bczygan
Well-known member
Show me yours!
What do you make with it?
Have you ever printed the gun file?
Bill
What do you make with it?
Have you ever printed the gun file?
Bill
3D Printers
- Thread starter bczygan
- Start date
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
We have a makers space in Yakima and they teach classes on how to build a 3 d printer.
Well the saying was more for cars. How people would illegally download music and said you wouldn't download a car but now there has been a 3d printed car.
Sent from my SM-N910T using Tapatalk
1badbird
Well-known member
My girlfriends boss has one but the only thing hes made so far is just trinkets.
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
I was told that the best thing that you could make with a 3d printer was another 3d printer. I took a tour of the maker place bld.
WhiffySpark
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2009
- Messages
- 6,252
I am buying one shortly. We already brought a laser cutter. Also looking at picking up a cnc machine
Richard Cranium
Well-known member
a 3d printer is just the opposite of a cnc machine
I saw a couple of the 3d printed cars at FabTech, kinda cool but no 3d printed engine or trans.
My guess in a few years just about every household will have one, no more going to the store for throw away plastic stuff, instead you will buy the file and print it at home.
My guess in a few years just about every household will have one, no more going to the store for throw away plastic stuff, instead you will buy the file and print it at home.
WhiffySpark
Well-known member
- Joined
- Oct 22, 2009
- Messages
- 6,252
I'm aware of that. Primary getting it for wood carving
Got a kit for my son for Christmas...it's intimidating at first, but if you have enough mechanical skill to put together a mechano set, you can build one. Getting it up and running is simple enough...getting the settings dialed in to produce quality prints takes some time. As for uses...well, so far tiny plastic robots and a couple of replicas of his Call of Duty game weapons. Changing the world of industrialized productivity, we're not... Plan however is to try some lost plastic metal casting, and prototyping of motorcycle parts...
drink
Well-known member
Currently I do not own a 3D printer. However, I am familiar with them. They say you can copy things and get more strength in the copy itself. Since I have not had the opportunity to use one I can only let my imagination run wild as to how they add strength to a copy. Maybe it is the materials that they pull the finished copy from. I am wondering if someday you will be able to fuse a copy together from steel pellets or something similar that can be used as a finished product for end users rather than just a prototype model. The cost of the printers is currently unknown but they were quite expensive several years ago when I first started looking into them. At times I am quite frightened about what could possibly be done with these 3D printers in the future. One might think of things like beaming something somewhere like they did on Star Trek. You know, something like sending an object via e-mail to recipients with printers that can produce the image. I wonder if they can scan a person and beam a clone of them across the country that does something stupid.
Last edited:
Sticky Grips
Well-known member
- Joined
- Aug 13, 2014
- Messages
- 92
I have one. Solidoodle 3
It's nice for making one time jigs and fixtures, little do-dads and replacement parts.
Also, for prototyping, it's great. You can design an item and print it, rather than wasting time on a milling machine or lathe.
It's nice for making one time jigs and fixtures, little do-dads and replacement parts.
Also, for prototyping, it's great. You can design an item and print it, rather than wasting time on a milling machine or lathe.
Zeke
Well-known member
I think 3D printers are now being used to decorate cookies and cakes.
dillon_b12
Member
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2014
- Messages
- 15
I'm the print lab supervisor at an engineering firm and 3D printing service bureau, and I assure you that the fantasy the media spews about every household having their own printer is just that.
Why would a person wait several hours and spend several dollars printing a coat hanger, when they could go to a big box store and buy a 10 pack for a dollar? Lathes and mills have been easily accessible to the general public for decades, and most people still choose to buy off-the-shelf items, or just farm out the work if they truly need something custom done. I could fire up a lathe to make myself a new bolt, but why wouldn't I just go buy one for a couple bucks? 3D printers, at this point, require a fair amount of mechanical skill to properly build, calibrate, maintain, etc... I can't tell you how many people have come in to our shop with the same story. "Well, we bought a Makerbot and now it just sits."
3D printing is most useful when used as a fast and fairly inexpensive way to prototype parts that will then be manufactured traditionally. Injection molds are not cheap and 3D printing lets you produce a prototype in hours or days instead of the months it takes to have an injection mold machined and the prototype costs a fraction of what the mold will. Also, if there are unforeseen problems that require design changes, you've only got a scrap part not a $10,000+++ scrap mold.
