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3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 4:07 pm
by Greg
This is mainly to PointedStick because I know he has his side business of rapid prototype parts but I thought that a discussion on this might benefit the group in case anyone else is interested in printing their own parts at some point in their life.
The first (of possibly many questions) would be is there a particular system that you know of that costs the least when optimizing for material costs BUT also takes into account the accuracy of the system.
I'm interested in purchasing one for personal use but from professional machines I've used during grad school, they don't really get you on the system costs, they make their money on the material costs (plastic + support material). I was wondering if you knew of a particular system that has the lowest material costs BUT also accounting for providing good accuracy. Thanks.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 5:09 pm
by Pointedstick
Yes. All the DIY machines use 3mm or 1.75mm ABS or PLA plastic, which can be had for $20-$25/lb, depending on how much you buy at once. Spools of this material are widely available from many retailers (
including me).
IMHO the machine that best satisfies your criteria is the Ultimaker.
http://ultimaker.com/
Pros:
* Capable of ridiculous detail and amazing prints
* Can buy it in kit form, don't have to source parts yourself
* Inexpensive compared to professional machines
* Very fast printing
* Relatively quiet
Cons:
* Have to assemble it yourself; will take more than 10 hours
* No heated bed; can only print in PLA plastic
I'll also mention that if you need a few parts printed here or there but don't want to deal with the substantial expense of buying and maintaining your own machine, I offer
custom part printing services.
I'm working on a new machine design right now and I hope to have kits ready in the next few months. I'm hoping to produce a kit for a machine with Ultimaker-level precision and more materials choices for half the price. But you really can't go wrong with the Ultimaker. It's a rock-solid design that's been tested and tweaked over the last two years, and a testament to its superb engineering is the fact that it's undergone relatively few changes in that time.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:12 pm
by Greg
Thanks for the response. For the heated bed, what benefit does this have over a non-heated bed?
Also, you're intending on making a version that can take more materials than the Ultimaker but at half the price potentially? It looks like the Ultimaker is around $2100-ish right around now.
This is more for my own information at the time, I'm not intending on printing anything soon, but one offs I could certainly do through you. I'd be interested to see what kit you make in the oncoming months. Would this me another MendelMax?
Perhaps I'd have to do my own research on this but from what I gather, there are a couple of companies that sell fully made kits for the system, then there are others that design open-source schematics for how to build them (such as the MendelMax I believe) and people like you take these schematics and source parts for them? Does that encompass it in a nutshell?
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:27 pm
by Pointedstick
1NV35T0R (Greg) wrote:
Thanks for the response. For the heated bed, what benefit does this have over a non-heated bed?
Heated beds allow you to use ABS as a print material, since the bottom of any parts you print in it will curl and warp without one. Having a glass-covered heated bed also makes PLA easier to deal with, since the finished part will pop off after the bed has cooled.
1NV35T0R (Greg) wrote:
Also, you're intending on making a version that can take more materials than the Ultimaker but at half the price potentially? It looks like the Ultimaker is around $2100-ish right around now.
This is more for my own information at the time, I'm not intending on printing anything soon, but one offs I could certainly do through you. I'd be interested to see what kit you make in the oncoming months. Would this me another MendelMax?
Nah, it'll be better. I built a few MendelMaxes, and they're great machines, but a bit over-engineered in some places and under-engineered in others IMHO. They're not very well suited for mass component procurement or easy assembly. And they take up a large amount of space; much more than they need to, really. But still, great machines. You can buy them pre-assembled from Lulzbot:
http://www.lulzbot.com/?q=catalog
These machines really aren't all that expensive in terms of the individual parts. They're basically simple XYZ positioning systems for a plastic extrusion toolhead. They're largely similar to 3-axis CNC machines that need to go faster and have a much larger range of Z-motion.
1NV35T0R (Greg) wrote:
Perhaps I'd have to do my own research on this but from what I gather, there are a couple of companies that sell fully made kits for the system, then there are others that design open-source schematics for how to build them (such as the MendelMax I believe) and people like you take these schematics and source parts for them? Does that encompass it in a nutshell?
Yup, that's about right. I'm looking to get into the full kit business like some of the other retailers already have. There are a number of open-source designs that people sell kits for, including the Prusa, Printrbot, and MendelMax. They're all good machines with their own quirks and drawbacks. I wouldn't recommend the Prusa or Printrbot if you're looking for high-quality prints, though. Those machines have rigidity issues that manifest themselves as inconsistent print quality at even moderate speeds.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:39 pm
by Greg
All great information. You've probably seen something like this (or know of something else), but looks like there is a forum for 3D printing I found here:
http://www.buildlog.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=26
Also between 3mm and 1.75mm, it looks like there is not a huge difference in cost. Would one just be suited for large jobs better than another? Or 1.75mm could create finer details?
After reading some stuff on makerbot's website, looking through differences of materials. I'm used to ABS, but PLA is looking kinda interesting and looking into their tradeoffs.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:50 pm
by Pointedstick
The ORDbot is a great-looking machine. Never built one myself, but I really like the design. The problems I see is that it requires a lasercutter and proprietary rails that aren't always available. If those aren't a problem, I'd say go ahead and build one of those. It's an efficient, rigid design.
THE forum for 3D printing is
http://forums.reprap.org/ The RepRap movement is the origin of all the DIY 3D printer designs that exist.
The filament diameter doesn't have anything to do with the final detail; the nozzle size determines that. I like 0.4mm nozzles. IMHO the only real advantage of 1.75mm filament is that it requires less torque to feed, permitting smaller and lighter extruder designs, which is good for a machine that uses a moving extruder. Less mass on the extruder permits higher speed and more aggressive acceleration. But you can only take advantage of those higher speeds if everything else is up to spec, so it only really helps for a very well-designed and built machine.
