3-D printer

[c.rainford73]

After seeing such wonderful builds and incredibly designed parts on the forum can anyone steer a person new to 3-D printing like myself (and many others)toward a good reliable printer?

I feel like many of us can take this hobby to another level with this setup!

Much appreciated

Carl

[AlwynTurner]

Carl I think Rob (Wibblywobbly) has identified this as one of the best
https://www.ebay.com/itm/Creality-CR-10 ... 0505.m3226

He has one and has posted some results that he has achieved. That printer for $160 is an absolute steal!!!

Alwyn

[AlwynTurner]

Here's Rob's thread
viewtopic.php?f=207&t=23851&p=220822&hi ... ty#p220822

Alwyn

[c.rainford73]

Fantastic Alwyn thank you!

[wibblywobbly]

As you will already realise from previous discussions, 3D printing is 90% CAD knowledge and 10% printer ownership.

I use You Tube as my guide. I originally bought a self assembly printer back in the early days, 3 years ago, it worked really well. I then bought a Kossel style printer that was really fast, high quality prints, but they are a challenge (for me at least) to set up properly via the software, the build size is a bit restrictive for 16th scale use. After much research I recently bought a CR-10. Huge build plate, it comes fully assembled, programmed, and configured, just two parts to bolt together, and that's it, you can print. It produces very high quality prints, and is very easy to use. They are selling like hot cakes, and are now the 'standard' to which other printers are compared.

If you bought one, no one would say OMG what did you buy one of those for?

[midlife306]

I agree 100% with what Rob says.
I bought an Anet A8, it came in a box in a gazillion pieces, I'm from an engineering background & it took me 8 hours from opening the box to starting to print my first object.
I could see that it may be off putting to a lot of people...
The Creality CR-10 is a different kettle of fish altogether, it comes in 3 (yes three) parts, bolt 2 together, plug the other one in & your good to go!
The other plus of the CR-10 is it is available in lots of different print volumes up to a whopping 500mm x 500mm x 500mm, the big one is more expensive but I've got to get me one of those!!!
I don't have any CAD ability, I'm definitely going to have to learn, but, in the meantime there are thousands of free models on Thingiverse & many other sites out there.
I simple terms, you're going to need a "slicer" programme, there are quite a few around, just about everyone you talk to will recommend a different one, Cura is supposed to be good but is a bit too bells & whistles (read complicated) for me, I've ended up using Slic3r, yep Slic3r, it's quite simple in comparison to the others I've seen.
Now here's a novel idea, you haven't got a 3D printer yet, no probs, download your slicer programme of choice & have a play at manipulating 3D models in it, you can scale them, cut them into bits so they will be a more manageable size, you can mess with different amounts of infill & variations with support material, best thing is you can see the effects of the changes you've made.
Just remember that you are not limited by the size of the .STL model you download, if you have a look at the 1/16 Hanomag I've been printing, that was a 1/200 model that I increased the scale of.
Just have a play & ask for advice if you get stuck
Cheers
Wayne


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

[gisalook]

Hi Guys.
I've got a Geeetech i3 clone which i've used for a couple of months and upgraded a lot. I love it but would not recommend it for a complete novice.
I have orderd a CR10S 5 but they sent an ordinery CR10 which i took out of the box before I noticed the size differance. The build quality is fantastic compared to my i3.
I can not wait for the right one to arrive.
Adrian

[Raminator]

As you will already realise from previous discussions, 3D printing is 90% CAD knowledge and 10% printer ownership.

I use You Tube as my guide. I originally bought a self assembly printer back in the early days, 3 years ago, it worked really well. I then bought a Kossel style printer that was really fast, high quality prints, but they are a challenge (for me at least) to set up properly via the software, the build size is a bit restrictive for 16th scale use. After much research I recently bought a CR-10. Huge build plate, it comes fully assembled, programmed, and configured, just two parts to bolt together, and that's it, you can print. It produces very high quality prints, and is very easy to use. They are selling like hot cakes, and are now the 'standard' to which other printers are compared.

If you bought one, no one would say OMG what did you buy one of those for?

I'd strongly recommend having a look at some of the CAD programs out there and seeing which one clicks for you, Carl. It'd be no good having a printer if the only stuff you can print is whatever you can find for free on the internet. There's a whole bunch of different suites out there; maths-based parametric stuff like OpenSCAD that Rob and Alwyn use, 2D-based mechanical drawing suites like DesignSpark (personally the one that clicked for me), some that are more like sculpting with clay or building like Lego, etc.

Adrian linked some useful resources here.

[c.rainford73]

Excellent adviceI will check these out.

[wibblywobbly]

I would also add that many of the models that you see on Thingiverse, Pinshape etc are 3D models. This is not the same thing as a 3D STL file that you can load onto a 3D printer and print. They are renderings of a design, and if you read the notes it will often say, 'I have never printed this'.

Some of the parts files are too big to fit onto the average print bed.

Unless there is a picture of a 3D printed example in the description, or the comments have an 'I made one of these' then in all probability it won't print without some technical wizardry.

Anything that has a linked Openscad file will be ok, there is an Openscad section on there, where are all models with the Openscad files are stored. The idea being that open source should mean that anyone can edit an original file. Some are easy to understand, others are mind boggling in their complexity. Mine fall into the former I hope.