RC Tank Warfare community hobby forum

DIY fiends might like to try this. $155?
The video of the printed ball demonstrates the quality of the output, and it's pretty darned good!

http://www.instructables.com/id/3d-Home ... h-Arduino/

Aldi in Australia has a 3D printer on sale next week for $499: http://www.cocooncreate.com.au/
It looks to be very similar to a Wanhao i3 Duplicator which seems to be a good entry level option. I've always been interested in the technology and this has me tempted but my question is how useful are 3D printers, particularly in this hobby? Are there any sources of 3D designs for tank parts or other useful things available on the web or am I going to have to design everything myself?

It would be handy to knock up servo brackets, speaker boxes, and the odd detail part like an antenna base or stowage items but when you factor in the price of the printer and the cost of filament are they really worth it yet?

Hi B_man, I have been pondering whether to invest in a 3d printer and I had the perfect project where I needed parts that weren't available (see my Universal Carrier thread). After taking advice from Warren Hudson (Woz on the site- see his project threads) I downloaded Openscad and tried to create designs for the parts I needed. There were a few false starts but eventually I managed with Warrens help to design the parts and he printed them off for me. He also had designs for some parts I needed and produced those as well.

I would suggest before buying a printer, download Openscad or one of the other free cad products and do a couple of designs and get familiar with the techniques required. The printer is only part of the process and can only produce what you design, so if you can't master that or at least feel comfortable with it then the printer would be a very expensive ornament in your workshop! I make most of my models out of styrene using sheet and tube, but there are some pieces that need to be either bought or made using a 3d printer. Having had a successful trial I am now looking to buy a printer later this year providing the other half doesn't find out! Hope the comments help. Alwyn

If you do a lot of modelling / gaming (warhammer etc) then they're great as you can build print just about anything you can think of.

Also useful for bits and peices about the house as I've printed a new foot for a ladder, gutter bracket and bits for a book shelf.

Remeber that it's all still pretty new technology and isn't quite Plug and Play yet.

AT picked up the design process within a day and once you get used to the printers limitations and how the printer prints then it's all pretty simple.

B_Man wrote:Aldi in Australia has a 3D printer on sale next week for $499: http://www.cocooncreate.com.au/
It looks to be very similar to a Wanhao i3 Duplicator which seems to be a good entry level option. I've always been interested in the technology and this has me tempted but my question is how useful are 3D printers, particularly in this hobby? Are there any sources of 3D designs for tank parts or other useful things available on the web or am I going to have to design everything myself?

It would be handy to knock up servo brackets, speaker boxes, and the odd detail part like an antenna base or stowage items but when you factor in the price of the printer and the cost of filament are they really worth it yet?

To answer your questions, I've not found any useful parts online. This could be down to two reasons. Firstly, supply and demand, apart from the items that Woz does, most standard parts can simply be bought as spares from hobby suppliers. Secondly, if someone has spent many hours or maybe days designing something for their personal use, they may not be willing to simply post the fruits of their labour online so that everyone else can download the Gcode and print it for free. What I quickly learnt was that what I thought would be a plentiful supply of parts wasn't the case at all. Much of what is online are 3D renderings, they cannot simply be downloaded and printed, it's a format thing. If you found a model online that was 3D printed, the designer 'might' sell you the Gcode, but they will know that once it has left their pc, there is nothing to stop anyone emailing the code to anyone else for free.

I have used mine to print servo recoils, speaker boxes, battery holders, and all sorts of parts and models. However, it took a long time to learn how to do those things, and pretty much everything I have ever made on the printer could be done using good old styrene. It's a toss up. Develop styrene modelling skills or develop CAD skills?

You hit the nail on the head re the cost, you can also factor in the time. Spending hundreds on a printer to create something that can be made for pennies with styrene is a false economy. Alwyn has the right idea, learn the CAD skills, its free, and get the parts printed to see what they are like. You can use the 3D print hub online to find someone near to you who provides cheap printing services.

I won't even begin to go into the quirky nature of setting up a 3D printer and getting optimal quality from it, or the variances in filament, all which can prove so frustrating that many simply sell the printer rather than persevere with getting it sorted. I have enjoyed my ownership, it was a challenge to solve the problems, and nowadays when it isn't printing right, I know where the problem lies, rather than having to try numerous things to unravel the source.

Hope this helps!

Rob

Thanks for all of the very informative replies gents. I think I will hold off for a while and see how I go developing some CAD skills.

In case anyone uses Shapeways, they have just taken delivery of the worlds first printer from Hewlett Packard. Due to the way that prints it is 10x faster, and prints more cheaply. This means that printing will soon be reduced to next day, and at lower prices. First prints will be in black only, but other colours will follow.

Just spotted this-

http://www.thevirtualfoundry.com/

Metal filament for FDM printers.

Still early days, they only do copper and bronze at the moment (grey metal, most likely Nickel-Silver sometime in the futre) but metal parts on a FDM printer?????

That's awesome Woz, well spotted, really makes me think I will have to invest in a printer this year. Alwyn

Looks interesting, what do reels of plastic cost? Actually another reason to avoid buying one for now, they'll be even better in another year or so.