Which 3D printer?

[scanman]

Opening a can of worms here...

 

I've got *about* £500-~£700  to spend on a 3D printer - so, for model-making purposes (I'm not going to be spraying chocolate or rubber!) any suggestions as to which one to go for?  All advice gratefully received - and no legal implications!

 

Regards

 

Ian

 

[7013]

Hi Ian

This was a question I was going to ask, however i see that you have not had any replies from your January posting. This is a great shame because reading through there does appear to be a lot of knowledge but little appetite for sharing. We all have to start somewhere and it would be great to get guidance from fellow modellers. I am going to go further afield than the model railway fraternity to to look up some answers, if i find anything useful i will post it on this thread.

[Rabs]

Hi,  I didn't spot this thread when it started.  Can you both give some more detail about what you want to achieve with a 3d printer, in what scale and what level of detail you hope to achieve?

A <£1000 3d printer will be very good at some things but completely unsuitable for others so we need a bit more information to provide good advice.

[Giles]

Interestingly, I just bought my wife a 3D printer for her birthday..... after looking around a bit, I bought her a Flashforge Finder. It was £399, and works extremely well straight out of the box, and very user friendly. The downside (which I thought was perfectly acceptable) is that it will only print PLA - but it does that very nicely to 0.1mm resolution. It will also only print a maximum 125 x 125 x125, which considering her interest is jewellery is fine.

 

The program it comes with is extremely user friendly and easy, will 'repair' models where necessary, auto-supports, and rafts etc. She happily uses it having no previous experience, and the output quality is very nice.....

 

I might even use it occasionally......

[rue_d_etropal]

at that price it is probably worthwhile for some small items. There are some items which I was considering looking to try laser cutting such as windows, but this would mean I could use my current 3D CAD software.

What is PLA like, as a plastic , painting etc.

Also does it auto detect when it runs out(standard print spool function?) which is something I have been told is not on many cheaper printers.

[Rabs]

Also does it auto detect when it runs out(standard print spool function?) which is something I have been told is not on many cheaper printers.

 

I don't think that is a particularly important feature if you are printing small objects.  If you had a print that was going to take hours and lots of expensive material then it might be a concern but most small scale models will only take an hour or two and use a few pence of filament so it's not the end of the world if you run out and you won't run out very often with small prints.  Features like reliable bed levelling, heated bed and a good quality extruder hot end are all much more important to good FDM printing in my opinion.

 

However, my concern is that the OP might have unrealistic expectations of the print quality they will get from an FDM printer so I'm hoping that they will come back and give some more detail about what they want to achieve.

[Giles]

at that price it is probably worthwhile for some small items. There are some items which I was considering looking to try laser cutting such as windows, but this would mean I could use my current 3D CAD software.

What is PLA like, as a plastic , painting etc.

Also does it auto detect when it runs out(standard print spool function?) which is something I have been told is not on many cheaper printers.

PLA takes a rattle-can primer well, and the Flashforge Finder does have an auto-detect function.

It doesn't have a heated bed, as PLA doesn't seem to require it (certainly this works reliably without)

 

Bed levelling is 'assisted' and very easy.

Edited April 6, 2017 by Giles

[rue_d_etropal]

The question of auto feed detection is something that had been mentioned by some who have their own printer. Glad to see it has it, even for a jiob that takes an hour it is useful, possibly essential.

As for print quality, there has been too much hype and people expecting low cost printers to be able to do what professional quality ones can do, but there are items it is probably perfectly capable of doing, such as some model building fittings. I would like to see a picture of something produced, and not a protional picture, something someone here has produced.

I would be tempted if I had the money, maybe I should try and get our club to buy one!

[Jam_Railways]

Just to throw a spanner in the works if you have £500-£1000 to spare why not venture into the sla printing.

SLA printing produces a much better quality print (using a laser and resin) than the standard plastic wire (FDM) 3D printing.
The downsides the costs are quite high and the clean up process is a bit messy

The upsides are that the final print is amazing and incredibly fine.

 

Do some research but I would recommend: 
a wanhao duplicator 7

[AndyID]

Just to throw a spanner in the works if you have £500-£1000 to spare why not venture into the sla printing.

 

SLA printing produces a much better quality print (using a laser and resin) than the standard plastic wire (FDM) 3D printing.

The downsides the costs are quite high and the clean up process is a bit messy

The upsides are that the final print is amazing and incredibly fine.

 

Do some research but I would recommend: 

a wanhao duplicator 7

 

I just noticed the Wanhao is now on sale in the US for $495.

 

Here's something I printed in PLA on my Prusa printer.

 

[Fen End Pit]

I've had a Wanhao duplicator i3 plus for 6 months, very happy with it.

see my blog for some of the output.

 

David

[AndyID]

I've had a Wanhao duplicator i3 plus for 6 months, very happy with it.

see my blog for some of the output.

 

David

I think Jam was referring to the resin printer.

Edited July 18, 2017 by AndyID

[Knuckles]

Yeah the 7 is resin. I'm thinking of buying one.

 

A month or 2 back I finally purchased a 3D printer but opted for FFF so I can piddle with different materials plus I wanted a more plug n play experience so brought a Robox Dual (RBX02) So far very happy with it.