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Forum Index : Microcontroller and PC projects : 3D Printers - Machine and Software
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| Andrew_G Guru  Joined: 18/10/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 847 |
G'day all, From time to time I look at buying a 3D printer. I understand that I need to be comfortable with both the machine and the software. This article in PC Magazine reviews a number of 3D printers. I'm interested in what Shedders know (and think). I know the topic regularly pops up here but I haven't seen it discussed for a while. It has been spurred on by needing some 'inverted mushroom-like' feet to protect the new carpet ( 12 required for one bed alone at ~Au$6.50 each from one hardware chain). I'd be looking at a mid to good-range machine that is relatively easy to program and use. The main use will be enclosures and small fittings. I'm NOT into figurines etc. I'm proficient with Sketchup-free but don't want to be locked into expensive propriety software requiring annual subscriptions etc. Any comments? Cheers, Andrew |
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Martin H. Guru Joined: 04/06/2022 Location: GermanyPosts: 1113 |
the equipment of both I got stuck Workhorse :Creality 3D – Ender-4 Slicer :Ultimaker Cura 5.4 CAD Software :Tinkercad. The technology has now developed further. Since I don't come from a 3D design background, creating the model is more of a challenge than the printing itself Edited 2023-12-13 16:05 by Martin H. 'no comment |
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| EDNEDN Senior Member  Joined: 18/02/2023 Location: United StatesPosts: 118 |
I'm not sure the plastic layers are going to be strong enough to stay together with a couch pressing on them and moving around.... |
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Chopperp Guru Joined: 03/01/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1057 |
Hi Andrew Thanks for the PC Mag ref. I've had a Cocoon Create from Aldi for over 6 years & coming to the end of it's life with few spare parts available so I'm sort of looking for an update. Its a shame most of the demo programs do show figurines & not practical stuff but I do suppose they do show what the printers supposedly can do. My main advice would be to get a printer with the largest build area you can get/afford. Mine is 200 x 200 x 180mm & I sometimes I've had to turn longer slim builds at an angle to fit them across the plate or do them in parts. I use OpenSCAD for designing my projects. There's plenty of help available for that. I've tried other programs but gave up. (Each to their own). I use Cura to actually drive the printer (slicer) You will find that once you start printing stuff, you will think of all sorts of things you can print as well. For instance, I had a broken surround for a 4 way terminal block so I drew up another one & printed it out today. See SCAD drawing below. The item came out almost identical although I did print it on it's side.  They are good for enclosures etc, but the finishes can be a bit rough. One thing, 3D printing is NOT fast, it can be very slow, depending on size, quality etc. Printing out 12 suitable feet will take a while. You will need to do a few test runs to check strength etc. Hope this helps. (Got me thinking again about a new one anyway) Brian ChopperP |
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Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1024 |
PETG is quite strong after printing, probably robust enough for table feet ABS is strong if you know how to use it and skilled enough, if not it can brake apart and fail. PETG is my GOTO for most things now.  I haven't kept up with 3D printers for a while, but the Ender3 has been very popular for years, mostly because everyone modded the hell out of it, then the next version was built with those mods and so on. I use and Ender 5 it works well but even better after a few mods and upgrades. This place has done reviews and a great many machines and has been very helpful solving issues that crop up when using any printer.  https://all3dp.com/1/best-3d-printer-reviews-top-3d-printers-home-3-d-printer-3d/ If you get a printer, you must be prepared to workout all the little fussy things that can happen, more on that some other time. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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TassyJim Guru Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6098 |
The carpet protectors from the big green shed are fairly good. I think the home made ones wouldn't be smooth enough to slide easily. Jim VK7JH MMedit MMBasic Help |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1024 |
This will be fun, be a good idea to check what materials the printers will print, and if they will have the power to run large size nozzles and printing can be much faster, especially for something like bench feet. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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Justplayin Guru Joined: 31/01/2014 Location: United StatesPosts: 326 |
Have you considered using "furniture sliders" to protect your carpet? They also make it easier to move heavy furniture around. I have a set under a 1950s stereo cabinet which has a 57" TV on top and I can slide it around on the carpet by myself. I think it would be nice to able to 3D print enclosures for my Mite projects. Unfortunately, I don't think I could handle design modeling and don't have money to spare to find out. --Curtis I am not a Mad Scientist... It makes me happy inventing new ways to take over the world!! |
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SimpleSafeName Guru Joined: 28/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 319 |