There are applications where 3D printing is the only way to produce a certain part, but they are limited and mostly novelty as this point. I do know Koenigsegg, or some other super car manufacturer, used 3D metal printing to print off exhaust tips since they only needed a handful for the extremely low-run car they were producing. Also, there are some surgeons printing replicas of patients' organs from various medical scans so they can get a really good look at exactly what they will be working on before they actually start cutting on someone. So, there are "end-use" applications, they just aren't the norm at this point. Until the quality of the materials and printing technology increases, I suspect that will remain the case.
Last edited:
Aaron10647
Well-known member
I completely agree. I also don't see them being a common household item. I have a few friends that have them but they are both engineers which don't fit into the average person mold. I've modeled and printed a bunch of parts and the software/skillset required to make the CAD file suitable to be printed is not trivial. I have CAD software at home and 3d printers are accessable and I would rather just buy a part then waste an afternoon making a funnel or novelty item. To avoid a high or unavailable item I can see the use but anything short of that, i dont know. Even making something like a sphere from scratch will take 1-2hrs. Printed parts also don't have much strength to them (process dependent). I just don't see them being widespread.
kngelv
Well-known member
I have a Flash Forge Creator Pro. Bought it as a Christmas present for myself and two sons. Amazon had it for $999.00 and there was a $250.00 mail in rebate. We have not had much time to fully learn the software or design anything ourselves. So far we have downloaded a couple of files on thingiverse and made nerf gun attachments and a baby Minecraft Creeper.
James
James
Last edited:
Ackattack
Member
I have one, but its been collecting dust for a year.
I got it to make a prototype of an invention that I haven't finished yet. It's kind of fun, but starting a business has gotten in the way of working on the invention.
I've also made a few keychains for my son and nephews for gifts.
I got it to make a prototype of an invention that I haven't finished yet. It's kind of fun, but starting a business has gotten in the way of working on the invention.
I've also made a few keychains for my son and nephews for gifts.
I disagree. I think people would have said the same about computers when they were the size of main frames and costs more than houses. Or they'd have said "who needs a cell phone, I have a pager."
The march of technology is pretty much unstoppable and time will decrease costs of the 3D printers...look at how much cheaper than are now than they were a decade ago. Dremel sells one for $1000 and then there are kits.
I think there are home uses for it. Kids science projects, toys, DIY types, etc. Especially given the current growth in the UAV/Drone market.
I would be shocked if 10 years from now they aren't fairly common place and are sub-$500.
All that said, the real-deal production ones will still be there and still be very expensive. The company I work for just finished printing a jet powered drone using 3D printed parts. I'm not sure that tech will ever be cheap enough for the average DIY'er, but it's sure a lot cheaper than it was a few years ago.
Here's the 3D printed jet if you wanna check it out. Pretty cool..and it does 150MPH.
http://3dprint.com/104602/jet-powered-3d-printed-uav/
Bennylava
Well-known member
In 20-30 years I'd bet you'll be right. Most of the average everyday items you'll probably just print. The quality will be excellent, I bet. As for buying the file, oh no. No sir. They'll be so pirated, that they'll simply stop selling them and just have to give them away. Just like microsoft windows.
drink
Well-known member
Just think if they could provide warranty service on tools in the future. You know, they can simply e-mail you a new ratchet.
They'll probably embed an advertisement into the stuff you print.
dillon_b12
Member
- Joined
- Dec 15, 2014
- Messages
- 15
There are sub-$500 3D printers now. Printrbot being one of them. Fairly common place and ubiquitous are two different things. I definitely think there is a market for the same type of folks who have drill presses, welders, mills, etc... FDM
The biggest limitation, IMO, to widespread adoption (aside for CAD/technical knowledge, time, etc...) is the lack of soluble support material in the home market. Industrial 3D printers have support material for printing overhangs that can be dissolved in a caustic solution. That allows you to print much more complex parts than you can on a home printer without having a ton of finishing work after the fact. Most home 3D printers just print a specialized grid of the same material as the part to create the support surfaces. That grid must be manually broken away and any remaining nubs sanded or otherwise removed.
Soluble support and dual extrusion(required for soluble support material) do exist in the home market, but they are relatively new and, from what I've seen, aren't nearly as functional as what the professional market has.
