3D printer, Tell me why I need one

[UncleJoe]

I was toying with the idea of getting one of the new breed of relatively low cost but semi decent 3D printers. I am what I would describe as a serious hobby guy and over the last few years I have migrated from working on my motorcycle to building heirloom quality furniture. I have what I call a decent workshop but what some of my buddies call a great workshop. It is mostly a wood shop now.

So I have the funds to make the purchase and not take away from other tool purchases but I started to make a list of all the things I could do with a 3D printer and it was not too impressive. Now I love learning new things and that may be part of the attraction but if I can't make useful stuff for my shop, like better jigs and fixtures or things I could use in the house then maybe now is not the time for this purchase.

So for those that have 3D printers or have been reading everything about them give me a list of projects they can handle, Pictures are even better. I think once I can see a few examples I will be able to think of more uses so I need a kick start on the ideas.

Thanks.

Uncle Joe

 

[PelicanPines]

Sigh... Now GJ wants me to have a 3D printed...

 

[D-Vice]

I've been planing on purchasing one. I plan to use it to make molds to hold and organize my tools. Kinda like the ABS trays or foam inlays that some tools will come with.

 

[48Connor]

I've been planing on purchasing one. I plan to use it to make molds to hold and organize my tools. Kinda like the ABS trays or foam inlays that some tools will come with.

I've been doing that right now. I designed a Hansen Global knock-off for larger impacts, and am printing it now.

If the picture works you can see the rendered version. Just about done printing 2/3 pieces.

 

[Empty Pockets]

Just recently, the wife and I were talking about one. We decided that the cost won't justify the purchase, for the time being

 

[Stadger]

I've been doing that right now. I designed a Hansen Global knock-off for larger impacts, and am printing it now.

If the picture works you can see the rendered version. Just about done printing 2/3 pieces.

Seems like a lot of work and money to duplicate something that sells for less than $14.00.

 

[dr_clyde]

I don't think you need one.

They're not a mature technology yet. The good ones cost millions, and unless you're making keychains and other toys the home grade ones are pretty lame.

 

[kngelv]

I have a FlashForge Creator Pro. I mostly make attachments for my little guys nerf guns. The older boy uses it for science fairs. It's pretty cool. I need to use it more.

James

 

[rsanter]

How about meeting up with someone that has one and can show you what they have done with it. Perhaps they will let you use theirs for some stuff so you can get a feel for it to decide if you need one

 

[Technologyteacher]

I have two Makerbot Replicators + in my classroom. Work great, easy to use, only downside is there is no heated bed which limits you to using PLA instead of ABS

 

[48Connor]

Seems like a lot of work and money to duplicate something that sells for less than $14.00.

They don't hold sockets over 27mm, and still skip sizes. I have impacts up to 36mm, and wanted some place to put them.

 

[Davefr]

Just recently, the wife and I were talking about one. We decided that the cost won't justify the purchase, for the time being

Next time leave the wifey out of the decision making process when it comes to tools.!!

 

[marinusdees]

I don't own and know very little about 3-D printers. I do know that my son brought home a printer-produced cylinder, about 3 inches in diameter, a rod, if you will. His boss wanted a machined flat surface on the end. He attempted this on my South Bend lathe. The machined surface was porous. This particular printer produced objects that were not solid but have voids in them. I don't know if all printers are like this.
He told ,me this morning that his contact and vendor for Swage-Lok fittings told him they are using a 3-D printer that makes objects out of Inconel.
I think not all 3-D printer are the same, you have to compare.

 

[signcrafter]

I've been doing that right now. I designed a Hansen Global knock-off for larger impacts, and am printing it now.

If the picture works you can see the rendered version. Just about done printing 2/3 pieces.

That is awesome. I would love to be able to print up whatever combination of socket holders I need. I have so many random sockets in my drawer that I haven't been able to find a solution to. Things like large sockets, specialty sockets, torx, etorx, hex, adapters, etc.

Curious how much a tray like your picture costs to print? Don't have any experience with the 3d printers so don't have a clue if it's 2 bucks or 200. How long does it take to print something like that? Also what printer would you need to do something like that? Will a "cheaper" one work or do you need something special/more expensive. I would love to get a printer sometime in the near future for the kids to play with(and me!). But if we do get one it will just be a basic cheap one since it's a luxury. These socket rails just might be the excuse I need to pick one up. Ya, doesn't take too much to twist my hand.

