3D Printer - crowdfunding?

[Stanto]

The 3D printers we have are in various states and work is gradually progressing to get them working.

A few people have suggested we should buy an off the shelf printer so we have one guaranteed working and at least under a form of warranty.

So, I ask:

- What 3D printer if any should we aim to get?
- Once this is decided, after options are listed and thrown around, are people prepared to throw money into buying it?

The upsized mendelmax that members are currently fixing was originally crowdsourced by members, so this isn't a new idea for the Hackspace in general :)

Thoughts?

[Owen Grein]

My home printer at the moment is one of the CTC replicator clones and i am extremely happy with it, only cost £275 and it produces some pretty nice prints. It is easily sealed up for printing larger ABS pieces aswell which is a nice bonus. no  calibration needed.

Issue i have had, out of the box the offsets between the two hotends was wrong so i had to reflash it before i could print dual material. So far i have 4 Rolls of filament through it and have had no real issues or breakdowns. Still fairly early days though. 

At work i have a kossel mini from think3Dprint3D, The kit was easy to build with good instructions. Prints really well after you get it calibrated. Pain in the ass to get the Calibration right mind. Don't rate the auto levelling system on it too highly but they did tell me they were thinging of changing to an inductive probe on the R3, not checked if they actually have though. Cost £485 i believe. 

Also at work i have an aluminium framed i3 clone with a 300 x 200 heatbed, e3d chimera hotend, nice printer, easy to calibrate, slower than the other two, If my memory serves me well it cost about £450

I would say the CTC is the easiest to get  good quality results with and is also the cheapest and the fastest of the 3. 

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[timpin .]

Are the existing printers fixable? Do they need money spent?

What are we going to do with them if we don't fix them?

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Tim

[Stanto]

That's a different scope to what's intended for this, I suggest looking at the 3d printer meetup thread.

[Tim Pinder]

Thanks Stanto

I take your point about the different scope. However, the questions about the existing printers still need to be answered.

Maybe this is a governance question; for the good governance of the space the issue of what happens to existing ’stuff' should be addressed.

In practical working printer terms what we currently have is an expensive lot of stuff that might or might not be made to work.
If we buy new shiny will efforts continue to make the older not so shiny work? I suspect that most people want to see and use a working printer. A small number have time and energy to put into maintaining and repairing.


Tim

On 21 Jun 2017, at 00:41, Stanto <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:

> That's a different scope to what's intended for this, I suggest looking at the 3d printer meetup thread.
>

[Stanto]

The direct answers to your questions are "yes, yes, don't know" and Joe gave the following detail on the mendelmax in the other thread:

"I think I worked out ... what the issue is with our mendlemax. Last time, Stanto and I replaced the hot end's temperature sensor. It was beautiful, all clean and nicely secured. However attaching a fan to the head itself seems to have messed up our work. I haven't had chance to fix it yet but its definitely that sensor messing up which stops the printing. If anyone want to give a go fixing it please step forward. "

Etc. :)

[Owen Grein]

Does anybody know what problems are with the Wallace I donated? I have the plastic parts here to fix the frame damage if that's the only issue. It used to be a reliable printer despite its looks and botched electronics. I think I probably still have the slicer config files for cura that I used to use with it too of they would help? 

As for the thermistor on the mendlemax, that should be an easy job to put right, I would volunteer to have a look but I just don't have the time at the moment to make it down to the space. 

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[samson B]

I think we should go for something abit different like 'tis one  witch i beleave dose round items better ?

On Wed, 21 Jun 2017 at 00:41, Stanto <sta...@gmail.com> wrote:

That's a different scope to what's intended for this, I suggest looking at the 3d printer meetup thread.

[Stanto]

Thanks Owen,

Look out for our next planned 3d printer meetup and we can check it out further :) (and hopefully update some wiki pages with details of the problems!)

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[Stanto]

I've seen a few like this, even upscaled to be 'room scale'. Do you have any ideas of costs/where to buy / reliability?

[samson B]

Nope sos I remember back when i first looked into 3D printers ( pre hack space ) so an nolege I have is out of date i jus no they re better t making round and flowing objec witch would be cool to have.

[Taimur Khan]

Has any one looked into resin printers? I was reading cnet review of Nobel 1.0 which looked good. Expensive to buy and run but so is the laser cutter and as it works reliably most of the times it gets used a lot as well.