I'm a big fan of my Qidi X-Max3, which to be honest, has had no end of problems. But Qidi has never failed to step up and send me the parts (for free) to fix it. It's fast, much more reliable than it once was, and the prints are beautiful. Format is 325mm x 325mm x 315mm IIRC. So far has printed everything that I have sent its way with no complaints. It's printed out over 400 toys for "Toys For Tots" here in the States. So that's my vote on what I like, he's what you should look for (IMHO): Delta or Cartesian? Don't be a dunce, choose cartesian. Deltas are beyond fiddly, and their dimensions are off from the get-go. Want to build something 10cm x 10cm? Start by specifying something along the lines of 9.8cm x 10.2cm. Seriously. Bed slinger or Core XY? That one is tougher. The core XY has less mass to move around (the bed only moves vertically), while a "bed-slinger" does exactly that, slings its bed back and forth. Not a recipe for faster prints. I would go Core XY. Enclosed or open? Enclosed offers (along with a hi-temp hotend) offer the potential to print a wider array of materials. The Qidi takes it a step further and offers a heated enclosure (not to be confused with a heated bed). If at all possible, go with the enclosure. Clipper or Duet for controllers. With the aid of a Raspberry Pi, or compatible, you can convert your grandad's 3D printer to something a bit more modern with much higher speed. A lot of this is in thanks to Clipper and things like input shaping where you test the limits of your machine using vibration analysis and that becomes the upper limit of your output. Then there's Duet, which while expensive, is about as bulletproof and as fast clipper. I would say that a good setup from Big Tree Tech (BTT) will serve you well, but for me I plan on using a Duet for my big printer. Bowden tube, or direct drive for the filament feed? Direct drive comes with a mass penalty since the extruder is mounted on top of the hotend. But DD allows you to run material such as TPU which is very compressible. Kinda like pushing a string... Go DD (Direct Drive). Big or little? Don't be silly. Big. Tool changer or MMU (multiple Material Unit)? Tool changers showed quite a bit of attention about three years ago, and since then have apparently died from a meteor strike. As annoying as MMUs are, I would take the safe route and go MMU. Then there are all kinds of various hotend setups out there. Way above my attention span. But the ability to pump out ~30CC's of plastic per second is a good goal to shoot for. Places to go to get an *educated* opinion: AuroraTech on YouTube. She's awesome and very thorough. Out of around 100 reviews, she has endorsed eight machines. 3DPrintSOS on YouTube. Fun and very helpful site that usually has two live feeds where we all hang out and chit-chat while we watch Fedor do all of the work. Already has a Kiwi there, we need an Ozzie for balance. Look for MrWaalkman there, that's me. Edited 2023-12-13 17:04 by SimpleSafeName |
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| Andrew_G Guru Joined: 18/10/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 847 |
Hi folks, Thanks. Keep the help coming. Much appreciated. For example, I had assumed that the 'plastic' would be as strong a 'bought' mouldings. Jim picked it in one. This is what I was thinking of ~ replicating. Just printing the mushroom with a threaded bolt/machine screw up the centre of a substantial post for strength (the hex head let into the base a little). It looks like the Bunnings one pivots a little but I was going to do it fixed. (Being honest - this is possibly just an excuse to get a machine past the scrutineer . . .) Andrew |
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| TassyJim Guru Joined: 07/08/2011 Location: AustraliaPosts: 6098 |
I went the cheap way. https://www.bunnings.com.au/surface-gard-60mm-round-castor-cups-4-pack_p4050165 They used to come in few different sizes but I can only see one size on their web site. Save the printer for something useful like a stubby holder. Jim VK7JH MMedit MMBasic Help |
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| SimpleSafeName Guru Joined: 28/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 319 |
We've had 3D printed parts out-perform parts made of Delrin. But that was because the Delrin parts were made by a local machine shop at ~$300 per order. At that price no one was going to fiddle with the design and just accepted their 2-4 week lifespan. When we started printing them it allowed us to incrementally improve the design until we were getting six months out of a part. Which was about $0.25 worth of material. But while some materials are pretty tough, it's hard to beat injection molded parts. |
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| SimpleSafeName Guru Joined: 28/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 319 |
I'm a big fan of OpenSCAD! :) Currently I'm using the nightly builds. I'm running "OpenSCAD version 2023.11.24 (git 6ca75dd4e)" at the moment. |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1024 |
 I use it a lot, it will do most things we need, don't expect figurines, animals etc from OpenScad, other programs for that and probably better to use Resin printers for that stuff. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| Chopperp Guru Joined: 03/01/2018 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1057 |
Just checked mine....2021.01, better look at updating. Thanks. Can do interesting shapes though just using the basic commands. This one was a bit of a challenge working from a 2D drawing.  Brian EDIT Checked updates. Could only find 2021.10 on Github EDIT 2, Found new version Edited 2023-12-13 18:43 by Chopperp ChopperP |
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| matherp Guru Joined: 11/12/2012 Location: United KingdomPosts: 9116 |
SimpleSafeName offers good advice but sounds like he is coming at it from the perspective of a professional user. His recommendations put you into the semi-professional market in terms of facilities (and cost). I've got three home-built Prusa machines (the early versions are easy to make from scratch) and a Ender 3 V2. All now work reliably after years of tweaking and modifying. For example, my Ender 3 V2 has been modified as follows: Mod to have dual Z-axis lead screws Mod to replace original with E3D hot-end Mod to replace extruder with all-metal dual drive Mod to replace bed with flexible metal print surface Mod to add BL-touch height sensor The latest Ender 3 (S1?) has some of these already done. The biggest change for newcomers though is in the availability of supporting software. The key to good prints is the profile of the printer in the slicer. This sets things like temperature, extrusion rates, accelerations. It used to be that getting these right was very much a case of trial and (many) error(s) I now use PrusaSlicer for everything (free). It has profiles for a wide range of filaments and printers and seems to produce g-code which just works in all cases. In terms of filament, there are now PLA variants that are easy to use and cover most use-cases (and doesn't need a heated enclosure). The latest one I'm using has a gel-temperature of 140C so can be used in many cases where ABS would have been used before. PETG is good but can be "stringy" and you need to be careful with PEI beds as it can be almost impossible to remove. If you really need flexible prints then TPU is good but in this case, as noted above, you need a machine with a direct drive extruder so this may be a determinant for the decision on machine (although Ender 3 can be modded to direct drive). In terms of the OPs original "requirement", I would have no issue in printing these in one of the PLA+ variants. These print at hotter temperatures than straight PLA and have much better layer adherence and are tough. |
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| PhenixRising Guru Joined: 07/11/2023 Location: United KingdomPosts: 859 |
Buddy is obsessed with 3d printing but he's selling all ten of his printers to go with two Qidi machines. The enclosure is the big thing and of course the speed. But SimpleSafeName: "I'm a big fan of my Qidi X-Max3, which to be honest, has had no end of problems." I'll pass this on. Been reading about PETG recently (I don't currently print) and yeah, that's some amazing material. I find this to be mind-blowing |
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| SimpleSafeName Guru Joined: 28/07/2019 Location: United StatesPosts: 319 |
But you can import a .STL into OpenSCAD and the use it to add things like custom supports. Or if a .STL had some areas that Meshmixer couldn't fix without removing a large chunk you can apply a patch using OpenSCAD. |
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| Revlac Guru Joined: 31/12/2016 Location: AustraliaPosts: 1024 |
Just checked the latest one, and its for Win10 onward, I have win8, no plans to upgrade windows.  I have done that sometimes and I'm not that good at Meshmixer yet mostly used it ti repair a few meshes in some downloaded designs. I have imported some things done with Inkscape using an Extension but it can be a little troublesome for me, Done a fair bit with Inkscape for laser cutting, had a lot of fun with that stuff. Cheers Aaron Off The Grid |
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| IanT Regular Member  Joined: 29/11/2016 Location: United KingdomPosts: 87 |
I've run a Sovol SV01 for some three (maybe four) years now. It cost a little more than others at the time but came with a lot of things that were 'options' or (DIY) 'upgrades' on cheaper ones. Things like a powered head (instead of a bowden feed), heated bed and easy to use levelers that were all generally not standard at the time. I haven't looked closely at their current budget printer (the SV06) but it looks very well spec'ed. My SV01 has been very reliable and can print using most materials... When I started out in '3D', a friend suggested using Open SCAD and I found it very easy to design simple (single) objects, such as hose adaptors and DC motor/servo mounts etc. There are also a lot of SCAD designs on Thingiverse that you can easily adapt to your specific needs (if the source text file is made available). However, SCAD didn't meet all my engineering requirements and I found more complex designs (e.g. assemblies) got a bit overwhelming. I'd used TurboCAD 2D for over 20 years so decided to upgrade to a 2D/3D (hybrid) CAD system - Solid Edge - Community Edition, which I've been using for about three years now, with every satisfaction. It's free to download (no cloud) but only runs on Windows - I have it on Win10 and Win11 (both Home Editions) I've been able to import all my TC 2D work into SE 2D 'Draft' documents and in some cases have transformed them into SE 3D 'parts'. I love the fact that I can design parts, test them, change them and at a touch of a button update everyting (e.g. it's fully parametric) including the associated (dimensioned) engineering drawings. A full 3D CAD does take effort to learn (mostly perseverence really) but I consider it time very well spent. I'm now moving into CNC routers (3018 style) and based on my Sovol experience, I chose one that came with everything I thought I might need in the longer term - linear rails & ballscrews on all 3 axis for example, which hopefully will also extend it's useful life. Cost a bit more initially ofcourse but Black Friday helped! Solid Edge can export .STEP files to the CAM/G-Code sender I'm using, so again well worth learning a full 3D CAD longer term I beleive. Regards, IanT Regards, IanT Edited 2023-12-13 21:17 by IanT |
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