In my experience, a traditionally injected plastic or rubber part is almost always superior to anything current 3D printing technology can produce. The inherent porosity of 3D printing and the layer by layer production method means that you have a potential weak point every .005" (or whatever layer height you were printing in). Printed parts, FDM in particular, behave fairly similarly to wooden parts since they both have a sort of "grain" to them. Part orientation during a print can have a huge effect on part strength.
3D printing does allow you to do a lot of things that would be extremely costly using traditional manufacturing methods. Some professional printers (Stratasys Connex) can print "over-molded" parts in one setup and can vary the durometer of the rubber. If someone was to prototype a screwdriver handle that was a hard plastic core with a soft rubber overmold, they could print several different iterations using different durometers of rubber to find out what they liked best. Even this technology, which isn't cheap, is far cheaper than the cost of machining two molds and injecting them.
Foundry patterns, lost-wax casting masters, thermoforming molds, and low-run printed injections molds are also excellent uses of what 3D printing can bring to product development and manufacturing.
TomB19
Well-known member
3d printing is like fiberglass composites. It is strong in two directions and can often be strengthened in the third dimension by using tricks.
One trick is to drill a filament sized hole through layers of ABS and then pin the object by inserting a piece of filament dipped in acetone. Once the acetone evaporates, the part will have more strength but this technique will not stop the part from delaminating at the edges, if it is under high shear force.
As well as prints having "grain", they warp. Try printing anything 12" long on a heated bed and watch it curl. I went with a 13 x 13 build space specifically so I could make a certain part and it has not been as successful as I need it to be.
It takes time, knowledge, and expertise to produce a decent 3d print. They are not the magic box the news makes them out to be.
Once you get the heat set just right, the laminated layers should be strongly adhered. Best case is roughly 50% strength of a solid part across the laminations.
The correct settings will change with filament batch, color, and humidity. Moist filament will create rough surface prints and cool the extruder. Yes... plastic can absorb moisture. Filament needs to be kept in a sealed container with desiccant if not used for more than a couple of months.
Set the printer up for your filament brand last summer? This winter, you better print test cube to make sure it is still printing correctly if you require full strength prints.
I love 3d printing but keeping the process under control is a lot of work and you can't just print whatever you dream up. Also, there are shape constraints. I doubt it will gain much popularity until we widely adopt laser sintering or a similar type of polymerization process.
Last edited:
TomB19
Well-known member
A couple of years ago, there was a guy on YouTube who successfully used a lost PLA process to build a few parts for a CNC router. He even had it dialed in to the point of printing the PLA part at 103% scale and having his target dimensions extremely close.
I've been excited to try it but have not had time to put together a foundry, yet.
This is the video. Notice the first part is deformed with some dropped steps. I wonder how many he had to print to get one good one?
The key between his process and those who tried and failed before him appears to be burning the PLA out of the mold before the pour.
Last edited:
I have a MakerGear M2 that I bought to fiddle with more than anything. I had apparitions of prototyping some things, but I haven't gotten around to doing it yet. I really need to get off my azz and finish my enclosure to make ABS less of pain to print though.
I do have a good project now. A while back I dropped a Milwuakee M18 battery and the case busted. The battery still works fine if I hold it together though (the screw mounts broke). I just need to sit down and model the darn case, which I'm sure will take a few revisions to get the fitment correct to the tool.
I do have a good project now. A while back I dropped a Milwuakee M18 battery and the case busted. The battery still works fine if I hold it together though (the screw mounts broke). I just need to sit down and model the darn case, which I'm sure will take a few revisions to get the fitment correct to the tool.
alfazer
Well-known member
I work in a school and we have two small ones for design students to product parts for projects. We print in ABS or PLA and sometimes use acetone with the ABS to improve finish and strength.
I have a friend works in a rapid prototyping company. They use the kind of 3D printer that is like a tank of liquid and lasers fire into the liquid and it solidifies into a product. (Something like that anyway). They make products like props and body armour for the Game of Thrones (which is shot locally), prototype parts for automotive industry and even final parts for F1 cars. It's a whole different level to the hobby type printing that I'm familiar with.
I have a friend works in a rapid prototyping company. They use the kind of 3D printer that is like a tank of liquid and lasers fire into the liquid and it solidifies into a product. (Something like that anyway). They make products like props and body armour for the Game of Thrones (which is shot locally), prototype parts for automotive industry and even final parts for F1 cars. It's a whole different level to the hobby type printing that I'm familiar with.
