3D Printers........Who has, and what have you got? Feedback?

Hooga Booga

Many of the libraries in my municipality have 3D printers that residents can use for pennies. I was initially quite excited about that, but to date have printed nothing. I too would like to play with a 3D printer, but in the end it would be a tool waiting for a project.

Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend; inside of a dog, it's too dark to read. -- Groucho Marx

MKJCP

If you just want to have fun I hear there are 3D meat printers now. Imagine the fun at the next BBQ.

maciejek

I'm technical person and I playing with 3d printers for 4 years..(not that I want to show off but to give you a reference to my comments). First question that you need to ask yourself is how much do you really want to spend on device? Second is do you like to tinker(as this is your hobby) or you want to have working device right of the box? Depending on your answers.. if you can afford kits >1000$ so anything is good. If you want to spend 500$-1000$ probably Prusa MK3 is the natural choice (you can save a bit buy buying DIY kit) or pay a bit more for assembled one. Of course market is big and you can spend on something else but Prusa is a BRAND and they have a support and big community behind this. 200$-500$ probably anything from better known Chinese brands like Creality, Tronxy, JGAurora, Tevo or similar check Youtube for the more popular guys how it looks.. Under 200$ Ender3 is the king.. And last 2 quick comments.. 1. don't be greedy.. 3D printer is slow process going big(big printer is a problem if you don't relay print that big prints) small printer are faster to use for small bits.. and big printers are slow for small prints and it takes ages to print a big print. There is a reason why most popular printers are below 300mm. 2. good heated print bed with autoleveling is the key with "extra" print surface which saves you ton of failed prints. Everything else these days are extra features that makes life a bit easier but are not that important. Regards Maciek

User 10916314

If you get an FDM printer - consider overall size carefully. I bought a large one (Tronxy X5S). Problem is that I want to build an enclosure around it and it's just too big for that and the space I have.

milo xml

The company I work for thought we would get a lot of usage out of 3D printing parts. That was a few years ago and I think we do 4 small usage parts. Luckily we outsourced the printing and saved the cost of buying a printer.

Timko65

I will tell you I read one of the best bits of advice I think I have seen regarding 3D printing. "If you are not a tinkerer, 3D printing is not for you." I have a Tevo Tornado. I am happy with it. As a beginner it is a cheap entry printer ~$400. The instructions for setting it up are horrible but there are plenty of You tubes that you can go through to help in getting going. Then you can go to places like thingiverse and get models to download and print until you get designing figured out. Steps I went through. 1. set it up 2. Find pre-made models on thingiverse etc to print 3. Learn how to tweak printer/slicer settings 4. trial and error followed by trial and error 5. Learn to design your own models. 6. repeat step 4.

StarNamer work

I recently bought an Ender3 as a Christmas present to myself (still in its box). Good to see confirmation that I hopefully haven't bought a lemon.

User 7887889

I strongly agree. I developed printers for 3D Systems for past 6 years - they gave up on consumer printers years ago, it just didn't make business sense. It wasn't easy to make the models, FDM couldn't be made reliable for us, so we just stuck with the industrial side (SLS, SLA, Multi-jet, Metal, etc.). Prototyping is the largest market area. I still feel the 3D model creation side is the worse part of it, the software just isn't there, steep learning curve. However, if you like a challenge...good luck!!!

Aby Normal

I've been using the Ultimaker 2+ for several years now and love the printer! I started out with Autodesk's 123D Design and loved it due to it's simplicity and mainly because I didn't have any real CAD experience and was a noob. Autodesk has since dropped this product and you have to use Fusion 360 which is a better CAD product, but I grew up on 123D Design and don't care for Fusion. I've used the Ultimaker 2+ to build gear boxes, gears, axles, support arms, enclosure boxes, stepper motor mounts, etc. Some of the parts I used to print took 36 hours and the Ultimaker with its heated bed did a awesome job! But you have to make sure that you put the printer on a UPS just in case you loose power (which happens where I live). Ultimaker with Cura (slicer app) and you can't go wrong.

Member 10153640

I have an old Aluminatus,big,loud and heavy. Uses 3mm size filaments. A work horse though, I have printed parts that took 40 hours to complete. It has been very reliable. It has a 300mm X 300mm X 300mm work area.