Looking to purchase a 3D printer; any experience?

In My Humble Opinion
1

So I am looking to buy a 3D printer for home use, mostly just hobby work.

One of the models I am looking at is the Robo R2. Budget-wise, I’m looking to spend in the $1500-$2000 range. I also want one that is capable of printing with MoldLay filament, so that I can do some casting with my end products.

My pieces should not be overly large, maybe 3 inches in any dimension at most.

I have access to plenty of software for design (Various CAD products, Blender) so as long as the printer can use OBJ models (or something similar) I should be good to go.

Does anybody have any experience/recommendations with home printers?

2

Make: magazine just did an issue on 3-printers and what not.*

Looks like they have a lot of info on their web site.

  • One of the projects they showed how to make with a laser cutter was a hand loom. Yeah, use $2k piece of computerized tech to make a small loom. Got it.
3

While I don’t own a 3D printer, a couple of my co-workers have them and this is some of what I’ve heard:

  • Be prepared to do a lot of troubleshooting and tweaking.
  • Both people I know have heavily modified their printers with new parts either bought or manufactured with their printer (new fans, beds, nozzle mods, et.). This equals a lot of time and a lot of money
  • Success rates on projects is probably around the 90% mark, so be prepared to have failures

But both people enjoy having their printers but are both very mechanically inclined and enjoy tinkering. They both bought the same model off of Amazon Canada, I believe they only paid ~$300CAN. They can print up to 220mm x 220mm x 250mm. We have one at work that was around the $900CAN mark as well,

If you’re spending a couple grand I’m curious if your experience will be different?

Have fun!

MtM

4

I got a CR-10S a couple of months ago and I’m really liking it a lot. I don’t really know anything about those nicer printers, but I’d assume they’re just more plug’n’play with all the fine tuning already set up. On-board slicing sounds crazy to me, but I guess it could work. And I’m sure you can slice it on your computer and just send it the g-code if you want.

5

Yep! I think I’ve replaced almost half my printer with printed upgrade parts. The only thing I actually bought was a couple of fans.

6

Well, hopefully you don’t only use it for that. But I’m pretty sure you won’t be 3D printing anything worth $2,000 a shot, it’s all in volume.

I know a guy who owns five (maybe more) 3D printers and is really into the scene. He’s constantly using them to print parts to replace other parts of the same printers. The whole hobby sounds like it’s a lot of fiddling around and tweaking things which is exactly what some people are into.

I have heard some people say that the Anycubic Photon is a really nice affordable resin printer for small objects and relatively “fiddle free” (I see them saying this on fantasy miniatures forums) except that resin printers are stinky with fumes and I don’t have a room in my house to dedicate to chemical smells and I believe you need more temperature consistency than I can provide in a detached Midwestern garage.

7

Um, it’s the irony. Using a laser cutter to make a simple loom.

8

I recently purchased a Wanhao Duplicator 7. Good build quality, but very finicky. There’s a bazillion variables to account for, so it is best to find a web group to ask questions. I’m using mine mainly as a hobby.

9

First piece of advice, avoid any proprietary systems, for example printers that use filament cartridges, model specific parts, their own firmware/software etc… Go with a Reprap style, open source system. The field is strewn with the carcasses of 3D printing companies that popped up and busted in a short period of time. You don’t want to get stuck with a functionally extinct piece of hardware.
Reprap printers are great because all parts you can either buy them as off the shelf components or print them yourself, my first printer made my second printer and if something breaks I can use one to do the parts for the other.

The printer in your link looks nice but it’s ridiculously expensive, you can get much cheaper ones that will be easier to maintain and upgrade. The CR10 recommended above would be better IMO, it’s a derivative of the Prusa Reprap printer and it’s pretty much build from off the shelf parts widely available.

I don’t recall hearing of this MoldLay filament, but I suppose it’s used for metal casting? I know people use PLA for that so I guess it’s a specialized type of PLA. For printing with PLA you don’t need a heated bed so if that’s all you plan to do, you don’t have to pay for it. PLA is probably the easiest material to print with, it would be perfect if it would resist heat better, although for metal casting that’s not an issue at all.

One of the main problems people have with printing is bed adhesion, I’ve found that PET film surface and a thin layer of glue stick works best for PLA.

If you want speed and precision in your prints you should go with a Delta or CoreX type printer with a Bowden style filament drive, the one in the OP is a cartesian type with direct drive on the print head, because it has to move the mass of the extruder, heavy stepper motor, hotend, rods and bearings around is relatively limited in terms of speed. It’s a lot of mass to accelerate quickly so quality drops down fast with speed. To give you an idea on my cartesian printer (like the CR10 in concept) I usually print at around 60mm per second, on my CoreX type I can do 90mm/second with better quality.
On the other hand the cartesian, direct drive is more robust and easier to maintain and calibrate.

In terms of calibration, some printer can do automatic print bed leveling, but if it’s a type where you need to do it manually I highly recommend going with one that use three leveling screws instead of the more typical four, it makes the leveling process immensely easier.

3D printers produce out fine particles and fumes when printing, this can cause health issues and discomfort for some people, it’s a good idea to put them inside an enclosure to mitigate the problem. It’s not good to put them in well ventilated areas because air drafts and temperature fluctuation that can create issues when printing most materials.