Anyway, if we do buy another one I would highly recommend one that comes working out of the box and needs little repair over its life time. Sort of more industrial then hobbyist.

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[Owen Grein]

I really want one of these but i have been failing miserably at convincing work i need one... 

https://formlabs.com/3d-printers/fuse-1/

[Owen Grein]

FYI: PRICING

 Fuse 1 $9,999  - Fuse 1 Printer 

 Fuse 1 System $19,999  - Fuse 1 Printer, Cleaning System, Service Plan

[samson B]

Taimur one of them resin  3d printers appeared at the weekend 

[Stanto]

So...

ebuyer has a bunch of 3d printers listed from £200 to £1500:

http://www.ebuyer.com/store/Photo/cat/Printers/subcat/3D-Printers?page=2&sort=price%20descending

CPC also has a range of printers up to £3,500+

http://cpc.farnell.com/w/c/education-maker-hobbyist-electronics/3d-printing/prl/results?sort=P_PRICE|1

These include printers like the robox (which Martyn R. has)

To help give people an idea of what you can buy 'off the shelf'.

[onlyha...@gmail.com]

I was thinking of making a mig welding 3D printer thought it sounded fun... not sure what you would use as a bedding material

[Owen Grein]

I have heard good things about the Dremel printer but never had the opportunity to try one out.  

On 21 Jun 2017 7:13 pm, <onlyha...@gmail.com> wrote:

I was thinking of making a mig welding 3D printer thought it sounded fun... not sure what you would use as a bedding material

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[Ian Oliver]

On 2017-06-20 20:54, Stanto wrote:
> So, I ask:
>
> - What 3D printer if any should we aim to get?
> - Once this is decided, after options are listed and thrown around, are people prepared to throw money into buying it?

A slightly contrarian view.

1) I have a (fairly!) reliable single extruder printer at home but would
love access to a dual extruder at times. I would pay for this and I
printed some parts for the current hackspace printer to (hopefully!)
enable this upgrade.
2) Unless you spend a lot, 3D printers need a lot of TLC, and warranties
only work if you buy locally as otherwise you'll just be sent the parts
to fit yourself due to shipping costs, so again work required.

As with most people I suspect, my time is in short supply, but I don't
think throwing money at this one will get us anything other than yet
another 3D printer than needs some TLC. IMO we really need to work on
the 3D printer meetups and "Team 3D printer" so we can plan said TLC and
slowly chip away at it.

I *may* find myself with more time on my hands (ideally for the rest of
my life!) in the next few months so can help a lot more, or if we have a
plan, a non-functional printer could come to my personal "hackspace" at
home were I can work on it in the odd hour on an evening.

I'll try and attend the next 3D printer meetup.

Ian

[Stanto]

1) I have a (fairly!) reliable single extruder printer at home but would
love access to a dual extruder at times. I would pay for this and I
printed some parts for the current hackspace printer to (hopefully!)
enable this upgrade.  

Was your printer made from a kit or from scratch?

 

2) Unless you spend a lot, 3D printers need a lot of TLC, and warranties
only work if you buy locally as otherwise you'll just be sent the parts
to fit yourself due to shipping costs, so again work required.

Some don't, equally, I think the Robox which Martyn received, was sent back to them for repair/replacement initially (at Robox cost). It likely varies from manufacturer to manufacturer (sounds like you have some experience with this kind of scenario?)

 

As with most people I suspect, my time is in short supply, but I don't
think throwing money at this one will get us anything other than yet
another 3D printer than needs some TLC. IMO we really need to work on
the 3D printer meetups and "Team 3D printer" so we can plan said TLC and
slowly chip away at it.

I agree and also disagree. We have a collection of non working printers at the hackspace because of the lack of time of knowledgeable people, and that they all need TLC. The printers have had money and time thrown at them to still not work.

At least in the case of an off the shelf printer, the scope of what the problem is should be different, instead of debugging whether or not your endstops are falling off and needing a new bracket, you're instead calibrating or replacing the hot end, from my experience anyway, and it depends on what off-shelf solution you go for.

The idea that was presented here which was prompted by members repeatedly saying/asking was to investigate if anyone actually wants to crowdfund/source the money together to get one of the more expensive printers, This doesn't mean we would get rid of the ones we have.

 

I *may* find myself with more time on my hands (ideally for the rest of
my life!) in the next few months so can help a lot more, or if we have a
plan, a non-functional printer could come to my personal "hackspace" at
home were I can work on it in the odd hour on an evening.

