I you were starting a print farm...

[Dan Flemming]

I finally have most of my products ready to sell.

I'm confident they are going to be a big hit too.

(Setup a display on Saturday to see if there was any interest and sold a few items quickly)

I'v got to decide on the best way forward (temporary till products produce enough cash-flow to injection mold).

I have an Ender 3 v2 with many upgrades, but adding up all upgrades is $600+-.

I need to print fairly fast with good quality (currently printing with Sonic Pad 150mm inner/100mm outer walls, decent quality)

I'll buy printers as the cash-flow allows.

What do you think would be the best way to proceed from here?

1) Upgraded Ender's with sonic Pad's

2) Core XY's

3) Bamboo Labs X1 Carbon

4) Other

I'd appreciate the suggestions,

D

[EJ]

Me personally I would say Bamboo Labs. And if you dont need the bells and whistles. Go with the P1P, its alot cheaper with same bones of the X1C. It will reduce production time and has a great quality from what I see on TikTok.

[James Fackert]

Bambu X1 is incredible in terms of performance, durability, serviceability, parts service, consistent quality.

Ours has been a total game changer for us. 

We used to spend well over half our printer time adjusting,  tuning, servicing,  and waiting for parts on our prusas.

We hesitated to choose 3d printing  for making fixtures and jigs when we could do it with a band saw and drill press.

Now we don't hesitate to print whatever is needed, 

And we don't hesitate to change materials as needed, since the printer quickly retunes itself to different filament, including filled nylons etc.

And it is stinking FAST.

Total game changer.

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[Kurt at VRFX]

I agree with James - it is indeed a bit of a Game Changer. I've been lucky enough to have my hands on a Carbon X1 lately - great stuff indeed. And, multicolor printers are AMAZING!

That's got me thinking. I may even go back to one of my older projects and see if I could get them printed on the Bambu. Maybe even attempt PCTG w/PLA supports - if I can force the Bambu to actually do that.

But, Dan - in your case - its a Pricey machine. So - don't you think you need to sell more product before you have extra cash flow to afford the Bambu?

Alternately - if you went the KickStarter route, and your designs that you sell are related to each other - then maybe do a KS campaign - and part of the campaign would be based around getting maybe Several Bambus - so you could ramp up production!

Just a thought...

-K

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[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Too Bad the Bambu is such a small build area and a single extruder.

[Kurt at VRFX]

Yes - Andy, quite true. But, its FAST. And, as such - you can print a lot of small to med. sized pieces relativly quickly. And, although 1 Extruder - its does an AMAZING Job of swapping between filaments!

-K

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[Alan B]

Well, shucks. My boring old Prusa MK3 just keeps on printing. I've got spare parts sitting on the shelf gathering dust and the printer just goes on and on. I've printed hundreds of spools of filament and many thousands of prints on the one MK3 printer. I did have one of those rare nozzle clogs a couple days ago, and swapped in a new nozzle. Didn't even bother to try to cold pull and clean it which I usually do, nozzles are about 50 cents for the clones and six bucks for the real E3D's. I generally run the clones, but this time I swapped in a real Prusa nozzle. I have spares for literally everything in this printer, including another full kit still in the box. When I bought it the MK3 was brand new and the lead times were long and my business became dependent on it, so I bought a spare kit, and I bought spares of all the usual things - belts, bearings, hotends, thermistors, heaters, nozzles, etc. All readily available and inexpensive. Plus all the Prusa upgrades as they came out. All on the shelf, ready. I could drop a Revo in it if I needed quick nozzle changes, but that would make nozzles significantly more costly. It's a drop in replacement hotend though which is nice. As are many other hotends. We have a wide array of choices, and new ones are coming out all the time.