 

[HanShotFirst]

They can be fun, but they are very limited in what they can do. Even using ABS parts are typically not very strong, and I yet to find an ABS that isn’t affected by heat significantly. Example, made an iphone holder for my car, it deformed in a matter of hours inside a hot car. Large objects suffer from structural instability, small objects tend to be a bit “grainy” in printed form and don’t look all that great.

I use my friends 3D printer and it’s a higher end one, and I personally would never buy one just because most things we have printed are kinda low quality items. He has a 3 axis wood & plastic CNC machine, and I have found that much better quality for finished items.

To me the greatest advantage of 3D printing is prototyping of parts that will be manufactured in other ways. As an example, if you’re working on a part that will be steel, and manufactured via investment casting, then you must make the prototype part 3% larger than the finished part to allow for cooling. So you model up in Solidworks, increase by 3% and print…sand the part so everything is nice and smooth, then hand it off to the manufacturer to make wax molds, and put it into production. That to me makes 3D printing absolutely brilliant, but when working on such things you may find that desktop 3D printers still come up lacking in print resolution.

 

[speed bump]

Somewhere I saw someone print bezels for the cab light in a 67-72 Ford truck. After seeing what they did it was on my list of why I should buy a 3d printer.

I see quite a few people print blocks and stops for other projects. There is a cheap plasma table thread on Pirate where the guy built a bunch of mounts for sensors using a 3d printer.

Quite a few people on here have talked about using it to make models before they actually make something.

 

[Eslader]

You probably don't. For most of us, it's a toy. Yes, it can make jigs for your woodshop, but nothing better than you can make yourself in your wood shop out of wood. Unless you get a really expensive one, anything you make that requires precision (like, say, a square) will probably need tweaking to make it dead-on accurate.

Thus far I've only made one useful thing - the plastic mount for my rear surround speaker pole broke when the cat knocked it over, and I made another one rather than buying a whole new pole. But that's a $1,000 printer to so far keep me from having to spend $25.

I've also seen things like reproductions of Kreg pocket hole jigs, which I suppose would be useful if you already owned the bit and you lost the jig.

It becomes more useful if you learn to use a 3d CAD program, because then you can design your own parts rather than hoping someone else needed the same thing you did, *and* uploaded it to Thingiverse. But even then, it's only useful for stuff that's made out of plastic.

Straight out of the printer parts will have lots of lines on them because the resolution of the nozzle isn't fantastic. You'll need to make yourself an acetone fogger to smooth out those lines if you want your parts to look good (and, ironically, you can't make much if any of it with the 3d printer ). So making decorative things will require an extra step beyond just clicking "print."

There's some new tech on the horizon that looks to increase the possible resolution significantly, which means those of us who already have 3d printers are soon going to be producing crappy outdated-looking pieces (and that's OK - we knew going in that this is still a developing technology that will be rendered obsolete).

I look at home 3d printing much like I look at home computers in the 1980's. They're fun toys, but rarely used for anything important -- but that's going to change, and in a big way.

 

[48Connor]

That is awesome. I would love to be able to print up whatever combination of socket holders I need. I have so many random sockets in my drawer that I haven't been able to find a solution to. Things like large sockets, specialty sockets, torx, etorx, hex, adapters, etc.

Curious how much a tray like your picture costs to print? Don't have any experience with the 3d printers so don't have a clue if it's 2 bucks or 200. How long does it take to print something like that? Also what printer would you need to do something like that? Will a "cheaper" one work or do you need something special/more expensive. I would love to get a printer sometime in the near future for the kids to play with(and me!). But if we do get one it will just be a basic cheap one since it's a luxury. These socket rails just might be the excuse I need to pick one up. Ya, doesn't take too much to twist my hand.

Thanks! The CAD took a surprising amount of time because Gearwrench has spotty quality control, so I had to redo a lot of it.

As far as cost go, you're looking at about 250m of material all said and done. (100% infill) Filament for a printer usually comes in 1kg spools, which are about 300m long, and cost $23. So that would be $20 in material. No clue what the power usage is on that, but there is some hidden cost there.

Printing time on that would be about 45 hours, about 15hrs per piece.

I use a Prusa i3, which is an "open source" type of printer. Prusa makes one themselves, but a bunch of Chinese companies take the design and sell it. Mine specifically is made by a company called "Hictop," but any one on amazon you can buy for around $230 should work fine.

Once I'm done printing and changing everything I'll upload the files to Thingiverse, so anyone can download them for free and print them off.

