I bought a 3D Printer. Much fun.

[Bassnut]

After some home work, I bought an UP plus 3D printer. Mostly for the hell of it and partly so I can make a proper servo motor support structure for my (and Phil Harts) TL machine on canon 5D MK2 cameras.

UP aint the cheapest, but support, documentation and accuraccy was supposedly excellent, so what the hell.

Set up was a bit confusing, the software version was ahead of the manual, so I just left stuff like table set up (critical they mention) as default and pushed print, worked a treat. It was preassembled, so I guess that helped. The table was set up as smick as.

I made the 3D image in free google Sketch up. There are many 3D apps, most expensive. I figured google wouldnt bother with it unless is was pretty stable and easy to use, the learning curve wasnt too bad.

The supprise though, given the few 3d printed sample ive seen, is that the default printed finish is very smooth. I expected to have to do sanding etc, but print layers were almost invisible and almost looked extruded.

The support structure was also very easy to remove by hand. Very little stanley knifing was required for odd sharp bits.

Im chuffed at the result, better than I expected.

[leon]

That is unbelievable, can you imagine what the future holds, sounds like a must have item for us all.

Leon

[DavidU]

Awesome stuff Fred, this would be a perfect match to my tool change CNC router.:thumbsup:

[h0ughy]

Awesome FRED. Boys with big toys

[Bassnut]

He who dies with the most toys, wins. :cool::nerd::party::cool::cool:

[LewisM]

May I ask how much for the setup?

The scale modeller/scratch builder in me is swimming with ideas... I can see a ready made 1/48th scale Beaufort now... :)

[Bassnut]

Ah no, auto change CNCs arent remotely on the same planet. But, you could make really cool knobs for ultracool valve amps though :D

[CJ]

Human organs no less!

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-05-03/3d-printers-on-track-to-print-body-parts/4666886

[Bassnut]

I feel your pain, thats what got me hooked. About $2k with some extra filament rolls. I can truly tell you I have spent **** loads more on stuff that was far less satisfing :P.

[Starless]

These 3D printers are amazing.
We are witnessing the birth of the Star Trek "replicator".:2thumbs:

[Bassnut]

This thing came with files to create spare parts for itself, scary :P

[jjjnettie]

I predicted last year that they would be in every home in 10 -15 years.
I revise my prediction down to 5 years now, and 10 years for the technology of the home 3D printer to reach the "colour laser printer" stage. ( I consider it to be still in the "dot matrix" stage )
And even that may be very conservative. :)
Have fun with your new toy Fred. Next purchase will be a 3D scanner I suppose?
Won't be long before we'll all be printing out our camera adaptors. :)

[Tandum]

Fred, what sort of files does it read? 3dcad or what?

[Bassnut]

STL only, that seems to be the standard for 3d printers now. All cad programs export that these days. Or have generic drivers you can add to do that.

[Tandum]

Oh no.. I have no idea what that is (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STL_(file_format)). I'm getting old :(

[Bassnut]

Yeah well, nor did I , but it just works so what the hell. Im to old to worry about it too.

[alistairsam]

Ha ha, love this.

yeah it looks awesome.
we've been thinking of pooling funds at work and getting one just for the heck of it. all sorts of crazy ideas on what to print!!.
how long do the filaments or refills or whatever they use, last?
for example, those Fred letters, how much did they use? 10%?

what are you going to print next?
Cheers
Alistair

[sheeny]

Looks like fun, Fred.

I got interested in 3D printing a little while ago when Robin (Tandum) posted a thread. I'd be interested to hear how robust the prints are. I have a home foundry and the 3D printer strikes me as a fun way to make patterns - particularly for plaques.

So far the laminated paper 3D printers seem the most robust for casting patterns, but there is potential for a lot of paper wastage compared to a deposition printer.

Watching with interest!;)

Al.

[troypiggo]

What's the quality of the output like? I saw a video and it looked like it comes out pretty rough and you have to sand it smooth? Or was I misunderstanding something?

[Bassnut]

The filaments are 1.7mm diameter and come in 700gm or 1 kg rolls for about $60 ea. The FRED model used so little, it hardly made a difference to the roll size, although the model is only 100mm long and 30mm high. It looks solid, but the printer automatically makes a scaffold structure inside "solid" volumes so uses far less than youd think. You cant tell with the finished item, very robust indeed. It feels like solid hard plastic.

The automatic external support structure is also very intricate and spindley, doesnt use much filament at all.

It took 2.5 hrs to print FRED, but that doesnt matter. It was very interesting to watch, it moves quite quickly, but each layer is only 0.15mm high, thats what takes the time.

