
The Guide to Not Buying a 3D Printer - ChuckMcM
http://chopmeister.blogspot.com/2014/08/sifting-through-features-or-guide-to.html
======
jacquesm
Simply rent one. Most major shoptools are best used by experts and the capital
cost + maintenance is just way too high for occasional use. This goes for
Lathes, mills, bandsaws (the metal variety), sheetmetal gear and so on. 3D
printers are no exception to this rule (even though having all that gear
certainly is a wonderful feeling you don't actually need it and gaining all
the required expertise is a matter of (many) months or years, not weeks).

Until you reach the stage where you are making stuff a substantial portion of
your time renting is by far the better option (especialy in fields where there
is still a lot of development).

If you want to get one to play with the technology on a daily basis buy one
that is as open and flexible as possible so you can move up as new
developments become available.

This is a pretty good option:

[http://www.emachineshop.com/machine-shop/Rapid-
Prototyping-S...](http://www.emachineshop.com/machine-shop/Rapid-Prototyping-
Service/page83.html)

~~~
analog31
I learned the same lesson long ago with printed circuit boards.

Renting has the additional advantage that you're not stuck with the particular
technology that you bought. If two jobs benefit from 2 printing technologies,
you can have both.

On the other hand, a benefit of having your own proto shop is that if you're
skilled, you can prototype and modify quicker than you can specify. And don't
overlook ancient methods. You can still do a lot with woodworking tools.

~~~
penguat
I was working wood for the first time in a while recently, and amazed by how
quickly pine can be worked.

~~~
jacquesm
When I was prototyping a bunch of CNC gear we'd routinely use wood to test
with. It makes a terrible mess but an accident due to a misplaced comma will
not result in missiles being shot through the room at high speed and the
material is much cheaper. Also, your sintered toolbits will last just about
forever.

When you work wood with metal tools you're going to have do a very thorough
cleaning job afterwards because the acids in wood will wreck equipment
quickly.

~~~
clarry
> When you work wood with metal tools you're going to have do a very thorough
> cleaning job afterwards because the acids in wood will wreck equipment
> quickly.

Thanks for the warning. I hadn't realized this problem exists.

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Ccecil
As someone who has been involved with printers 100% over the last 3 years I
agree with this article for the most part. Everyone has a new crowdsourced
"better than everything" printer pretty much every couple days. It is way past
the point of confusion from the consumer's standpoint. Eventually some of
these brands will wash out or merge but for now we are left with quite the
range of products...most of which are virtually identical except for frame
design. I don't recommend anyone who is serious about building your own
printer to spend less than $1500 on parts when self sourcing. You "can" make a
printer for $600 that is fairly solid but it typically is a tradeoff on time
invested in tuning. Makerbot is never advised. Nothing about them is good
enough. There are several better printers out there...but you are never going
to get good results with anything that is less than $500. I feel sorry for
anyone who has backed any of these sub $500 printer campaigns...I fell it will
be detrimental to the community by creating unhappy consumers.

They are promising assembled printers nowadays for less than I spend on
hotend, motors and electronics...let alone frame and assembly.

I am a printer vendor and have been for the last 3 1/2 years...I have worked
on many opensource projects related to the reprap community. I have done my
best to help people tune their printers in IRC regardless of where they
sourced them...any printer can be made to print...making one print good takes
time. How much time is based on how good the printer is assembled
mechanically, electrically as well as tuned in the software side (firmware and
slicer).

I often tell people "These things are like table saws...not toasters...just
because you have a table saw does not mean you can use it well right away"

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JDDunn9
You should also consider not buying a 3d printer at all. Everyone I know who
has one says it was awesome the first month, then they don't know what to do
with it. Go to [http://www.makexyz.com/](http://www.makexyz.com/) and find a
cheap local 3d printer to print stuff you want. It will take a lot of printing
before you can justify buying one.

~~~
Joeboy
I would love to get on board the 3d printing revolution, but I can't think of
a single thing I need or want that I could make.

~~~
GFischer
You know what would have been a killer use for 3d printers when I was a kid?
Toy soldiers and GI Joe accessories.

Maybe there's a startup idea in there :)

~~~
jonhohle
That sounds great until you realize you miss out on the economies of scale
that injection molding provides.

A toy soldier that costs the better part of a dollar in materials, or one that
costs fractions of a penny? Which one is going to provide better margins?

~~~
GFischer
Yes, but when we were kids we wanted to design our own weapons and toy
soldiers :)

I was thinking along the lines of printing kid-designed soldiers or weapons :)

Absolutely niche (though maybe not that much niche for stuff like Warhammer
4000 or tabletop war games or whatever :) ).

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mtinkerhess
> My final piece of advice - do us all a favor and do not give Makerbot your
> money. They are the exact opposite of what the global 3d printing community
> stands for and works towards.

I'm not too familiar with 3d printers and hadn't heard anything like this
about Makerbot before -- anyone know what the conflict there is about?

~~~
tmuir
I have a Solidoodle 3 at home, and a Makerbot Replicator 2 at work. In terms
of print quality, the Makerbot is significantly better than the Solidoodle.

There are certainly things I like better about the Solidoodle, such as the
ability to use a sheet of glass on the bed, which allows me to use ABS/Acetone
slurry to make parts stick to the bed, the ability to tweak all of the CAM
settings, the mechanism for feeding the filament into the hot end is easier to
work on, I've never had a clog on the Solidoodle, and there are several power
users who have shared improved designs for various parts of the machine.

But if I need to make a part that has to be within tight tolerances, or have a
good surface finish, I prefer to print with the Makerbot.

Does anyone know of a sub $3000 open source FDM printer that can print as well
as a Makerbot?

~~~
jesimon
SHAMELESS PLUG: I do sell the FlashForge printers, which can be found here:
[http://shop3duniverse.com/collections/flashforge-
printers](http://shop3duniverse.com/collections/flashforge-printers)

I'm posting this only because I think it's a legitimate answer to an important
question... Is there an affordable printer that prints as well as (or better
than) a MakerBot?

I have been using the FlashForge Creator and Creator X to make 3D printed
prosthetic devices, and I'm thrilled with the quality. All of the photos and
videos I have on my blog at 3duniverse.org were printed on the Creator or
Creator X printers. I'd say these printers print better than the MakerBots,
which we've been testing side-by-side.

The FlashForge printers range in price from $977 for the original Creator to
$1349 for the latest Creator Pro. The printers come fully assembled and
include two full spools of filament.

But note that I only started selling them after falling in love with them
through hundreds of hours of direct hands-on experience with them. I haven't
yet found another printer on the market that has better price/performance
value.

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fudged71
I'm glad that there are so many open source 3D printers out there using Marlin
and GCode. They aren't easy to use, but they allow us to create a unifying
platform on top for usability www.printtopeer.com

We've solved the "hard to print" aspect first, and will be moving further into
solving the "hard to calibrate", "hard to troubleshoot", "hard to share",
"hard to integrate" aspects soon. I want these machines to be easy to use some
day, and I think we're on the right track.

~~~
spiritplumber
A 3D printer is a good "force multiplier" for a small workshop, but not that
useful by itself.

For example, I use it to print custom gaskets for the circuits that I make and
sell -- this results in less installation errors, which is worth it just for
the replacement units.

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jtchang
Thought I'd leave a link here for a company based in the bay area and grew out
of the Noisebridge hackerspace:

[http://www.typeamachines.com/](http://www.typeamachines.com/)

They have a small office in Techshop though they are in the process of getting
more space. Their machines are awesome and a lot of the guys who work on it
are in the bay (which means you can hit them up and ask questions easily).
Also the driver code is opensource.

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snarfy
I built my printer from parts sourced of the internet, following various
incomplete wikis. I like electronics and arduino, and building the printer as
a hobby project was a natural fit. There are many uses for the printer when
dealing with small electronic projects, anything from project boxes, special
connectors, screw terminals, etc. I use openscad to model all the parts, as
I'm a programmer by day. If I were not in to electronics and general maker
movement stuff, I'm not sure what I'd use the printer for, but as a maker,
it's a great tool to have.

The other day one of the plastic hooks on the shower curtain broke. Instead of
trying to glue it as I would have before the printer, I just printed a new
one. Works great.

The printer: [http://imgur.com/a/URcNC#0](http://imgur.com/a/URcNC#0)

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ChuckMcM
This is a great article which dives into some of the challenges of someone who
wants to get into 3D printing but doesn't know what to buy. There is soooo
much crud out there and it is so hard to know.

~~~
CraigJPerry
Yeah i've bookmarked this in case i ever change my mind.