At one point I decided to install a Dragon hotend, an easy drop-in replacement for the stock E3D V6. Lots of available mods from Prusa and others are readily available if desired. Figured when it needed a major overhaul I would put in all the Prusa mods. They are still sitting on the shelf here, waiting. It has never needed such an overhaul. Still on the original everything except for nozzles and the hotend changed to Dragon (that didn't need changing). I did change the parts fan to get a bit more cooling, and the old one was getting noisy. So there's a fan swap on the list that would have been changed if I hadn't upgraded it.

The only maintenance required has been nozzles and occasionally greasing the bearings following the Prusa procedure (no disassembly) and that one fan. Plus the occasional wipe down and removing the dust and filament bits. I did add a Pi3b+ running Octoprint early on. The teflon tubing in the printhead has been changed a couple of times. Very minor, and very minimal downtime.

During this time the firmware has improved many times, and the slicer has improved dramatically. Apparently Bambu agrees, as they are leveraging the slicer.

Prusa contributes to our 3d printing small business and hobby ecosystem in ways that no other manufacturer does. Readily available mods and improvements if I want them, no dependence on foreign servers, easy to make spare printed parts if I need them. Improvements to the open slicers, online web hosting for designs, encouraging designers to release products with contests, etc. Good to support that by buying their product(s).

The spare MK3 printer is still in the box here. A full set of spare parts. Or a second printer if I decide to.

The Prusa MK3 is quiet, it runs in my office only a few steps from the master bedroom. From what I hear the Bambu printers would not be compatible with my use-case due to excessive noise. I run the Prusa overnight and we can't tell if it is running or not 20 feet away. With the open frame the Prusa takes a lot less space on my bench and is more compatible with other things around it and on shelving behind it than a fully enclosed box printer would be.

The build area on the Prusa has been sufficient for 99% of my needs. I have an Artillery Sidewinder X1 downstairs when I need something larger, which is pretty much never. I want the build area to be sufficient to put enough parts on so the print run will take 5-10 hours so it is efficient for my schedule. The MK3 has enough for that. I don't really want longer runs because if there is a problem more time and material is wasted. It's a good size for my use-case.

I'd prefer print quality and reduced noise over speed, I'd probably run a Bambu at reduced speed for best quality as many others do. High speeds also increase wear which leads to more maintenance. I don't have to wait for spare parts, they are all on hand, and with many suppliers the cost can be very low. Manufacturers have learned that carbon fiber rods with bearings running on them aren't a good long term component to put in a 3d printer, so there will likely be repercussions there at some point.

All in all, the Prusa has been the best tool investment I have ever made. Boring after the initial honeymoon thrill of 3d printing wears off, but still productive and reliable. Much faster to start a print and quieter than a Bambu, as well as lower cost to maintain, and highly moddable. And I don't have to send it off to the manufacturer for nontrivial service or allow it to talk to some foreign network server. Prusa has US support now which I've never needed since we have full access to parts and information already. And open firmware, if I care to hack it I can. I haven't needed to but would not hesitate if there was a reason. Not really an option with Bambu.

Buy a Bambu if you like, but the Prusa has been and still is a rock solid performer, and the lower cost of maintenance will save substantial money in the long run - total cost of ownership is dominated by supplies and maintenance, the original investment is only a small fraction of the whole. Prusa is still supporting the upgraded model when most manufacturers have moved on and the user has to re-invest to stay on the supported list. We really don't know much about the long term support costs of a Bambu yet.

It's good to have choices.

Happy Printing,

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[jfka...@gmail.com]

I'd say if the Ender does what you need, stick with it and keep adding more. More printers are better for a farm and keeping them the same brand lessens the amount of parts you need to keep on hand. They are inexpensive and do good work. 2 printers will most likely do more work than a 1 more expensive printer. 

[3D Printing Tips and Tricks]

Alan’s description of his mkiii brings up an interesting point. My 3 highly upgraded ten year old rep2s seem to live without any servicing indefinitely. For that matter all my other machines do too! I’ve yet to have a 3d printer need any kind of overhaul or for that matter wear out at all including those that use delrin rollers.