3D Printer Advice

[kristinweiss]

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.

[engunneer]

that particular combination of requirements will be hard to find. $10k is not much for a "commercial" 3D printer. You'll also spend more on material on the more expensive printers.

2151 in 2012 had 17 3D printed parts on the robot, and none broke during competition, including the custom pulleys. All were printed on my $700 makerbot cupcake, and none were printed with support material. They are published to thingiverse if you want to check them out.

One of the things you can learn from 3d printing is how to design for the manufacturing process. If you have a milling machine, you are constrained to certain rules. If you have a 3D printer, you are constrained to other rules. You need to learn to design within the rules of your process.

What are you planning to print? The newest makerbot machines and some of the other "hobbyist" level machines are capable of dual material (either color or the second one can be dissolved), and has decent accuracy for under $3000. The build area is large enough to print a loaf of bread or a 2012 basketball. Get a large stockpile of material with another $500-$1000 and you can print quite a few things for your robot.

[CalTran]

Talk to anybody from 207 Metalcrafters. They always use 3D printing in some shape or form. This thread has both some talk as well as some links to other threads that talk about their robots.

This thread also has some 3D printer recommendations.

[GMAdan]

I agree with the comments above. It is difficult to get commercial quality for under 10k. I worked with many commercial machines and even with them it takes a good amount of time to dial in the settings. I have spent the take with makerbots and got results comprable to 20k machine I worked with at my university, of course not the same. I don't know the current machine you have currently but maybe thats something to keep in mind.

[runneals]

Our lab on campus has an HP designjet ($20,000+) that we have used to print a lot of parts this year (such as encoder mounts). It prints nice parts.
Our mentor has a Makerbot that we used to print several parts & mini robot prototypes during the design phase to use on a mini pyramid. It does a decent job of printing.

I would suggest you look into the MakerBot Replicator 2 (or Replicator 2x if you want 2 heads for 2 colors).

Hope this helps you make your decision. Contact CoreyBrown if you have any questions about the MakerBot.

[Steven Donow]

We spring plenty of parts on a Dimension machine that cost $15,000 about 6 or 7 years ago...I can find the exact model number later, but I believe the tray is 8x10x10

[ChrisH]

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.

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

[slijin]

We have a Dimension 1200es in our school; I'm not sure about the printer's price, but I do know that each tray of "ink" (i.e. plastic) costs on the order of $200 apiece.

Unless you go with a RepRap or a MakerBot product, you're going to be hard-pressed to get a 3D printer and have the funds to stock it, let alone a "professional" one.

FWIW, IMO the only caveats with using hobby 3D printers is that their resolution is comparatively low (I believe .1", but that's still pretty good). The durability of the final product is dependent on the quality of the material you use.

[AlexGrant]

David, the HP designjet is a plotter. In the lab we have a Fortus 250 and a uPrint Plus on the ABS printing side (what you would use for any robot parts) and a Zprint used for showcasing designs as it prints in a powder base resulting in fragile parts.

All of the machines we use in the lab are expensive commercial machines owned by the university but there are plenty of other avenues to go down. With the funding you are looking at I would suggest a Replicator 2x as an out of the box solution. After purchasing the machine you should still set aside money for plastic and maintaining the machine.

With this option you can allocate around $4-5,000 for this printer and use the remainder of your funds on other equipment.

[Trent B]

Alex, Stratsys sold uPrint Plus's to HP rebranded as HP Designjets, but as far as I can tell it didn't last long and there is less information readily found about them because they appear to be now defunct.

I like other recommend looking at Makerbots as they are constantly getting more competitive in their capabilities.

[fb39ca4]

I would try to fix up your current printer, and get a laser cutter. They are far more versatile for large objects, much faster than 3D printers, and can cut any material other than metal or glass that comes in flat sheets. A hackerspace near where I lived ordered one direct from China with a 2' x 3' cutting area and 80W laser for $5000, as an example of how much you will spend. Ordering from a US based importer will cost you more.

[Dale]

The newly announced CubeX comes close to your build volume at far less than $10k ($2999 for dual head.) That cheaper price is a good thing because the filament is twice the price of printers that take generic filament. That's clearly the strategy, sell the printer cheap and make money on consumables. I don't know of anyone who has one yet but if it is trouble free, the higher priced filament might make sense. We often throw away half of the prints coming out of our Afinia.

http://www.cubify.com/cubex/

[Metalcrafters]

We have been using 3D parts on our bots since 2011. I have a few posted related to this topic. I am by no means an expert.

We have used these parts on everything from our drive train, (bearing blocks and wheels) to manipulators with great success. If anything it saves us machine time, everything we have printed we had the resources to machine but did not want to dedicate the time.

Designing the parts for your machine is the most important part of this process. We have a a Dimension Uprint with a 6x8x8 build. We fully understand how the part is built in the machine to maximize its capability. We also understand what application the 3d parts are best suited.

All I can say is have realistic expectations for your parts and test them. This is not a save all solution. Be aware that certain chemicals will react with ABS and can and will fail your parts.

I am sure you can use the search function here, many of these topics have been covered.

Good luck

[Lil' Lavery]

What other machine tools do you have? What are the issues with your current 3D printer? The $10K may well have a better use, depending on what your current capabilities are.

[Darren Collins]

Our team has a Dimension UPrint Plus. We really like it, but it runs around $20,000. We have used it for pulleys, gears to drive potentiometers/encoders, encoder mounts and led ring mounts. I know some teams have used them for wheels etc, but the printing material (ABS) can become prohibitively expensive. The deposition layer thickness is 0.01”.

There is a new 3D printer, the Form1, which will be available this spring. It was a fully funded kickstarter project that shows great promise. Instead of deposition of thermal plastic, it is based on stereo-lithography. It is intriguing, but I cannot give a recommendation on something I haven’t used. Here's another link to a youtube interview about the printer.