The result was so smooth (except the side with the support, but that was trivial to clean up), that I havent touched it. You need to look closely to see evidance of layers. Ive seen some pretty rough finishes too, but smoothness is the difference between brands and models, smoothness is what you pay for (layer res, or Z axis precision actually). This UP plus has 0.15mm res which is pretty good, printers generally are getting better all the time.

Material plastics are ABS (tough and standard, many different colours including fluro), PLA which on dual head printers can be used for support and as a seperator which can be washed away with chemicals (or melted I think, lower melt temp, that might be wrong). No need then to physically remove supports. I saw a demo once where an entire mechanical clock was printed, supports washed a way and it immediately started working. All the printed gears were separated with PLA which when washed away became loose. This clock was pysically impossible to build any other way. Hidden internal gears etc.

And now PET. Ive got some crystal clear PET coming, so im thinking print more letters in clear, or some arty thing that has LEDS at the base. There are no "joints" as such, so I hope the LED light will flow uninpeaded through the whole model like a fiber optic. The model surface isnt actually invisible clear, sort of a tad frosty, but that might work better with LEDs and make it "glow".

Al, apparently PLA is good for lossy casting models (i might not have described it properly, you know what I mean).

[04Stefan07]

Very nice! Eventually in the future when the price of these come down I will most likely love to grab one myself. Imagine printing out all the spare parts and extra parts for scale model building!

[iceman]

Can you make a Polarie alignment thingo? ;)

[sheeny]

"is the man!" of course.;)

Probably already done it just too modest to show us.:P ...oh, sorry no, the clear PET "hasn't arrived" yet... so probably just waiting on the LEDs.:D

Al.

[TrevorW]

Nice Fred I hope you have fun with it but IMO

I suggest people really do their research before buying a 3d printer-

here is an article you may like to read -

http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2013/05/why-3d-printing-is-overhyped-i-should-know-i-do-it-for-a-living/

[Bassnut]

Thats a good article, but I dont think anyone remotely technical and had done some homework would expect what he talks about. I had realistic expectations before I started. In fact, the result is better in some ways than I thought it would be.

After fishing around, often the biggest complaints are not the machines themselves, but weeks or months of stuffing around setting up trying to get a reasonable result up due to poor or no documentation,no support and bad clunky operating software. Startups by engineers with no commercial experience make really clever stuff, but you need a degree to make them work properly. UP have made this stuff for years. The software provided for instance, checks if your drawing is suitable and attempts to fix it or show you where problems are. Also UP support structure has a very fine fuzzy layer just before it touches the object, it just falls away cleanly with little effort. Not many printers have this. The manual is also very good.

But yes, cheap home 3D printing is a bit of a gimick, specially sub $800 as he mentions. It has very many limitations.

By far the hardest part is learning the 3d drawing software. Its clever and intuative, but anything remotely fancy takes some serious skills that take a long time to learn, as he mentioned.

[Bassnut]

No, not really. I could make the body, but this kind of thing shows 3d printing limitations, youd still have to fit a clear cover, dial scale and magnetic pointer.

Drawing the thing alone would a fair while, but im hoping to get better at that over time.

All doable, come to think of it, but it would be far easier and probably cheaper just to by the real thing :P

One thing its really good at, is making models. My son has warhammer models. I recon we could make them, perhaps not quite to the resolution they do though. ALL the effort there of course is in the model creation in software.

[TrevorW]

No demeaning your buy Fred, I've been keen on one myself for model making purposes but just hard justifying the cost in the short term.

Actually I'm waiting for when they are high speed and can print in metal but that may be some time off yet for the general public.

Have fun

[sil]

I've been toying with the idea of getting one myself for a while now. Over 20yr experience in 3D computer modelling I've got a ton of models that I'd love to have sitting on my shelf.

Then I'd have to get a 3D laser scanner to complement it... ;)

I'm still waiting for the affordable 3D printers to be capable of high quality fabrication of high load parts (such as replacing damaged gears in a high torque RC monster truck). Knobs and dials don't tend to wear out much be being able to replace things that break with a replicated version that is as strong (or stronger) than the original part will be awesome. I don't think we're too far off though and for now I'm jealous of your new (toy) tool!

[Bassnut]

Yes, a scanner, been looking at that :P.

Heres a macro to try and show untouched finish, feels smooth..

[Osirisra]

Welcome to he 3D printing club Fred :)

I have had my Makerbot 2 for about 6 months now and never get tired of designing and printing all sorts of weird and wonderful things. I have been tinkering with a home made scanner using a projector and webcam and with more tinkering it will produce quite good printable scans.