Understanding 3D printing
- Thread starter Mohawk Valley
- Start date
A 3D printer, will not be like buying a new Epson or HP (other brands are available)..
There will be an amount of construction that you will have to do..
There will be software to install (and get working).
The machine will require some setup. - Minimum, getting the bed level.
You will need to download files to print. Pass these through a program called a slicer, and then get the output from that piece of software into the printer.
If you decide to alter a file, or draw your own, then you will need a suitable Cad / Drawing package, and will have to learn how to use it.
This is not to put you off, necessarily. Just to make you aware of the hidden 'costs' of getting the machine to do something useful.
PhilP
There will be an amount of construction that you will have to do..
There will be software to install (and get working).
The machine will require some setup. - Minimum, getting the bed level.
You will need to download files to print. Pass these through a program called a slicer, and then get the output from that piece of software into the printer.
If you decide to alter a file, or draw your own, then you will need a suitable Cad / Drawing package, and will have to learn how to use it.
This is not to put you off, necessarily. Just to make you aware of the hidden 'costs' of getting the machine to do something useful.
PhilP
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2 things to consider when looking to reduce the line effect on filament printing, resolution and accuracy. Each line is made up of a round section bead of plastic, so there will always a corrugated effect to some extent. Higher resolutions reduces the cross section of the lines of filament, so the corrugation effect is less. Accuracy - placing each line of filament on top of the last, is at least as important, as this reduces unwanted steps and ripples, particularly in the Z (height) axis. The mechanical design and calibration of the machine will directly impact the accuracy, while resolution is tied up with nozzle size and to a lesser extent, the extruder type. Bowden tube printers exhibit slightly less control over the filament, so the printer can struggle with higher resolution, which uses less filament per layer.
To print a complete tram, even in sections, you will need a reasonably large printer. This makes them more expensive and of course, they take up more space. I personally would not 3D print a tram, but would use my laser cutter to cut the larger sections, and then the 3D printer to produce the detailed elements. I would use my resin printer, as that creates parts with virtually no visible lines or problems with supports. Many prints need supports, and with filament printing, this can lead to a poor quality surface, and resin prints can have small "scars" which need careful filing and filling.
I use my printers most days, or at least weekly. Mine are Creality Ender 3 Pro, with some upgrades to improve accuracy and filament flow rate control. These include dual Z screws to improve vertical accuracy, and direct drive extruders for better filmanet management. The newer Ender 3 Pro S1 has these enhancements as standard, so that would be my suggestion as a good machine, as it requires minimal construction and setting up. They do smell a little bit, and there's some concerns that ABS produces some harmful by-products when heated during the printing process. Mine live in a workshop away from the main house to reduce exposure to anything nasty.
Resin printing is excellent for detailed parts, and some machines have very large build plates, enabling larger models to be created. They are very costly however, and need to be sited in a well ventilated space, as they are very smelly, and some of the compounds might not be very good for you. Running costs are about double those of filament.
Short answer, would I spend the money on a good printer for just very occasional use? Probably not. As with many things, buying cheap will not necessarily be a good economy. Cheap "DIY" printers can be frustrating to get working properly and might well put you off.
To print a complete tram, even in sections, you will need a reasonably large printer. This makes them more expensive and of course, they take up more space. I personally would not 3D print a tram, but would use my laser cutter to cut the larger sections, and then the 3D printer to produce the detailed elements. I would use my resin printer, as that creates parts with virtually no visible lines or problems with supports. Many prints need supports, and with filament printing, this can lead to a poor quality surface, and resin prints can have small "scars" which need careful filing and filling.
I use my printers most days, or at least weekly. Mine are Creality Ender 3 Pro, with some upgrades to improve accuracy and filament flow rate control. These include dual Z screws to improve vertical accuracy, and direct drive extruders for better filmanet management. The newer Ender 3 Pro S1 has these enhancements as standard, so that would be my suggestion as a good machine, as it requires minimal construction and setting up. They do smell a little bit, and there's some concerns that ABS produces some harmful by-products when heated during the printing process. Mine live in a workshop away from the main house to reduce exposure to anything nasty.
Resin printing is excellent for detailed parts, and some machines have very large build plates, enabling larger models to be created. They are very costly however, and need to be sited in a well ventilated space, as they are very smelly, and some of the compounds might not be very good for you. Running costs are about double those of filament.
Short answer, would I spend the money on a good printer for just very occasional use? Probably not. As with many things, buying cheap will not necessarily be a good economy. Cheap "DIY" printers can be frustrating to get working properly and might well put you off.
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It depends entirely on budget. Let's go top of the range first. I recently purchased a Bambu lab Carbon X1 and an AMS unit which holds 4 rolls of filament. Total cost was £1,353.98 and they throw in some test spools of filament to get you going.
It's capable of printing up to 16 colours simultaneously and is the most "fire and forget" solution out there.
It has an optional upgrade called an AMS unit which holds 4 spools of filament which the printer automatically loads and unloads to give you 4 colour printing.
