jstarne1
USA
Asked
— Edited
OK so at the fair I was able to check out 3d printers coming in the near future. Like November is the targets these were telling me. The best printers were 2500 dollars but not only had excellent accuracy but could pump out a part at .15 mm resolution about 3x faster than others. Right now the YODA figure has become a popular demo print to show how accurate it can be done. I will post some demo pics too. Anyways I had discussions with the owners of a few of the printer companies. Makibot, plastibot, Ariea ect. I was surprised that money spent on a kit or rebuilt model does not mean you are going to get better quality or a functionally reliable machine.
I'm still not convinced that buying one at the moment is worthwhile. For $800 you can get a fair bit printed by a 3D print service and you get perfect results every time, no maintenance or repairs, no wasted prints etc.
Hopefully price comes down soon but for now I am expecting to use shapeways etc. for my needs.
Great info though.
Speaking of what's the min order for shape ways?
Thx josh for your valuable input.
Everybody search in google PIRATE 3D is a 3d printer and it cost only $297
with wifi.
I'm not sure on the minimum order for Shapeways, I plan to use a UK based company who are a lot cheaper, their minimum order is £30, which I'll easily meet with my requirements. There are downsides but there always are.
jstarne, so what printer did you end up getting and how well has it held up?
I personally have the MakerGear M2, going on its 1st birthday, although I have only printed about 25lbs of material through it, it has done well, knock on wood.
Has anyone ever printed the EZ-Robot Revolution head or other parts? If so how they turn out and look?
@developer I printed JD's head on Solidoodle 2 about two weeks ago. I was really not impressed with the results. With a fair amount of scraping and sanding it is now usable. But since then, I did pretty much all the hacks on the sd2, plus now using better filament (was using two year old filament), and manimanipulating the slicers (Slic3r and Cura) much better. My prints are are now 10x better. I will reprint JD's head when I have a chance (too busy printing Inmoov parts).
The only remaining thing I did not try yet is the highly recommended Simplify3d slicer.
Hello , I have had 2 Makerbot replicator 2 printers for about a year. I have mostly printed Ironman suite parts with good success. Just had to replace some hot ends but otherwise I have ran about 10 spools through each machine. My only regret is I kinda wish I had Rep 2x because that model has a second print head which is awesome because you can print using water soluable support material. It gives the absolute most clean print after you wash them with water. Even with many mods the solidoodle 2 pro had issues so I sold it.