Considering getting a 3d printer for the shop. Not sure what exactly I’m looking for spec wise, just looking for some recommendations.
Thanks.
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Original Prusa i3 MK3S+
NEXT!
we’re on a roll tonight
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what’s your budget? i can give some decent recommendations and advise but it’ll all depend on how much you’ve budgeted for this
Budget is important. The Ender 3 is probably the best selling low-end hobbyist 3d printer. We printed ~60 parts for this year’s robot on one, including the spools for winding our climbers, various brackets, pulleys for polyurethene belts, mount for a camera, a couple of timing pulleys. The build size isn’t massive, and you can’t print some of the tougher plastics (no Nylon, for example), but it’s inexpensive, easy to use, and does what we needed it to do.
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We can get a sponsor to help fund it, we have one that has offered funding as part of a grant. Just looking for something that has high enough temp to print material that can bear some stress.
I just want to make sure we have something that can print what we need, if the cost of a rig like that’s too much for us we can hold off for now.
Your best cheap option would be the Ender 3 series like CEF said. But if you’ll have a sponsors help and can spend a bit more then there are a few really good printers for FRC use.
It’s about $2000, so not cheap by any means. But the Dremel 3d45 is perfect for FRC. It has an enclosed build area and a heated bed so it’s really good for all different material types. It’s very dimensionally accurate and I’ve never had any issues there. The only two complaints that I have are its slower than similarly cost printers (although significantly faster than any Ender printer ever will be), and they use proprietary filament spools (but there are easy workarounds so thats barely a complaint).
Any Makerbot brand printer will also be perfect for FRC but I have some personal issues with them so I don’t usually recommend them. But, they do make good printers.
For about $900 you can also get the Flashforge Creator Max or Flashforge Creator Pro. Unlike the other printers I’ve suggested, I’ve never actually used these ones myself but I’ve heard good things about them.
And my last bit of advice, is don’t get sucked in by printers that have a massive build volume. It’s tempting to want to print something that’s like 2 ft wide but just… don’t. I’ve used an Ender 5 Plus for a while before and I regret every second of it. They’re not bad for hobbyists or artistic purposes. But for FRC you’ll never get them levelled or tuned enough to make anything overly precise and they require constant maintenance to keep them tuned. It’s not fun and if you don’t know a lot about 3d printing you’ll struggle to get anything high quality out of it.
And once you’ve bought your printer, this website will be your best friend for troubleshooting. It shows a lot of the most common problems that go wrong with printing and explains what could be causing them and how to fix it. It’s amazing for a newcomer to 3d printing and really good for helping to hone in your tuning and get better parts.
Hope all this helps and good luck!! <3
I’m not sure I can agree with all of Cirrus’ recommendations. I certainly wouldn’t touch makerbot with a 10ft pole at least.
The Ender 3 is great for its budget, but you do get what you pay for. I’ve printed some pretty chonky things that have been just fine on the bot in PLA+, but I’ve also had weird bed issues and failed prints.
If you’ve got the grant money, I’d concur with @troy_dietz and get a Prusa MK3. It’s one of the best printers for its cost and is the go-to for many FRC teams. I’m that both Spectrum and Citrus run a small village worth of Prusa machines. If I were to park some funding in 3D printers, this is where I’d go.
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go with the mk3, you won’t be disappointed
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Couldn’t agree more with avoiding Makerbot like the plague. They’ve had one or two good printers, but the software leaves a lot to be desired and the amount of constant tuning and maintenance is frustrating too say the least. They used to be one of the best options like… 12 years ago … but they’ve fallen FAR behind the curve. But I was trying to keep my personal hate for them out of my advice lol.
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realized i never linked the website lol
https://www.simplify3d.com/support/print-quality-troubleshooting/
here it is <3
I mean all of the very valid points you brought up is not personal hate. I’d hate to see OP read your comment and buy a couple grand worth of makerbots. Sometimes opinions are useful!
Having run one of their printers for a while - I’d rather feed freshman a steady diet of Mountain Dew and candy and have them make parts with a 3d pen…
Prusa MK3+ will work fine, Mini if you have a lower budget.
And PLA+ is probably more than adequate for the VAST majority of things most teams print. @AllenGregoryIV and @Ryan_Dognaux can probably vouch for that.
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You know that’s a good point. I had to repair our old Replicator 2 last fall and it was a month and a half endeavor so I’d hate to see a new team have to go through that too. It was… not fun
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Not just falling behind the curve (they haven’t sold their decent machines, like the Replicator 2, in ages) but producing what can only be described as direct-to-landfill garbage.
The Replicator 5 was infamous for its hot swappable extruder. Pretty neat feature imo, but there’s a reason it needed to be hot swappable…I’ve literally never had one finish a print without jamming.
Anyway, yeah, the Makerbot hate pile has begun. Don’t get me started on them pushing the machines and support contracts on all the half-brain school administrators.
Prime directive is to buy a Prusa, then figure out if you need a different printer for something the Prusa can’t do. Odds are, the Prusa is perfect.
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Oh don’t get me started on the newer line of Makerbot printers. My team’s decade old Replicator 2 still easily out-prints anything the’ve made in the last 5 years (except maybe the Method X but that’s like… 10 grand which is absurd and not even remotely worth it). I’ve never actually owned a Prusa so I can’t speak on how good they are or how much tuning/maintenence they need, but I’ve heard enough good things to agree that it’s a safe bet.
I threw mine in a Pod in a moving box with some pillows, had it hauled over the Rockies in the winter, unloaded it, loaded some polycarbonate filament and hit print. Print came out.
Only mods I’ve made were replacing the filament input to add a coupler for a tube to allow me to have the path from the extruder all the way back to my dry box for nylon to be enclosed.
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Honestly yeah that’s fair. I’ve been using a Replicator 2 for a while so I forget that every other printer Makerbot’s made in the past decade sucks. I just got lucky to have their only good printer lol.
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I’m going to go out on a limb here…
I’ve had some good experiences with Raise3D printers. Large build volume, heated bed, double-nozzle. Catch is they can be finicky if you don’t give 'em some TLC on a regular basis.
The team uses a fleet of Monoprice printers as I recall, with one Markforged.
If I had to make a recommendation: Get a fleet of 4-5 small cheap printers that are relatively easy to work on, use those, and when you need that extra feature that’s when you get the good printer.
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That’s actually some really good advice I’d agree with. I know @B_Pence that you said a sponsor would be helping with the cost, but if this is your teams first time having a printer then it’s definitely better to get some cheaper and easier to use printers. Like I and a few others have said, the Ender 3 Pro is one of the cheapest printers that’s actually decent. Same with the Prusa i3 (although I’ve never used that one myself so I’m going off other people’s words). Unless you’re going crazy with 3d printing then you shouldn’t need more than 2-3 of those can provide you, at least, not right off the bat. Maybe a few years down the road you upgrade but this would be a solid start.