If you want 16 colours simultaneously you need another 3 AMS units.
There is no coding or construction required. I was up and running in less than half an hour.
The filament from Bambu Lab even has RFID chips built into the spool so the printer automatically recognises the filament type and colour and imports the print settings like temperature, flow etc.
I can guarantee with the DIY hands on attitude I've already seen on here that anyone could use it. Imagine a 3D printer built by apple.
It calibrates itself, will load and unload material, has LIDAR to check the first layer on the print bed and will continually monitor the print and stop itself if it detects a problem.
Modelling shouldn't be a barrier either with many free models available online. Just download them for free from Thingiverse , Printables or other sites, open up in their software, select you colour/material and hit print.
Fancy some extra rolling stock? Check out these coal wagons from Thingiverse:
www.thingiverse.com
Maybe you want a whole custom loco?
Printables has this awesome looking example:
www.printables.com
Quite often the only extra information you need is if support needs to be enabled and the designer usually lists the material used such as PLA or ASA with the material settings. This comes in to play when you have parts that have overhangs as due to the additive process of printing layer by layer, a 3D printer can of course not print in midair. (There are actually now ways to do this but let's not get into that now)
Of course you unlock the full potential with separate 3D design modelling software such as tinkercad, SketchUp, SOLIDWORKS etc but there's already plenty out there ready modelled to print.
The other most user friendly complete solution would be from PRUSA. Their MK4 is also an excellent printer but at just over £1k it's hard to recommend over the Bambu lab Carbon X1. It's still an excellent printer but getting the X1 without the AMS puts these in direct competition. The build volume is also smaller at 250x210x220mm
Bambu Lab also make a stripped down version of the X1 - the P1P:
It lacks the enclosed build volume of the X1, the lidar scanner and the touchscreen but that brings the price down to £550.
Enclosed heated build chambers only come in to play when printing higher performance materials such as ABS which can warp and detach from the print bed. The easy way round this is to use ASA which has basically the same materials properties as ABS which I can print just fine on my open Ender 5 plus.
The P1P has the same build volume as the X1 of 256x256x256mm which should be fine for most users. At £550 I'm not aware of any printer that comes close in terms of capabilities. Add to that, you can chose to upgrade it with panels to enclose it, upgrade the cooling fan and that it's even compatible with the AMS units, it's the one to buy if you're not too fussed about exotic materials that require a heated build chamber.
Filament
Something I haven't mentioned up to this point is the filament. I strongly recommend buying the filament from the manufacturer of the printer. Both PRUSA filament and Bambu Labs filament have been extensively tested with their machines and their software has the settings ready to go.
Ive run several different filaments from various manufacturers in my Ender 5 plus and this has caused plenty of issues. The grey PLA from Overture for example is dirt cheap at £18 for a 1kg spool but needs to have temperature and flow (the amount of filament pushed through the extruder) tinkered with substantially to get good results.
By comparison buying 4 spools directly from Bambu Labs works out roughly the sameafter shipping.
I'll still buy the cheap filament for the Ender 5+ but if you're looking at your first printer this is fantastic news for you.
Prusa's own PLA is also price competitive at £27 per 1kg spool
This is sounding a little one sided so I'll say this. A friend of mine runs a print shop. He started on Prusa printers and it's pretty much all he uses now having just bought a MK4.
I visited him yesterday and it's an excellent machine. Many professional printers run stables of exclusively Prusa printers due to their first rate support, excellent instructions and bomb proof hardware. They are an established brand that are only going up and are completely open sourced compared to the walled garden Bambu Labs approach.
Being completely open aource you could for example order a cheap Prusa MK3S kit from AliExpress for £275 Vs the "same" kit direct from PRUSA at £635.
You can even use Prusa's own extensive highly detailed manual to assemble your Chinese clone kit but I couldn't tell you if the quality of the parts will be any good. I can pretty much guarantee it won't even be close.
But this is getting a loooooong way off entry level user friendly.
Conclusion
Yes, there are definitely cheaper options out there. But these represent a gamble. Out of the box they may work just fine but the learning curve is a lot steeper. If there are issues, due to the multitude of settings, pinpointing which value needs to change can be a confusing lengthy frustrating process
These settings will also vary from printer to printer and with environment. You could look online, copy the exact same settings from someone using the same printer and material and get completely different results. If you're new to printing, it's exactly these kinds of headaches that can kill your enthusiasm. In my opinion it's just not worth the hassle. Been there done that, got the T-shirt. Now I just want it to work rather than having to work on it.
Edit: I feel the need, the need for SPEEEEEED
I can't believe I forgot one of the most important factors: speed.
Having now experienced the blistering speed of the core XY Bambu Labs printer I don't think I can go back. It prints the same part as the ender 5 plus in a quarter of the time and could go faster (but this can compromise the strength of the final part)
Where it comes into play is prototyping and iteration. I can make a print, have it less than half an hour later, make changes and go again.
