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.
The scale modeller/scratch builder in me is swimming with ideas... I can see a ready made 1/48th scale Beaufort now...
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 .
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.
This thing came with files to create spare parts for itself, scary
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%?
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.
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?
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).
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