PLA is a great material. You can extrude it at lower temperatures, and it doesn't warp or crack as easily as ABS. Once cooled, it's harder and more brittle as opposed to ABS's springiness and flexibility. It does take longer to cool though, and expands as it heats up, so you need a smaller melt zone in your extruder hot end or else the partially heated part of the filament will jam higher up in the feed chamber. It really helps to actively cool the top of the hot end and the extruder feed mechanism.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 6:59 pm
by Greg
Pointedstick wrote:
The ORDbot is a great-looking machine. Never built one myself, but I really like the design. The problems I see is that it requires a lasercutter and proprietary rails that aren't always available. If those aren't a problem, I'd say go ahead and build one of those. It's an efficient, rigid design.
THE forum for 3D printing is
http://forums.reprap.org/ The RepRap movement is the origin of all the DIY 3D printer designs that exist.
The filament diameter doesn't have anything to do with the final detail; the nozzle size determines that. I like 0.4mm nozzles. IMHO the only real advantage of 1.75mm filament is that it requires less torque to feed, permitting smaller and lighter extruder designs, which is good for a machine that uses a moving extruder. Less mass on the extruder permits higher speed and more aggressive acceleration. But you can only take advantage of those higher speeds if everything else is up to spec, so it only really helps for a very well-designed and built machine.
PLA is a great material. You can extrude it at lower temperatures, and it doesn't warp or crack as easily as ABS. Once cooled, it's harder and more brittle as opposed to ABS's springiness and flexibility. It does take longer to cool though, and expands as it heats up, so you need a smaller melt zone in your extruder hot end or else the partially heated part of the filament will jam higher up in the feed chamber. It really helps to actively cool the top of the hot end and the extruder feed mechanism.
Sounds like you really know your stuff. Probably a good thing too since you're in the business (haha). I'll be looking at more of these reading materials over time. I see having a 3D printer as a great asset for starting a small prototyping business. At some point once I'd get more space, getting a used mill and lathe would be great, or perhaps a CNC machine like this:
http://littlemachineshop.com/products/p ... 1241045623
and maybe a MIG welder too
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:15 pm
by Pointedstick
Let me tell you, using DIY 3D printers to sell parts is
hard. For small batches of custom prototypes you sell for a reasonable amount of money, they a 3D printer would be fine. For large batches, you really need a fleet of machines to keep the turnaround time low. And each machine needs its own maintenance. And these machines are going to be running literally 24/7, which puts terrible wear on them.
It's a lot harder than you might imagine. Selling sets of printed plastic parts was one of the hardest things I ever did. On the other hand, it was very lucrative. It's nice to feel like you're printing money!
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:17 pm
by Greg
Understood. I suppose that's why you get into the business. Everything has risk/effort to it but as long as the payout is good, then go for it!
Also, for most rapid prototyping machines, I'm assuming most use *.STL files as the most commonly used filetype. Do you have a particular free-ware version of a CAD software that you use to create virtual parts and then *.STLs from those parts or do you normally go through purchasing a commercial software (i.e. CATIA, Solidworks, ProEngineer, NX, etc.)?
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 7:33 pm
by Pointedstick
STLs indeed. I use OpenSCAD, which is a programmatic, open-source CAD program. I also used Modo back when I had a Mac, and I'm now working on learning Blender to replace it now that I'm a Linux guy full time. You can use basically anything that can output an STL--or in a format that can be converted to STL, which the free program MeshLab can do.
FreeCAD is looking like a promising alternative to the expensive commercial software, but I'll admit that I have no formal training in CAD, so even it is pretty intimidating.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 8:24 pm
by Greg
Pointedstick wrote:
STLs indeed. I use OpenSCAD, which is a programmatic, open-source CAD program. I also used Modo back when I had a Mac, and I'm now working on learning Blender to replace it now that I'm a Linux guy full time. You can use basically anything that can output an STL--or in a format that can be converted to STL, which the free program MeshLab can do.
FreeCAD is looking like a promising alternative to the expensive commercial software, but I'll admit that I have no formal training in CAD, so even it is pretty intimidating.
I'll have to check those out then because I have had formal training in CAD (I added a background portion to my posts at the bottom so if people wanted to talk to me, I might be able to shed light on particular topics that I know pretty well). I've been using SolidWorks through school for the most part but now that I'm out I wanted to find a free-ware version.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 9:27 pm
by Pointedstick
Wow, those backgrounds are awesome. You're an impressive guy.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 9:45 pm
by Greg
Pointedstick wrote:
Wow, those backgrounds are awesome. You're an impressive guy.
Why thank you! My grad research was on a wearable exoskeleton that you could use to exercise in space to prevent muscle atrophy and bone loss (results from being in a zero gravity environment). I really liked that stuff, although I feel like I'm hijacking my own thread talking about this on here hah.
But yes, I really like CAD modeling and machining because I really loved art as a kid but wanted to find a technical job that I could do that involved art and made a reasonable salary, hence engineering.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Sun Jan 13, 2013 11:05 pm
by Pointedstick
Now I see why you want a 3D printer. You're trying to be the next Iron Man! Don't worry, your secret is safe with us.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 6:24 pm
by Kriegsspiel
The idea of the
3d printable gun is interesting.
Re: 3D Printing - Overall Analysis
Posted: Mon Jan 14, 2013 8:42 pm
by Greg
Pointedstick wrote:
Now I see why you want a 3D printer. You're trying to be the next Iron Man! Don't worry, your secret is safe with us.
Pretty much that's what I'm aiming towards. Ideally though, I'd want to get more into machining and printing and learning so I can build exoskeletons or robotic parts to fix physical problems like this guy's company (Ekso Bionics):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcM0ruq28dc