There is a great explanation of what core XY is here:
hackaday.com
Disclaimer
I am in no way shape or form affiliated with Bambu Labs. I'm just a happy customer.
It's capable of printing up to 16 colours simultaneously and is the most "fire and forget" solution out there.
It has an optional upgrade called an AMS unit which holds 4 spools of filament which the printer automatically loads and unloads to give you 4 colour printing.
If you want 16 colours simultaneously you need another 3 AMS units.
There is no coding or construction required. I was up and running in less than half an hour.
The filament from Bambu Lab even has RFID chips built into the spool so the printer automatically recognises the filament type and colour and imports the print settings like temperature, flow etc.
I can guarantee with the DIY hands on attitude I've already seen on here that anyone could use it. Imagine a 3D printer built by apple.
It calibrates itself, will load and unload material, has LIDAR to check the first layer on the print bed and will continually monitor the print and stop itself if it detects a problem.
Modelling shouldn't be a barrier either with many free models available online. Just download them for free from Thingiverse , Printables or other sites, open up in their software, select you colour/material and hit print.
Fancy some extra rolling stock? Check out these coal wagons from Thingiverse:
12 Ton Coal waggon by dagnall53
This is a 1/32 scale "12 ton coal wagon" for G scale (45mm) garden railways. It is a remix of the open freight car 1:32 scale gauge 1 by UTJTrain, but because I work in 123D, I had to re-draw some of the parts. The body prints well if you use PLA, but attempts to print in ABS so far have...
www.thingiverse.com
Maybe you want a whole custom loco?
Printables has this awesome looking example:
Printables
www.printables.com
Quite often the only extra information you need is if support needs to be enabled and the designer usually lists the material used such as PLA or ASA with the material settings. This comes in to play when you have parts that have overhangs as due to the additive process of printing layer by layer, a 3D printer can of course not print in midair. (There are actually now ways to do this but let's not get into that now)
Of course you unlock the full potential with separate 3D design modelling software such as tinkercad, SketchUp, SOLIDWORKS etc but there's already plenty out there ready modelled to print.
The other most user friendly complete solution would be from PRUSA. Their MK4 is also an excellent printer but at just over £1k it's hard to recommend over the Bambu lab Carbon X1. It's still an excellent printer but getting the X1 without the AMS puts these in direct competition. The build volume is also smaller at 250x210x220mm
Bambu Lab also make a stripped down version of the X1 - the P1P:
It lacks the enclosed build volume of the X1, the lidar scanner and the touchscreen but that brings the price down to £550.
Enclosed heated build chambers only come in to play when printing higher performance materials such as ABS which can warp and detach from the print bed. The easy way round this is to use ASA which has basically the same materials properties as ABS which I can print just fine on my open Ender 5 plus.
The P1P has the same build volume as the X1 of 256x256x256mm which should be fine for most users. At £550 I'm not aware of any printer that comes close in terms of capabilities. Add to that, you can chose to upgrade it with panels to enclose it, upgrade the cooling fan and that it's even compatible with the AMS units, it's the one to buy if you're not too fussed about exotic materials that require a heated build chamber.
Filament
Something I haven't mentioned up to this point is the filament. I strongly recommend buying the filament from the manufacturer of the printer. Both PRUSA filament and Bambu Labs filament have been extensively tested with their machines and their software has the settings ready to go.
Ive run several different filaments from various manufacturers in my Ender 5 plus and this has caused plenty of issues. The grey PLA from Overture for example is dirt cheap at £18 for a 1kg spool but needs to have temperature and flow (the amount of filament pushed through the extruder) tinkered with substantially to get good results.
By comparison buying 4 spools directly from Bambu Labs works out roughly the sameafter shipping.
I'll still buy the cheap filament for the Ender 5+ but if you're looking at your first printer this is fantastic news for you.
Prusa's own PLA is also price competitive at £27 per 1kg spool
This is sounding a little one sided so I'll say this. A friend of mine runs a print shop. He started on Prusa printers and it's pretty much all he uses now having just bought a MK4.
I visited him yesterday and it's an excellent machine. Many professional printers run stables of exclusively Prusa printers due to their first rate support, excellent instructions and bomb proof hardware. They are an established brand that are only going up and are completely open sourced compared to the walled garden Bambu Labs approach.
Being completely open aource you could for example order a cheap Prusa MK3S kit from AliExpress for £275 Vs the "same" kit direct from PRUSA at £635.
You can even use Prusa's own extensive highly detailed manual to assemble your Chinese clone kit but I couldn't tell you if the quality of the parts will be any good. I can pretty much guarantee it won't even be close.
But this is getting a loooooong way off entry level user friendly.
