Quote:
Originally Posted by Thunder910
Hi all!
How did you get one (Is it your sponsors', your school's, your team's, etc.)?
What model is it?
What can it do? (Features- multicolor printing, what materials does it print in?)
What features do you find essential for making parts for robots?
What other uses do you find for the machines?
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I own a Makerbot Replicator 2X. My job also owns the same printer.
It can do ABS or PLA (I've heard tell of it doing Nylon but I haven't tried it and I likely won't) and can do 2 color printing (or mix and match materials if you want)
I've primarily printed brackets, PCB enclosures, and prototype parts for visualization. I've never tried to use it to print structural parts for FRC scale robots.
Other uses? I purchased it to prototype out parts for small scale educational robots. I use it for its intended purpose. Yes, I occasionally print out small trinkets as demos for people but this is a tool for me and I use it as such.
Overall, I've found the 2X to be a useful tool once it is dialed in. Being able to design a part, hit print, and wake up the next day having the part sitting in the printer is convenient and lets me iterate designs quickly.
Small issues I've run into -
Leveling the build platform is really important. It's not a set once and forget it. I tend to level it before every print or two.
Kapton Tape is a nightmare to apply. If anyone has any tips on this please let me know.
Living in Florida there is a lot of humidity, this shortens the effective lifetime of a KG of plastic as it wicks moisture out of the air. When these pockets of moisture hit the extruder they boil and it can cause the nozzle to spit plastic rather than smoothly extruding it. While this will rarely ruin a build it can make it look like crap. I recommend NOT opening filament until you have to use it. If you can store it in a low humidity area that might be better. I don't currently have that option, as such I'm more or less giving my spools a 6 month life time. There are things you can do to take the moisture out of them but they don't seem a) safe b) effective to me so I likely won't do it. Rolls that go bad will probably be relegated to "demo" rolls where I don't care about the quality of the parts just making lots of them for kids or giveaways.
I'd also have serious concerns about letting students run these devices without heavy supervision. Mine gets very hot (bed is 110C and the extruders are 200C+) and they stay hot for a while due to being fully enclosed. Burns are a serious concern.
Otherwise, I highly recommend this printer for prototypes. I wouldn't use it for structural members in FRC though.