For now i think paying someone else to print is the best option, for low
volume. I guess it's been the same with many new technologies, initially at
least.

~~~
_delirium
That's also my view, in part because paying someone else to manufacture parts
also retains significantly more flexibility about which processes to use,
depending on the part/application/volume. I can get some things CNC-milled,
other things 3d-printed using Material A, another thing 3d-printed using
Material B, something else injection-molded, etc. It's not clear to me that
there's currently a single process that's best for everything, and I don't
have the space, capital, or knowledge to own and operate three or four
machines.

------
soggypenny
Shameless plug for our 3D printing matching service:
[http://www.supplybetter.com](http://www.supplybetter.com). You come to us
with a project, and we match you to the best service bureaus for the job (i.e.
the people with the printers, both hobbyist and commercial). I'm the co-
founder and mechanical engineer on the team, and you work directly with me as
we source your project. Check us out!

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romanows
Is there some set of standardized benchmark objects that different companies
and owners could print and compare? Maybe something that requires increasingly
high precision as a function of volume so you could say "my machine goes out-
of-spec at 3 cm^2"?

~~~
jacquesm
With the amount of slop and the kind of drive used (steppers) going out of
spec is the norm, precision is mostly coincidential.

If you don't use servos or steppers+encoders for feedback you may just as well
assume that anything that you produce is unique. The variability in wire-feed
(gripping wire is a tricky proposition) and head temperature adds to this. The
result is a fairly rough surface (compared to millwork or lathework) but in
the end what matters most here is that it can be done at all.

If you require precision then you're probably going to have to do a little bit
of re-work (just like you would with casting), if all you care about is looks
then you may have to do some sanding to get a really smooth surface.

3D printing right now does not allow fabrication to the same tolerances that
we have gotten used to with even minimal metal working tools unless you are
prepared to reach very deep into your pockets.

See above about renting, good quality equipment can be rented for a fraction
of the cost of buying bad quality equipment and will produce workpieces that
are very good due to the tight control over the head position and the
increased control over wire feeds and temperatures.

Consistency (feeds, speeds, temperatures, materials) and precision (accuracy
of position, repeatability) are flip sides of the same coin, you can't really
have the one without the other, and when both are good then you will have good
quality workpieces. If either is not so good then you will end up with rough
work, low quality and/or a lack of precision.

Not all work requires precision or good surface finish, it is rare to have
work that requires neither.

~~~
MrBuddyCasino
A.k.a why not just use Shapeways. The level of detail they are capable of is
very impressive: [http://www.shapeways.com/model/1987984/tribal-voodoo-
skull.h...](http://www.shapeways.com/model/1987984/tribal-voodoo-
skull.html?li=ds.302920.11)

I don't now a lot about 3D printing, are there any serious competitors?

------
jeffchuber
I have a Rostock Max V2 from SeeMeCNC. They are great guys, have a great
community, their machines are easily mod-able, and totally open source. It's
definitely not for the beginner, but it's an awesome tool.

~~~
rational-future
What do you use it for?

~~~
jeffchuber
prosthetic sockets

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silasb
Resin printers are interesting, because you take your DLP from your living
room, hook it up to your LittleRP printer and then print out some high
resolution items.

Easy cleanup, low noise, very little moving parts.

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GFK_of_xmaspast
Not buying a 3d printer is easy. I do it every day. Even a tiny child can do
it.

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baddox
> I've said it before but I'll say it a thousand times more if necessary. The
> first and foremost important feature of a 3d printer is the quality of the
> prints. That's what it's made for. It's not made to connect via WiFi, tweet
> when the print is done, change LED colors while printing and make coffee. It
> can do that, sure, but that's not its primary purpose, now is it? When I
> look at some of the currently offered printers it's like someone trying to
> sell me a car, with all the bells and whistles, for a crazy low price, and
> it's not that ugly actually... but sadly the only thing it doesn't do is
> drive.

That entire paragraph is subjective. Some people _do_ want WiFi (I certainly
wish my printer had it, because my workflow options right now are a pain).
Some people _do_ want it to tweet or otherwise give live progress updates. And
so on.

~~~
privong
> That entire paragraph is subjective. Some people do want WiFi (I certainly
> wish my printer had it, because my workflow options right now are a pain).
> Some people do want it to tweet or otherwise give live progress updates. And
> so on.

Sure, some people want those things (and I can see where they would be nice to
have), but I think the point is that if it does not print well, the wifi,
tweeting, coffee, etc. do not matter.