Conclusion
Yes, there are definitely cheaper options out there. But these represent a gamble. Out of the box they may work just fine but the learning curve is a lot steeper. If there are issues, due to the multitude of settings, pinpointing which value needs to change can be a confusing lengthy frustrating process
These settings will also vary from printer to printer and with environment. You could look online, copy the exact same settings from someone using the same printer and material and get completely different results. If you're new to printing, it's exactly these kinds of headaches that can kill your enthusiasm. In my opinion it's just not worth the hassle. Been there done that, got the T-shirt. Now I just want it to work rather than having to work on it.
Edit: I feel the need, the need for SPEEEEEED
I can't believe I forgot one of the most important factors: speed.
Having now experienced the blistering speed of the core XY Bambu Labs printer I don't think I can go back. It prints the same part as the ender 5 plus in a quarter of the time and could go faster (but this can compromise the strength of the final part)
Where it comes into play is prototyping and iteration. I can make a print, have it less than half an hour later, make changes and go again.
There is a great explanation of what core XY is here:
Core XY Explained
If you are building a CNC machine, a 3D printer, or even a plotter, you have a need for motion in both the X and Y directions. There are many ways to accomplish this, for example, some printers mov…
Disclaimer
I am in no way shape or form affiliated with Bambu Labs. I'm just a happy customer.
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I think this answers my questions on viability for something I’m not likely to use a great deal…many thanks for the answers and comments. I’m on hols at the moment, but I may well PM you when I get back.
Cheers
Martin
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Wow, thanks for the reply. This one seems like the DB’s…but at a cost. Somehow I think I would not see any benefit from it as I’m not sure I will be using it that often to justify its cost.It depends entirely on budget. Let's go top of the range first. I recently purchased a Bambu lab Carbon X1 and an AMS unit which holds 4 rolls of filament. Total cost was £1,353.98 and they throw in some test spools of filament to get you going.
View attachment 318724
It's capable of printing up to 16 colours simultaneously and is the most "fire and forget" solution out there.
It has an optional upgrade called an AMS unit which holds 4 spools of filament which the printer automatically loads and unloads to give you 4 colour printing.
If you want 16 colours simultaneously you need another 3 AMS units.
View attachment 318723
There is no coding or construction required. I was up and running in less than half an hour.
The filament from Bambu Lab even has RFID chips built into the spool so the printer automatically recognises the filament type and colour and imports the print settings like temperature, flow etc.
I can guarantee with the DIY hands on attitude I've already seen on here that anyone could use it. Imagine a 3D printer built by apple.
It calibrates itself, will load and unload material, has LIDAR to check the first layer on the print bed and will continually monitor the print and stop itself if it detects a problem.
Modelling shouldn't be a barrier either with many free models available online. Just download them for free from Thingiverse , Printables or other sites, open up in their software, select you colour/material and hit print.
Fancy some extra rolling stock? Check out these coal wagons from Thingiverse:
12 Ton Coal waggon by dagnall53
This is a 1/32 scale "12 ton coal wagon" for G scale (45mm) garden railways. It is a remix of the open freight car 1:32 scale gauge 1 by UTJTrain, but because I work in 123D, I had to re-draw some of the parts. The body prints well if you use PLA, but attempts to print in ABS so far have...
Quite often the only extra information you need is if support needs to be enabled. This comes in to play when you have parts that have overhangs as due to the additive process of printing layer by layer, a 3D printer can of course not print in midair. (There are actually now ways to do this but let's not get into that now)
Of course you unlock the full potential with separate 3D design modelling software such as tinkercad, SketchUp, SOLIDWORKS etc but there's already plenty out there ready modelled to print.
The other most user friendly complete solution would be from PRUSA. Their MK4 is also an excellent printer but at just over £1k it's hard to recommend over the Bambu lab Carbon X1. It's still an excellent printer but getting the X1 without the AMS puts these in direct competition. The build volume is also smaller at 250x210x220mm
Bambu Lab also make a stripped down version of the X1 - the P1P.
It lacks the enclosed build volume of the X1, the lidar scanner and the touchscreen but that brings the price down to £550.
Enclosed heated build chambers only come in to play when printing higher performance materials such as ABS which can warp and detach from the print bed. The easy way round this is to use ASA which has basically the same materials properties as ABS which I can print just fine on my open Ender 5 plus.
The P1P has the same build volume as the X1 of 256x256x256mm which should be fine for most users. At £550 I'm not aware of any printer that comes close in terms of capabilities. Add to that that you can chose to upgrade it with panels to enclose it, upgrade the cooling fan and that it's even compatible with the AMS units, it's the one to buy.
Yes, there are definitely cheaper options out there. But these represent a gamble. Out of the box they may work just fine but the learning curve is a lot steeper. If there are issues, due to the multitude of settings, pinpointing which value needs to change can get very confusing.
Something I haven't mentioned up to this point is the filament. I strongly recommend buying the filament from the manufacturer of the printer. Both PRUSA filament and Bambu Labs filament have been extensively tested with their machines and their software has the settings ready to go.
Ive run several different filaments from various manufacturers in my Ender 5 plus and this has caused plenty of issues. The grey PLA from Overture for example is dirt cheap at £18 for a 1kg spool but needs to have temperature and flow (the amount of filament pushed through the extruder) tinkered with substantially to get good results.
These will also vary from printer to printer and with environment. You could look online, copy the exact same settings from someone using the same printer and material and get completely different results. If you're new to printing, it's exactly these kinds of headaches that can kil your enthusiasm. In my opinion it's just not worth the hassle. Been there done that, got the T-shirt. Now I just want it to work rather than having to work on it.
Thanks for pointing it out.
Cheers
Martin
Just to give some comparison in pricing, the Ender 3 Pro S1 is around £350, so significantly cheaper than the Bambu, but the user experience is not really comparable. It's the difference between a hobby level machine and a "prosumer" unit, designed for high levels of production and minimal operator knowledge or experience.
...and yes, if I had the money, I would buy a Bambu without hesitation, even with the high initial and running costs compared the to the Ender series.
...and yes, if I had the money, I would buy a Bambu without hesitation, even with the high initial and running costs compared the to the Ender series.
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when i bought my printer, i tried to sidestep these problems mentioned by PhilP.
i found a "ready to print" printer from XYZ. model "all in one".
seven by eight inches printbed. a scanner that turned out to be as usefull as a politician.
that was cool! pricetag plus postage was somewhat stiff, but who cares, its just money for a noble cause.
i even got the printbed level - ish.
to get the thing running, i had to register with the companies website - for the frequent updates and bugfixes. and to re-register with each change of pc.
the hardwired "example prints" printed like a marvel.
and then... as mentioned before, the learning curve got so steep, that i had to restrikt myself to free files from the internet and some minor variationes, that i could master.
anyhow, before this turns into a neverending story - i still print now and then. but more of the bigger items, that are easy to be aftertreated.
for small, detaield things i turned to molding with the bluestuff and two-part epoxies.
i found a "ready to print" printer from XYZ. model "all in one".
seven by eight inches printbed. a scanner that turned out to be as usefull as a politician.
that was cool! pricetag plus postage was somewhat stiff, but who cares, its just money for a noble cause.
i even got the printbed level - ish.
to get the thing running, i had to register with the companies website - for the frequent updates and bugfixes. and to re-register with each change of pc.
the hardwired "example prints" printed like a marvel.
and then... as mentioned before, the learning curve got so steep, that i had to restrikt myself to free files from the internet and some minor variationes, that i could master.
anyhow, before this turns into a neverending story - i still print now and then. but more of the bigger items, that are easy to be aftertreated.
for small, detaield things i turned to molding with the bluestuff and two-part epoxies.
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That's why I would say the smart buy is the Bambu Labs P1P. Essentially the same printer without some of the bells and whistles at £550. The fact that you can upgrade it to bring it very close to being a full X1 is fantastic. As far as I'm aware it's literally the same hardware, printhead, chassis etc.
Being compatible with their AMS unit is a real selling point too.
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I've been very happy with my Ender and the only reason they were not on the list was the user experience and support.
To be fair that is based largely (but not completely) on my experience with my ender 5+
To even make it useable I had to replace the control board with a "silent" version that substantially reduces the noise produced by the stepper motors. Before the upgrade, I couldn't run it at night even in a cupboard downstairs.
Thankfully the new silent board came preflashed with the correct firmware. If you go to creality's own website, their guide to flash the latest firmware is unusable and they even link to a YouTubers video and recommend using his custom firmware that fixes issues they still haven't fixed in their own firmware.
The comments on that page are full of people who now have printers that no longer work after flashing creality's firmware or are stuck in Chinese.
This lack of customer support isn't a thing of the past either with users reporting problems with their newest flagship K1 MAX printers.
For these reasons, even given price I would not recommend Creality products to a first time user with no existing knowledge or interest in 3D printing.
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A resin printer is definitely on my list. Again, seeing my buddy use his has given me some insights.
Lots of reviews are out there but this is the TLDR.
CONS
First and most critical is that resin parts are inherently brittle. You get tough resins but these are still not perfect. My mate prints small trays with built in funnels which are used in reloading stations to measure out the right amount of gunpowder pellets and load them into a waiting cartridge. Now these parts are fairly thin walled. The standard resin shatters with very little pressure. The tough resin version was better but still prone to shattering. Something both resins had in common was that the surface was very easy to scratch and discolour even with a finger nail. This is where hardness can work against you.
The fumes smell awful. He keeps his in the garage. Unless you live alone, your better half is unlikely to put up with it in the house.
It's very messy. You need a resin cleaning station as the prints come off the bed coated in liquid resin. This will drip everywhere. Excess resin needs to be cleaned off first in a bath. A worksurface with a raised lip is a must.
You really need a curing station. This is a turntable in an enclosure which slowly rotates and bathes the completed part in UV light. I think you can get away with leaving it in direct sunlight but it's not ideal.