I'll try and attend the next 3D printer meetup.

Thanks , any and all help is always appreciated.

[Stephen Rowley]

Maybe a really decent kit one would be the answer?

Or do a bit of research on manufactured ones that use maximum amount of easily swappable parts.

On a side note
$99 printer
https://youtu.be/XLX0bsRJGa0

[Tom Oldbury (Email #1)]

Having used the SLA printer at work (resin + fancy laser magic), I am very much in favour of a unit like that.  The resolution and performance is unmatched - we print optical lenses using the printer and clear resin and once sanded work really well.

[Parsley]

Given that Martyn is offering the Kraken for sale, what do folks think of its print quality and ease of maintenance?

I think as others have said, many users just want a working printer, and a lot of the reviews I've seen online are pretty positive about the model.

So if it's a printer that we know works reliably, rather than acquire more expensive kit, would it be worth just seeing what Martyn wants for it?

[Christopher Stanton]

I would have to be convinced that it is actually working with clear documentation on maintenance. Else it is little different from the Hackspace current situation with the mendelmax, which can print well when it's setup and running, hence the discussion of a purchased unit rather than a kit.

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[Stanto]

Also the Kraken is only the hot end. Not a full 3d printer? http://e3d-online.com/Multi-Extrusion/The-Kraken

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[Parsley]

Ah, fair enough - given it was glaring me in the face with a for sale sign I was just wondering why we might not want it?

Samson has since started filling me in on what I missed at the AGM (apologies!)

[Christopher Stanton]

The only answer I can give is that it's likely one of many reasons, one being the same reason why it's currently not attached to a printer.

I see it as a nice to have, unless someone comes forward and knows how to integrate it into a current build we have and can do so, it should go to a better home that's prepared to integrate it and the necessary setup with pumps and such since it's introducing water cooling.

On Sun, 2 Jul 2017, 13:36 Parsley, <tooshor...@gmail.com> wrote:

Ah, fair enough - given it was glaring me in the face with a for sale sign I was just wondering why we might not want it?

Samson has since started filling me in on what I missed at the AGM (apologies!)

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[mar...@ranyard.info]

A little clarification here :

* The Kraken is the quad hot end that can be retrofitted to most
printers (the mendelmax is a good candidate for this)
* The BigBox is the lasercut dual-head printer on the shelf.

The Kraken is a really cool water-cooled hot-end that has 4 nozzles,
which means you can even do multi-coloured prints and a soluble support
but it is not an easy piece of kit to calibrate and get working. The
main issue I had other than motivation is that it requires external
extruders and we had enough of a hard time making round gears for the
single one we had, plus there's the addition of the motors (which I now
have with the kraken to sell with it)

The BigBox should be a great printer with low maintenance overhead once
it's tuned in, it's open hardware and has very good heritage. I lost
impetus with it and fried one set of electronics (it has a working set
in it now), the electronics need tuning as they currently are too twitch
and detect thermal runaway too eagerly, and I am concerned that the Z
axis may need a bit of setting trim. Other than that it should be
perfectly ready to go.

Hope this helps those who are interested.

Cheers,
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Martyn

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[Stanto]

Thanks martyn.

[onlyha...@gmail.com]

I've a Kraken and all the external extruders... never got round to doing anything with it.

[Troy West]

Hi I'm fairly new (just now joining) but wouldn't mind throwing my ideas in the mix.

Right now I'm running a Lulzbot taz 6 at home which is a solid work horse with a wide range of filament options.  I set it and forget it and it just works which is lovely.  That being said if it had come out sooner I probably would have picked up a Prusa i3 MK2.  ( http://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/59-original-prusa-i3-mk2-kit.html ) from everything I've seen and heard it's a solid printer that simply works well out of the box.  Prusia has now also released their multi filament system upgrade,  this will allow the printing of up to 4 separate materials that utilize a single nozzle instead of multiple heads.  The main benefit of not having to calibrate multiple nozzles which I hear is a massive pain within itself.  The printer can be purchased whole or in a kit 899 or 629 respectively and the multi material upgrade is about 300.  

On Tuesday, June 20, 2017 at 8:54:19 PM UTC+1, Stanto wrote:

The 3D printers we have are in various states and work is gradually progressing to get them working.

A few people have suggested we should buy an off the shelf printer so we have one guaranteed working and at least under a form of warranty.

