Quote:
Originally Posted by NorthernTaco
At my school we have a 3D printer that is pretty crappy and pretty much useless. Our teacher has applied for a $10,000 grant to put towards new machinery and we were thinking about getting a new 3D printer. Not knowing much about 3D printers I was wondering if anyone had any recommendations? We need one that can print detailed parts that are durable enough to be used on our robot. We would also like one that prints negative space in powder although if you have a suggestion for a different type we are open to other options. We would like the printer to be large enough to print a 1X1X1 foot cube at the minimum, and lastly, we would like to keep it under $10,000.
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The machines with powder in their negative build space are Selective Laser Sintering sytems. A new laser will set you back about $100K, not counting the rest of the machine. Last I looked into it SLS machines were running $500k though there are now some new, smaller machines that are less
It sounds like your existing machine is not properly dialed in. This can be a painstaking process and you need a pretty good understanding of the details of the machine to get it right. If you should happen to move the machine to a different location you might have to redo the settings.
Do you know what a properly built part from your machine should look like? What material and color are you using? Some materials are hydroscopic and that can cause problems if the material has been sitting around for a long time. Different colors may also build differently due to the coloring agents and fillers used
We have a Mendel type with a 16"x16"x 10" build volume which works very well for us, but it took weeks to get it dialed in. We also had the manufacturer send us some parts so we could see what things should look like. Pictures were just not doing it for us. If you post some pictures of those "crappy" parts we might be able to help you figure out what is wrong with your build parameters
ChrisH