PROS
Unrivaled resolution for fine details. This can work against you. Your model needs to be PERFECT. If you print a disk, you can see low resolution models will appear as a circle made up of straight line segments. More segments - higher resolution. SketchUp for example will show you a smooth curve on screen. You can then export the stl expecting a nice round disk and end up with the sides made up of a load of flat faces.
No visible layer lines as with FDM printers
Print in mid air. The tree like structure which is used to suspend the prints from the printbed which rises out of the resin bath can be finely attached to a part with little to no impact on the completed item once removed.
Stacking - want to print 40 barrels/ figures/ suitcases at once? No problem. You can fill the vertical print volume. With FDM printing multiple parts, once a space is taken up on the print bed, the vertical space is spoken for.
Size - resin printers generally have much smaller build volumes. You can of course get large print volume machines too but the prices rise fairly steeply.
It's horses for courses. If you want fine detail for small items it's hard to beat resin.
If on the other hand you want large robust functional parts it's FDM.
But it's definitely a case of "why not both? Both is good"
Taking my turntable as an example, the rivet plate details would be an ideal candidate for resin printing and would definitely bump the overall quality up a notch.
Never mind what I said about TLDR.
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Your best shot would be the Bambu Lab P1P. At that price point nothing comes close in terms of novice user friendliness.
PLA is easiest to print but will bend and deform at 60C. Unless you particularly need high impact resistance it should be fine for most prints. Even PLA parts will take quite a lot abuse. I would ignore the "biodegradable" claims. Plenty of test out there with parts buried in soil for years with no appreciable deterioration.
Having now printed in ASA on the X1 I can tell you it's a bit smelly even with the integrated charcoal filter. But not nearly as bad as ABS.
Printed just as well as PLA even in two colours. (No fiddling with settings)
By contrast the Apollo X ASA filament printed without a heated enclosure on my ender 5 plus with no detectable smell. It is however more expensive at £36 per 750g spool on Amazon.
In terms of nozzle 0.4mm is standard and your best all round bet. It's all I use. If you want to do very fine small detail you can always get a smaller nozzle, the reverse if you want faster lower detail prints.
The X1 came with spare nozzle too which is nice to have.
In terms of print settings, any spool will give you it's temperature range, print bed temperature and print speeds.
With Prusa and Bambu lab printers and filaments, you can of course just pick the material from a list and the settings will take care of themselves. Other manufacturers may well do this too now but I haven't done the research.
Material cost is negligible. A 1Kg spool of PLA should last for several train cars. I can slice the coal trucks mentioned above as an example and give you a total of grams of filament used. If I'm not mistaken both the P1P and X1 even provide a cost estimate including electricity.
In terms of print quality, all current gen machines should produce similar quality prints, just with different learning curves and user friendliness.
There are many professional print services online like shapeways but cost may add up fairly quickly.
I've used shapeways in the past to print with SLS (selective laser sintering). You can even get parts printed in metal by them.
There are also plenty of home gamer printers that will do the job for you. There will be websites out there that will put you in touch with them. I've even seen people with Bambu Lab, Prusa and Creality machines advertising their services on Facebook marketplace.
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Have been running an Ender 3 for 4 years and an Ultimaker S5 (at work) for a year.
Yes - the Ender series are cheap and have a good community following. However, they do require a lot of learning to get working 'properly'. Not so bad with the 'S1' series, but its still a 'cheap' printer. You need to assemble and setup the printer very carefully and accurately, If not, getting a good print is a major job. I have seen many people have to dismantle and rebuild to get the frame straight to actually get a print out.
Ultimaker - whilst I would not recommend spending the money on them, you basically unbox it, plug it in, print stuff. As far as the getting printing experience goes, a working out of the box printer is by far the best way to go - this allows you to spend time modelling rather than hours trying to get the print to just stick to the bed.
I now have 4 friends who have bought Bambu's - all P1S's (a slightly upgraded version of the P1P). They have all done the Ender route, and love the Bambu. I have played with one and regard the print quality better than the £7K Ultimaker.
When funds allow, I will be getting a Bambu P1S. As Polarblair has said, they are in the 'unbox and print' category.
Yes - the Ender series are cheap and have a good community following. However, they do require a lot of learning to get working 'properly'. Not so bad with the 'S1' series, but its still a 'cheap' printer. You need to assemble and setup the printer very carefully and accurately, If not, getting a good print is a major job. I have seen many people have to dismantle and rebuild to get the frame straight to actually get a print out.
Ultimaker - whilst I would not recommend spending the money on them, you basically unbox it, plug it in, print stuff. As far as the getting printing experience goes, a working out of the box printer is by far the best way to go - this allows you to spend time modelling rather than hours trying to get the print to just stick to the bed.
I now have 4 friends who have bought Bambu's - all P1S's (a slightly upgraded version of the P1P). They have all done the Ender route, and love the Bambu. I have played with one and regard the print quality better than the £7K Ultimaker.
When funds allow, I will be getting a Bambu P1S. As Polarblair has said, they are in the 'unbox and print' category.
