3d Printers

[Tyndmyr]

Aright, this is a fairly geeky lot, with a high incidence of technically minded folks, so I figure the odds of someone being involved in this is pretty good.

Anyone know how to get into 3d printing fairly affordably? I know there's a lot of plans out there, but many are woefully sketchy/experimental in nature, and *many* assume that you already have a 3d printer to print out the bits. The tech is still fairly emergent, sure, but I'd rather not dump a thousand + dollars at some quirky gadget that requires tons of assembly to not actually work...I want some more or less clear path to get there that doesn't involve throwing stupid amounts of money at something. Cupcake CNC looks awesome, but is no longer sold. I'm quite sad I missed that. The plans for that would be promising if I had some way of getting a complete parts list/sources to get them all(including the printed bits!)/assembly instruction. I'm basically ok for any assembly that doesn't involve soldering(which I've never bothered to learn...go figure), but don't really have the experience in this field to really improv on it until I have a working model.

Thoughts or opinions on getting started?

[Icewalker]

This is a project I found out about awhile ago, I haven't checked in on some time but it seems to have progressed significantly. It's a huge community built 3D printing project, producing self-replicating 3D printers, with the intent of spreading the tech around. It may be a good possible starting place to check out.

http://reprap.org/wiki/Main_Page

(Looks like soldering may be potentially involved. I'm not sure. Looks like you can buy some prefabricated parts instead of soldering.)

I'm not sure whether the RepRap has hit 100% self replicating ability. I think it still doesn't produce its own circuitry yet. I could imagine a Playground driven project to spread the 3D printing tech around though, because you can get like 90% of the way to the finished product real cheap if you already have one.

[OracleofWuffing]

Do you just want to 3D print, or do you want a 3D printer? I've used Shapeways (http://www.shapeways.com/) to get a few 3D prints (http://www.shapeways.com/forum/index.php?t=msg&goto=28502&#msg_28502), just upload a compatible filetype and you can just order prints. Getting your own printer would be a better long-term investment, but if you're just printing a few things every now and then, it might be a better idea to let other people handle the heavy equipment.

[Tyndmyr]

Oh, I want my own. I have ever so many ideas about what I could do with one(as I'm sure all of you do as well). Can you imagine, say, printing out custom minis for each game? Fantastic.

I've investigated the RepRap angle...and it doesn't look at all bad, but it's highly experimental/hobbyist oriented. I'm not so interested in advancing the 3d printer world(at least with my first one) as I am in just getting one running. And sadly, botmill appears to have a truly terrible reputation, which kills my plan for just buying one outright for 1100-1200(I don't think this is an unreasonable budget). I haven't fully written it off, since kit options apparently exist, but if I can avoid the heavy assembly reasonably, I would love to do so.

[Totally Guy]

I work with construction accounts and a couple of years back I had to buy a 3D Printer along with all the technology tools for a school we were building. The one we bought was a ZPrinter 310 and it cost nearly £17,000 GBP and that was part of a big order.

http://www.zcorp.com/en/Products/3D-Printers/ZPrinter-310-Plus/spage.aspx

At the time that was the best value model that we could find that matched the school's specification.

Probably way above your budget...

The catologue I have says the priniting consumable material costs about £2 per print.

Edit: Yeah, way too much. I wonder if there is a secondary market?

[Tyndmyr]

The per print price is pretty reasonable(I'm ok with the $30+ dollar a spool prices...tbh, printer ink ain't cheap either), but yeah, twenty grand is a touch out of my price range. Ideally, I'd like to shoot for about a thousand, but I have some flexibility on that, and I really don't need anything exotic in terms of media capabilities. Just plastic would be absolutely fine. I'm also ok with exotic requirements in terms of PCs/drivers/OSes. Got enough boxes around to repurpose one if need be.

[thubby]

since they seem well outside any rational price range, your local engineering college probably has one. i wouldnt be surprised if they'd let you use it (for a price).

[OracleofWuffing]

Hm... Only other folks I've heard of that offer an assembled 3d Printer in that price range would be 3D Stuffmaker (http://3d-printing.com.au/buy-the-right-printer/buy-3d-printer), and I really haven't heard anything about them- positive or negative. That model's about US$1030 before taxes or whatever strange issues pop up shipping things internationally, but a 30-40 day ETA's a huge turn-off for security purposes. :smallfrown: