being able to print stuff like this, Is a Game Changer lol

1 Corvette wheel comin up.

I am enthusiast of 3DOF n 6DOF
Either Delta Robot 3D Printer or Scara 3D Printer

I have been lurking this forum for a while and now I am finally ready to pull the trigger on buying a 3D printer. I have been doing my research and read most of the buy guides but not an expert of any sort. I have been looking at this Prusa model and was wondering if there is anything I am missing and if it would be a good pick for someone starting out. Seems like a good price point with most of what you want to look for from what I have read. I also like the larger print bed.



Any help is always apprecaited.