So, I ask:

- What 3D printer if any should we aim to get?
- Once this is decided, after options are listed and thrown around, are people prepared to throw money into buying it?

The upsized mendelmax that members are currently fixing was originally crowdsourced by members, so this isn't a new idea for the Hackspace in general :)

Thoughts?

[Martyn Ranyard]

I would point out that one of the coolest things you can do with multi material printers is soluble support.

The prusa multi material single nozzle cannot do this as you have different heat levels for soluble filament vs non-soluble.

I would agree that the prusa is one of the best kits but again it is not an off the shelf printer, it is a kit.

Just passing on the knowledge that I have, not judgment!

Cheers
--
Martyn

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[James Rogers]

hay all
i havent had any hands on with 3D printing but have a bit of understanding of them
im really looking for ward to a time when we have a 3D printing Squad (dibs im blue :p)
would love to be part of the fixing, editing and maintaining of these wonders.
i do have a fare bit of time on my hands so when im up hear i can do a bit of work on them.

have we agreed apon a date for the 3D Printing meet up?
and if so can i book an induction for that day or before?

have spoken to the owner of the GOO printer and from what i can gleam the hole board need reinstalled and calibrated (this has to be done with the laser unplugged for eye safety)
there also only seems to be two stepper motor controllers :s
dont know if that would have the same impact on a GOO printer but mechanically i think it would be a probb for one of the axis.

by the new year i intend on having an electric forge at home so might be able to cast some upgrade parts for the long term upgrades.
possibly even a solid metal frame.

Thanks for reading my drivelings

[Stanto]

https://groups.google.com/forum/m/#!topic/leeds-hack-space/-NyTmNkgqG0

[Troy West]

I'm actually building out a Prometheus System carriage for my taz 6 which functions on the same principle, but only handles 2 materials at once, although I havent tested it yet.  You have a purge tower just as if you were printing with duel nozzles which would give time for the hotend to cool or warm to the next material. Have you experimented with these before?  I'd love to hear if there could be other gotchas.  (We could also take this to another thread if we didn't want to crowd things here)

Troy

[J C]

Hi James, If I can get the mendlemax somewhat working this weekend as planned we can look at getting an induction sorted in near future. 

Joe

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[James Rogers]

Lol thanks again Joe :p

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[Ian Oliver]

On 2017-07-06 20:55, J C wrote:
> If I can get the mendlemax somewhat working this weekend as planned

I was thinking of coming down to Hackspace on Saturday PM if I can help
at all with that printer. I can also donate a (used) 200mmx200mm
PrintBite build surface and 3M adhesive if you want to try it and have
some glass to hand.

Ian

[J C]

If you dont get in before i leave (around 13:40) will try leave an update on its working status. No idea off top of my head about the buildplate usability :) 

[onlyha...@gmail.com]

I need to use different temperatures depending on the colour of abs I use...frustratingly.

[mar...@ranyard.info]

Just noticed that CEL now have refurb'd Roboxes now at 800
squidaroonies.

http://robox.cel-uk.com/rbx01-487.html

It _may_ be worth contacting them and seeing if the hackspace could get
a further discount on it. Whilst I have said before (and indeed did in
my review of the printer) that I don't believe that 3d printers are
ready for the home market, the robox is the closest I've seen anyone get
to managing it.

The ultra-fine prints are bloody impressive, but also bloody slow. I'm
constantly printing https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1790624 which is
80x40x20mm (with the soluble support that the dual-material head allows
for) and it takes ~12 hours.

If CEL could give a bit of a discount on the refurb, it may be worth
asking other potential sponsors if they would stump up the cost for
goodwill. (e.g. if CEL would go down to £500, maybe someone could ask
farnells if they'd pay for it in exchange for a sign saying provided by
Farnell and CEL).

Just some thoughts.

--
Martyn
Who really should be giving the hard sell on the BigBox at this point...

[Stanto]

On Monday, 10 July 2017 23:00:59 UTC+1, mar...@ranyard.info wrote:

maybe someone could ask
farnells if they'd pay for it in 

 I can't see that happening, unfortunately.

[Tim Pinder]

What’s the worst that could happen?

Tim

[Andy51055]

They give us a 3D printer that only works well enough to make 3D printers that only work well enough to make 3D printers that only work well enough to make 3D printers that only work well enough to make 3D printers that only work well enough...?