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At £15 - £40 per kilo for filament or resin, i would suggest that raw material cost is not negligible. A typical g scale box van could be 250g+ of filament, so although much cheaper than purchasing ready made, the cost needs to be budgeted for.
I sell a lot of parts printed on my Ender 3s, and get very few complaints, if any. I would like a Bambu to reduce print time and improve consistency, but for low volumes, you can get more than acceptable results from hobby grade printers. It's just the learning curve is much harder.
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All done on a Creality Ender3 V2 which is an entry level machine ($350 AUD), I had to assemble it but it was only a case of, "fit PartA to PartB, using supplied screw and allen key, tighten" nothing dramatic at all.
ringbalin-light-railway.blogspot.com
All 10 wagons cost less than $30 Aust Dollars (£15) for the filament, when compared to buy even these cheap wagons the cost of buying the printer is justified in my case.
Setting up the printer did take some time (about an hour newer offerings have less assembly times), but I look at it as another hobby to play with that has benefits.
Thingaverse is a source of of file for models,
The process entails;
down load a file
put it into a slicer (they are available free for download on the net) by opening the file and selecting "open",
slice it (a click of the mouse) and "save" it to a folder a click in the slicer.
transfer the file to small SD card
put SD card into slot on printer
select the file and click "print"
All it takes is enough tech smarts to be capable of saving and moving files (drag and drop) some thing that most people can do.
If I was buying a printer to start out with I would choose this one, it takes less time to assemble, has auto bed leveling as standard (I bought a leveler called a BL Touch and it make thinga so much easier) and auto filament loading plus other stuff to improve prints.
I do not have any affiliation with the manufacturer just drooling over this one and trying to figure out how to get it past SWMBO.
As for enclosures these offer some promise (read cheap)
Hunter Valley Coal Hopper
I found this model on Thingverse at this link Non air Hopper , it was exactly what I was looking for as I have been considering scratch bu...
ringbalin-light-railway.blogspot.com
All 10 wagons cost less than $30 Aust Dollars (£15) for the filament, when compared to buy even these cheap wagons the cost of buying the printer is justified in my case.
G Scale Flat Car - Suitable For SM32/SM45 | eBay
(G Scale Flat car made using wood and plastic - Suitable for SM32/SM45. " your FLAT CAR is ready to roll ". Link and 2Nos. Pins for coupler pockets. These were first developed for my own Garden Railway - hope you enjoy building yours : ).
www.ebay.com.au
Setting up the printer did take some time (about an hour newer offerings have less assembly times), but I look at it as another hobby to play with that has benefits.
Thingaverse is a source of of file for models,
The process entails;
down load a file
put it into a slicer (they are available free for download on the net) by opening the file and selecting "open",
slice it (a click of the mouse) and "save" it to a folder a click in the slicer.
transfer the file to small SD card
put SD card into slot on printer
select the file and click "print"
All it takes is enough tech smarts to be capable of saving and moving files (drag and drop) some thing that most people can do.
If I was buying a printer to start out with I would choose this one, it takes less time to assemble, has auto bed leveling as standard (I bought a leveler called a BL Touch and it make thinga so much easier) and auto filament loading plus other stuff to improve prints.
I do not have any affiliation with the manufacturer just drooling over this one and trying to figure out how to get it past SWMBO.
As for enclosures these offer some promise (read cheap)
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The models available with the link the OP provided are not all good for 3D printing. 3D printing usually requires an STL file which is from a solid modeling program expressed with primitive shapes and boolean operations to combine or cut from each other. Files for/from games etc. are mesh files typically made up of triangles which are for rendering on a screen. Triangles are used because no matter which way it is rotated, the rendering is uninterrupted from edge to edge for each horizontal line when displayed on the screen where as a quad could be concave requiring on a more intensive rendering algorithm. There are conversion programs available though but each part of any tech will have it's foibles. 3D printing requires a lot of fiddling to get a good print, sometimes needing to be put on strange angles or the addition of many supports to avoid distortion. Often there are more supports in volume than model each needing to be removed without damage. Like most things in life, Everything is easy to the uninitiated. 3D printing definitely has it's place but it is no skip in the park except for the most simplest of objects. Artifacts such as visible layer lines and limited print size can be problematic. Resin printing can be more detailed but still has it's artifacts and can be a bit messy. Consumer devices only last a certain time before failing so add that to the cost of each print. Industrial level devices cost far more but only a little better in finished quality. 
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I hadn't thought of the P1S but it's probably the one to get over the P1P to get the enclosed build volume as standard. It has the same cooling fan and charcoal filter as the X1 too as well as the camera to monitor prints.
I hand't mentioned the app before either. Being able to get a notification that your part is done or a notification that you've run out of filament while you're out and about is pretty handy.
Having the same camera feed and controls over the printer showing you what filament is loaded, how much is left etc in their software is pretty handy too.