 

[PCMusicGuy]

For me, 3D printing excels at rapid prototyping. For example, the console latch on my Corvette broke. It is a crappy design where the latch meets the body at a hard 90 degree angle. The dealership wants $40 for a replacement. So instead, I make a model, improving on the shortcomings and will bring it to my Makerspace and 3D print it.

Afterwards, I plan to test it and if it goes well, create some molds out of metal, and run it through an injection molding machine, also at the Makerspace. At the end of the day, this would cost more than $40, but what I learn out of it is valuable. After the molds are created, I could also sell replicas that would be much higher quality than 3D printed and I could make a bunch of them a lot quicker.

 

[White Shadow]

I don't think you need one.

They're not a mature technology yet. The good ones cost millions, and unless you're making keychains and other toys the home grade ones are pretty lame.

^^^^ This ^^^^

 

[Farmall450]

You can get ample free designs.

It would be cool to print a few PMAGs.

 

[Crazyjake8493]

I've been wanting to get one mostly for the added skills and learning experience. Many things can be made quicker and cheaper by using existing materials and parts, even though the 3D printer has a "cool" factor.

 

[Ign]

They're the Star Trek replicator of the future. I believe eventually every home will have one.

Remember when it might have been uncommon to own your own washing machine? Laundromat.

Remember when you had to go to a copy place to get copies made on a HUGE Xerox machine? Now a $99 Inkjet does a better job.

Remember when photos had to be dropped off, processed, and picked up? Now we all have digi cams.

Remember when only NASA had computers not nearly as powerful as the most basic smartphone?

Remember when facial recognition software was huge government/spy stuff? Now your phone does it everyday to unlock.

I will say I do NOT have a 3D printer and as a machinist they concern me. They're going to affect my trade. Additive manufacturing makes a lot more sense than subtractive in many instances.

That said, I recognize the times they are a changin'. I'll eventually need to get a 3D printer and if I want to incorporate it into my machine shop it'll need to be better than homeowner grade. Right now you only go to a "printer" if you need stuff made faster, in larger quantities, higher quality (eg card stock) or in larger sizes than your home printer can do. Same story.

 

[signcrafter]

Thanks! The CAD took a surprising amount of time because Gearwrench has spotty quality control, so I had to redo a lot of it.

As far as cost go, you're looking at about 250m of material all said and done. (100% infill) Filament for a printer usually comes in 1kg spools, which are about 300m long, and cost $23. So that would be $20 in material. No clue what the power usage is on that, but there is some hidden cost there.

Printing time on that would be about 45 hours, about 15hrs per piece.

I use a Prusa i3, which is an "open source" type of printer. Prusa makes one themselves, but a bunch of Chinese companies take the design and sell it. Mine specifically is made by a company called "Hictop," but any one on amazon you can buy for around $230 should work fine.

Once I'm done printing and changing everything I'll upload the files to Thingiverse, so anyone can download them for free and print them off.

What are the 3 pieces? 3 pieces to make one socket tray in your picture or are you make 3 trays like your picture. 45 hours, holy cow. Do you have to watch it or can you hit the button and come back 2 and a half days later?

Would there be a way to make an adjustable tray? As in just make the pegs for 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 and 3/4" in long and short and then use either a plastic tray with holes or even use a piece of wood with drilled holes? Would there be any benefit to doing it this way from a printing stand point? I'm thinking that would be a great solution for a lot of people. Just buy or print little pegs in the 4 drive sizes and take a sheet of 1/2" ply the size of your drawer and drill a ton of 1/4" or maybe 3/8" holes for the pegs to go in. Make all the pegs have matching sized ends that go into the holes drilled in the plywood. You can move them around as needed

I'd be very interested in you doing a write up of the process if you have some time. Just to learn what all goes into making something. Not so much the specific details or designing part but how the printer works and how these pieces you talk about ho together. Some pics would be great. If you have time. Thanks.

Are you able to make plastic socket rails like gearwrench does? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NIAK7M/?tag=atomicindus08-20. Or would it cost more then they charge at roughly 10 bucks a rail?

Sorry to derail the post, just got interested and got to thinking.

 

[bochnak]

I'm an ME and we have 3 large FDM machines at work. I print hundreds of parts every year since designing is my job.

I've had to use the printer a few times for "government jobs".

So no, I don't see why most people would need one.

We design a lot of plastic parts, so that is where a 3D printer shines, since you can't easily MFG those kind of parts.

 

[48Connor]

What are the 3 pieces? 3 pieces to make one socket tray in your picture or are you make 3 trays like your picture. 45 hours, holy cow. Do you have to watch it or can you hit the button and come back 2 and a half days later?