TomB19
Well-known member
How much 3d printing have you done?
What percentage of your prints turn out well on first attempt without having to add support structure, add draft to overhangs, etc.?
3d printing is really cool but it has a long way to go to be very useful beyond it's current niche. At least, on the low end.
I've done a fair bit. Like I mentioned the company I work at recently build a 3d printed jet RC aircraft...so I've seen some of what goes into it. Granted there's some fiddling required to make it work, but with some work you can get decent results.
I agree it has a long way to go before it's something even DIY'ers would go for on any large scale, but I think the tech market has a way of driving costs down and quality up pretty quickly compared to other markets.
Maybe it won't be in every home, but I expect that within 5-10 years they will be fairly common place at least for small bed sizes.
Maexle
Well-known member
I have bought a very very cheap 3D printer kit from China. After some upgrades and constant maintenance and adjustments, that thing runs like a champ. I should mention though, that I'm an engineer and have build my own CNC router as well, so I am familiar with stepper motors, controllers, hardware, software and so forth. I am using it mainly to print plastic replacement parts, useful (and sometimes not so useful) little gadgets. My printer is treated like a read headed step child, sitting on my work bench in the hot and cold and used and abused, and still works great. It for sure, has it's limitations, tolerance wise and size wise, but, I won't ever be without one. I need a custom door stop ... i print it out., I need some quick presents for friends, I print it. A broken plastic handle...i print it...a tool holder...print it... Cup holder for my wife's car...printed... It is entirely up to you how limited the usage of such a machine is (like always).
We use the big and expensive printers at work (500k plus)but, i found myself making prototypes at home with my "El-Cheapo" in the evening, before i finish my design (quicker and easier than to go through the hoops to send out work request...Design reviews...etc..), to test the fit and function.
What makes it easy for me, I can design easily in a short amount of time my parts because I know how to use 3D CAD systems (Solidworks and CREO here).
Don't hesitate to contact me with questions.
We use the big and expensive printers at work (500k plus)but, i found myself making prototypes at home with my "El-Cheapo" in the evening, before i finish my design (quicker and easier than to go through the hoops to send out work request...Design reviews...etc..), to test the fit and function.
What makes it easy for me, I can design easily in a short amount of time my parts because I know how to use 3D CAD systems (Solidworks and CREO here).
Don't hesitate to contact me with questions.
Maexle
Well-known member
astroracer
Well-known member
Doing the 3D work is the show stopper. I've been running Unigraphics (now NX) for over 20 years. I can model anything I can think of. I've done quite a bit of 3D printing through Shapeways. Enough to spoil me so I wouldn't even consider going desktop because I wouldn't be able to deal with the low quality prints. it's cheap enough through a high end printer like Shapeways that I can't justify buying and maintaning a low res desktop unit.
I've done a few model car parts, tires and wheels, and just printed some emblems for a car I am working on.
Here are some pics of the 3D renderings and the 3D prints.
Rendering of the console emblems I designed for my '56 Chevy Wagon.
The printed parts. These came out really nice. Better then I thought they would!
This is a close up. they are a bit grainey but that is neither here nor there after they get burried in primer.
Mark
I've done a few model car parts, tires and wheels, and just printed some emblems for a car I am working on.
Here are some pics of the 3D renderings and the 3D prints.
Rendering of the console emblems I designed for my '56 Chevy Wagon.
The printed parts. These came out really nice. Better then I thought they would!
This is a close up. they are a bit grainey but that is neither here nor there after they get burried in primer.
Mark
astroracer
Well-known member
Here are some 1/24th scale wheels and tires I also had done. The 3D files were created at a 1:1 scale then scaled down in the computer to create them in 1/24th scale.
You can see the detail in the screen shots.
Here are the printed tires.
I really need to do something with these...
Mark
You can see the detail in the screen shots.
Here are the printed tires.
I really need to do something with these...
Mark
George in Rancho Cordova
Well-known member
- Joined
- Mar 15, 2011
- Messages
- 741
One local library branch has a maker space.
It has a 3d printer and a "3d scanner" I think that is a digitizer.
They also had to post a notice that the scanner is not suitable for scanning children or pets.
It has a 3d printer and a "3d scanner" I think that is a digitizer.
They also had to post a notice that the scanner is not suitable for scanning children or pets.