You don't need an AMS or a touchscreen. That being said, having a backup spool of filament ready to go is handy. Anyone that has been printing for a while will have collected a bunch of spools with maybe 100g or less of filament still on it that can only now be used for smaller prints. The AMS can be told to switch to the backup spool so you can use every last bit without having to change filament mid print.
Usually that's a fairly trivial matter. Most printers have a filament run out sensor that will pause the print and wait for the new filament to be loaded. But that pause can in some cases give the print a chance to detach from the build surface wasting everything that's already been printed.
For me it's a time waste issue. If the printer runs out at midnight, I've wasted all that time until the morning when instead I could have just had the finished part.
I like the AMS enough to have bought a second unit. I doubt I will ever be printing in 8 colours simultaneously. But it lets me keep my support material for PLA, PETG, a grey and a black spool of ASA, some tough PLA and 3 more colours of PLA loaded ready to go.
But that's just for convenience and laziness. Loading and unloading from the AMS is a doddle. Highly recommended it.
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That seems a good price for a printer/combo set up. From what you have said, it would appear to be a lot easier than I first thought. I’ve seen Thingiverse, and there is a lot on there that is interesting. I suppose slicing programs are fairly easy to use and I’m more than capablE of dragg8ng and dropping files. I have quite a large, expensive and powerful computer sitting there gathering dust since I stopped DTP and website work. It might be worth a dabble, although there were comments about this manufacturer’s back up performance in an earlier thread.All done on a Creality Ender3 V2 which is an entry level machine ($350 AUD), I had to assemble it but it was only a case of, "fit PartA to PartB, using supplied screw and allen key, tighten" nothing dramatic at all.
Hunter Valley Coal Hopper
I found this model on Thingverse at this link Non air Hopper , it was exactly what I was looking for as I have been considering scratch bu...
All 10 wagons cost less than $30 Aust Dollars (£15) for the filament, when compared to buy even these cheap wagons the cost of buying the printer is justified in my case.
G Scale Flat Car - Suitable For SM32/SM45 | eBay
(G Scale Flat car made using wood and plastic - Suitable for SM32/SM45. " your FLAT CAR is ready to roll ". Link and 2Nos. Pins for coupler pockets. These were first developed for my own Garden Railway - hope you enjoy building yours : ).www.ebay.com.au
Setting up the printer did take some time (about an hour newer offerings have less assembly times), but I look at it as another hobby to play with that has benefits.
Thingaverse is a source of of file for models,
The process entails;
down load a file
put it into a slicer (they are available free for download on the net) by opening the file and selecting "open",
slice it (a click of the mouse) and "save" it to a folder a click in the slicer.
transfer the file to small SD card
put SD card into slot on printer
select the file and click "print"
All it takes is enough tech smarts to be capable of saving and moving files (drag and drop) some thing that most people can do.
If I was buying a printer to start out with I would choose this one, it takes less time to assemble, has auto bed leveling as standard (I bought a leveler called a BL Touch and it make thinga so much easier) and auto filament loading plus other stuff to improve prints.
I do not have any affiliation with the manufacturer just drooling over this one and trying to figure out how to get it past SWMBO.
As for enclosures these offer some promise (read cheap)
Thanks for simplifying things…what filament is recommended, I can see different types mentioned…matte etc.
Cheers
Martin
There are heaps of YouTube how to videos for the Ende3V2 from assembly,bed levelling all the way through to fitting a BL Touch sensor.
The best ones I have found are BV3D (Brian Vines) and Filament Friday (CHEP).
The Creality slicer is based on Cura a popular slicer and is free to download if you wanted to have a play (evaluate).
For a CAD I use TinkerCad which is educational software for teaching kids (I fitted into the category quite well) it is cloud based also free to download for playing (evaluation) purposes.
A member of this forum ge_rik has put together excellent tutorials on how to use Tinkercad plus his experiences of starting out in 3D printing.
riksrailway.blogspot.com
riksrailway.blogspot.com
I use PLA+ filament which is supposedly better than plain PLA
The best ones I have found are BV3D (Brian Vines) and Filament Friday (CHEP).
The Creality slicer is based on Cura a popular slicer and is free to download if you wanted to have a play (evaluate).
For a CAD I use TinkerCad which is educational software for teaching kids (I fitted into the category quite well) it is cloud based also free to download for playing (evaluation) purposes.
A member of this forum ge_rik has put together excellent tutorials on how to use Tinkercad plus his experiences of starting out in 3D printing.
Peckforton Light Railway
Narrow gauge large scale model garden railway. Battery powered, radio controlled locomotives, some Bluetooth. Set in Cheshire UK in 1930s
riksrailway.blogspot.com
Contents
Narrow gauge large scale model garden railway. Battery powered, radio controlled locomotives, some Bluetooth. Set in Cheshire UK in 1930s
riksrailway.blogspot.com
I use PLA+ filament which is supposedly better than plain PLA
PLA vs. PLA+: Differences and Comparisons
Learn about these two materials commonly used in 3D printing applications.
www.xometry.com
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