Would there be a way to make an adjustable tray? As in just make the pegs for 1/4, 3/8, 1/2 and 3/4" in long and short and then use either a plastic tray with holes or even use a piece of wood with drilled holes? Would there be any benefit to doing it this way from a printing stand point? I'm thinking that would be a great solution for a lot of people. Just buy or print little pegs in the 4 drive sizes and take a sheet of 1/2" ply the size of your drawer and drill a ton of 1/4" or maybe 3/8" holes for the pegs to go in. Make all the pegs have matching sized ends that go into the holes drilled in the plywood. You can move them around as needed

I'd be very interested in you doing a write up of the process if you have some time. Just to learn what all goes into making something. Not so much the specific details or designing part but how the printer works and how these pieces you talk about ho together. Some pics would be great. If you have time. Thanks.

Are you able to make plastic socket rails like gearwrench does? https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000NIAK7M/?tag=atomicindus08-20. Or would it cost more then they charge at roughly 10 bucks a rail?

Sorry to derail the post, just got interested and got to thinking.

Hopefully the picture above works. It's about 0.55m long, and my printer can only printer 220mm, so I need to break it up into 3 pieces. The pink planes in the image are the cut lines.

As far as time goes. I start the printer, usually babysit the first layer (check it every 10 or 15 mins), and then leave it until it's done. Because this is 3 pieces, I have to start each one individually. I usually let the printer cool off between prints, not that it should need to, but the motors get hot.

Yeah that peg idea could work. You might have so much time invested in printing the pins, that it might just be easier to go buy some 1/4 aluminum rod and cut it to length. Might be more money, but you would days if not weeks printing pins off. It could be done no doubt though.

Once I get it all done (tomorrow) I was thinking of putting a post together.

I'd just buy the gearwench trays. You could print more pieces to hold sockets, but personally my time to CAD up the tray is worth more than $10.

 

[Fly YX]

I built one a few years ago think the company was Folger Tech. About 3 years ago I bought one by XYZ Printing and that one was total garbage. I have not used one but I have purchased a lot of stuff from Monoprice their 3D printers have decent reviews. I made small cases for things and just some small things for the kid oh and defrost deflectors for the Jeep.

 

[Earp69]

I bought an anet a8 for 150,and honestly it is amazing at the print quality it can do. there cheap

 

[RV8guy]

Hopefully the picture above works. It's about 0.55m long, and my printer can only printer 220mm, so I need to break it up into 3 pieces. The pink planes in the image are the cut lines.

As far as time goes. I start the printer, usually babysit the first layer (check it every 10 or 15 mins), and then leave it until it's done. Because this is 3 pieces, I have to start each one individually. I usually let the printer cool off between prints, not that it should need to, but the motors get hot.

Yeah that peg idea could work. You might have so much time invested in printing the pins, that it might just be easier to go buy some 1/4 aluminum rod and cut it to length. Might be more money, but you would days if not weeks printing pins off. It could be done no doubt though.

Once I get it all done (tomorrow) I was thinking of putting a post together.

I'd just buy the gearwench trays. You could print more pieces to hold sockets, but personally my time to CAD up the tray is worth more than $10.

Any thoughts of putting the files up on thingiverse?

 

[48Connor]

Any thoughts of putting the files up on thingiverse?

They should be up there tomorrow. I just have to print the last piece (3hrs in so far, about 15hrs left) to get a complete picture and make sure everything works.

 

[Citation]

I've used a few different types of 3D printers as well as laser cutters. Laser cutters are my favorite prototyping tool. I was spoiled at my last place because we had a Kern laser with O2. It could do lots of useful things including plastics, wood and steel. Too bad it was about $80k. I'm still hoping I could find a sub $3k system with a decent sized bed to work with.

Anyway, we also had an FDM printer (fuse deposition modeling), a good version of the heated string technology you see in most low buck 3D printers. I didn't use it much. The material wasn't all that strong (though it could be when used correctly). Ours had support material so you could print something that was "floating in space". The maker bots generally are poor in comparison. Lots of limitations.

We also had a polyjet machine. Those are generally best for smaller parts as the cost per CC of material is much higher. The material can do fine details but cleaning the support material off can be an issue.

I've used a few LSA machines. I like them because the parts come out clean and dry after curing. This is important if you have internal passages in your parts. The material I've used feels rather similar to the polyjet resin. Again, decent quality and ok strength.

My favorite material has been a type of sintered nylon. Protolabs is the place where I was getting those parts. It's relatively cheap (I was paying $2 for a part about 1"x.5"x.5". The finish is like a decent casting. The material was strong enough that I could do finish machining work on the parts to finish them.

A number of times people have asked me about buying a nicer 3D printer for work. This would be something in the few tens of thousands range. I've always said they aren't worth it. You are better off just sending orders to Protolabs. They have a HUGE range of materials and you can get things like nickle coated finishes etc. Just check out their website and upload a few sample parts to get on line quotes.

Unless you really want to play with the printer itself, I would just send the job off and get better quality parts in the end.

I've also used three other common types via outsourcing to print shops.

 

[Thumper68]

I just watched a video using wax filament for lost wax casting, now I want one even more.

One nice thing that I have seen is that you can quickly print a part and test fit before machining it in metal.

 

[Lelandwelds]

they are using a 3-D printer that makes objects out of Inconel.
I think not all 3-D printer are the same, you have to compare.

Those use powdered metal and a pretty potent laser. Nasty fumes. I believe almost all the patents have expired.

I don't think you need one.

They're not a mature technology yet. The good ones cost millions, and unless you're making keychains and other toys the home grade ones are pretty lame.

The good ones cost a few hundred. There is a learning curve and a bit of fine tuning needed. There are hobbyists who hod rod the things just like small block chevys. They're slow but usually the parts are one off proof of concepts.

 

[dr_clyde]

Those use powdered metal and a pretty potent laser. Nasty fumes. I believe almost all the patents have expired.



The good ones cost a few hundred. There is a learning curve and a bit of fine tuning needed. There are hobbyists who hod rod the things just like small block chevys. They're slow but usually the parts are one off proof of concepts.

Perhaps, but I don't agree that the "good" ones only cost a few hundred. Maybe not millions, that was an exaggeration, but I stand by my statement. Cheap 3D printers are like any other cheap tool. A huge source of frustration and aggravation because of all the corners cut to save money.

Home and hobby grade 3D printers that only cost a few hundred are only good for printing trinkets and toys, otherwise they would be widespread in industry.

A customer/friend of mine designs and builds printers and filament extruders. I weld the frames for them. His printers can do fussy plastics like PEEK, and have things like heated enclosures and beds, water cooled twin filament extrusion nozzles and high end electronics and controls. They cost in the thousands of dollars just to build, let alone buy. And they STILL only make little plastic widgets that are only useful to the guy who wants to make a quick prototype or a plastic facsimile of a part that should be made from metal later in the manufacturing process.

Actual industrial grade 3D printers use technology that costs tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars. The parts they print cost thousands.

My little cousin is on his college SAE race team. He had some parts 3D printed out of inconel and aluminum. They are lightweight, and very well engineered. They also cost 20 grand EACH. But they are superior to machined part due to the geometry involved. That, to me, is a useful 3D printed object, because 3D printing is the BEST way to make it. The part is superior to a machined, cast, formed, extruded or stamped because the geometry involved can only be achieved using additive manufacturing.

I work in prototyping and custom manufacturing. If I had one put in my office for FREE, I wouldn't be able to come up enough work to keep it busy more than once or twice a month. At best.

Bottom line, if you want to 3D print things because its cool and fun, that's outstanding. They are cool and fun. It is a great emerging technology that can only get better with time. I don't want to make it seem like I don't like 3D printing. I think they are really interesting tools. But if you think you NEED one because of all the useful things you'll make with one, you're mistaken and under-informed.

 

[Leveleer]

I was able to 3D print a number of structural parts for some prototype beach glass auto drilling machines I built.
These were done on an inexpensive hobby printer using ABS.

Frank

 

[dr_clyde]

That's pretty cool. That's what they were designed to do. Prototype parts.

All I'm saying here is the uses beyond tinkering are pretty limited on the home shop.

 

[racingtadpole]

I have a partially assembled A8 sitting about half a metre away while I type this...
I figure when I get to finishing it up I'll use it to make some one off tool holders/organisers for a few things I haven't found commercial storage solutions that I like. Beyond that, I haven't really looked at any other uses for it. To be honest, I justified the purchase price on the basis of the shits and giggles I would likely have building it.

 

[samss]

Of course you need one. It's another tool! Keep in mind, 3D printing also needs it's own clean space.

 

[PECVD2]

I printed a few of these and am using them. The layout was a bit tight so I adjusted a bit. I kept the alpha and beta versions and gave away the rest to friends.
They are nice “toys”, at least the lower end ones are!

 

[bczygan]

"3D printer, Tell me why I need one."

It's a tool!

Nuff said.

Bill