The new perpetual 3D Printing Thread

KT421 · Aug 26, 2015

Time to move this from its temporary home in the lounge to its proper place!

Got a 3D printer? Want one? They've become shockingly affordable, although the technology has a lot of maturing to do before it becomes a household appliance.

alohadave · Aug 26, 2015

I keep seeing them on DealExtreme, and wonder if they are worth anything being as cheap as they are.

strawman · Aug 26, 2015

Are the plastics used for printing relatively standard? I was given a printed figurine that took a nose dive off his ill-fated home. I'd like to glue him back together, but sometimes that depends on the types of plastics being glued.

KT421 · Aug 26, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29637223#p29637223:3fxo7k0n said:
alohadave[/url]":3fxo7k0n]I keep seeing them on DealExtreme, and wonder if they are worth anything being as cheap as they are.

Some of them are total crap, others are actually pretty good. Printrbot does pretty much the absolute best for low-end stuff. Look to Ultimaker and Lulzbot if you want a larger printer and have a larger budget. I have also heard good things about the Wanhao Duplicator i3.

Intro-level printers at $400 (Wanhao if you're willing to do some tinkering, or Printrbot Play for something closer to a plug-and-play experience).

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29637283#p29637283:3fxo7k0n said:
strawman[/url]":3fxo7k0n]Are the plastics used for printing relatively standard? I was given a printed figurine that took a nose dive off his ill-fated home. I'd like to glue him back together, but sometimes that depends on the types of plastics being glued.

Yeah. Pretty much every filament-based 3D printer can use PLA plastic, which is cheap and widely available - I buy spools on Amazon or at Microcenter. PLA bonds well with superglue, although my experience is that the superglue leaves a white residue if I'm less than precise in applying it. The other big material is ABS (lego plastic), which I don't use much because while it's stronger, it's also finicky and very sensitive to slight temperature changes while printing. And it smells like ass while printing. That can be superglued or you can use acetone to weld it.

Squrf · Aug 26, 2015

I should be getting my New Matter printer next month. Definitely excited to get in on this.

Thorvard · Aug 26, 2015

We got the Micro3D(backed it on Kickstarter) and its worked out really well, considering the price. Of course, it did what I was worried. Made us want to get a really nice one. :facepalm:

I don't know that we use it enough to spend on a better one, but maybe in the future.

Nekojin · Aug 26, 2015

So, if one were to buy a capable 3d Printer, what would the cost-per-figure likely be for, say, standard-scale D&D-type miniatures? Or slightly larger Battletech-scale ones?

ChaoticUnreal · Aug 26, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29638081#p29638081:38g73uph said:
Nekojin[/url]":38g73uph]So, if one were to buy a capable 3d Printer, what would the cost-per-figure likely be for, say, standard-scale D&D-type miniatures? Or slightly larger Battletech-scale ones?

I'd be interested in this as well.

KT421 · Aug 26, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29638081#p29638081:3fqw7hhd said:
Nekojin[/url]":3fqw7hhd]So, if one were to buy a capable 3d Printer, what would the cost-per-figure likely be for, say, standard-scale D&D-type miniatures? Or slightly larger Battletech-scale ones?

Probably in the $0.20-$0.50 range. Plastic is priced by weight, so a model with more infill will have more heft and be stronger but use more plastic.

You're not going to get the fine detail you would expect from a Reaper mini, for example, but for generic NPCs, set dressing, McGuffins, etc, it works very well. Also does well on robots: my husband designed a bunch miniature giant robots and evil giant space monsters for a previous campaign and they turned out pretty sweet.

Edit: Some pics

House and firepits 3D printed and painted. Miniatures all Reaper Bones. Smaller fire pit REALLY needs a second coat of the grey. House probably $2-3 worth of plastic.

Gotta catch em all! Low poly is artistic style, not limitation of printer. About $0.25 of plastic each, except the Helix Fossil, which probably represents closer to $10 of material - bronzefill is expensive, but I felt that particular graven image deserved the special treatment.

Some of the giant space monsters my husband designed.

And the miniature giant robots.

Jonathon · Aug 26, 2015

Also keep in mind that a 3D printer builds things up from the print bed in layers... for D&D-type miniatures, depending on how your figure's designed, this can mean that (1) it may not handle overhangs and voids well, like you might see for figures' arms and weapons and things, and (2) prints' layered construction is usually visible as a sort of banded texture on the surface: this might not be the surface finish you'd want for a figure, and fine surface details might be hard to see (or disappear entirely).

That's not to suggest that you can't make it work-- just don't expect the same level of detail that you might get out of a commercial cast or injection molded figure.

Bardon · Aug 26, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29637283#p29637283:1aype806 said:
strawman[/url]":1aype806]Are the plastics used for printing relatively standard? I was given a printed figurine that took a nose dive off his ill-fated home. I'd like to glue him back together, but sometimes that depends on the types of plastics being glued.

PLA's a fun one, as it's *far* easier to print with but more finicky to glue. Superglue holds well for smaller/lighter pieces, but you can also weld with PLA (and likely ABS, though I haven't experimented with that). I use some filament at the end of a roll and a soldering iron and it works very well to add strength.

I'll link in some photos of what I've done when I get home, I mainly use the printer for cosplay props.

luckydog1313 · Aug 26, 2015

I don't dabble in 3D printing, but I watched this Tested video which was interesting.

Bardon · Aug 27, 2015

Here's hoping this works - if this turns out to be too big/annoying please let me know!

Here's the progress photos of my Groot Helmet.

1. In the beginning, I took a Thingiverse model and ripped it to bits - chopped off the shoulders, hollowed it out, cut out eyeholes, mouth hole + holes in the top to allow hot air to escape. Then came the fun of splitting the model into pieces that would fit on my printer.

2. Then I printed the *38* bloody pieces! You'll notice that I labelled each one as it was printed, to reduce hassles when assembling.

3. Then we used superglue to build up the layers - once two pieces were glued together then came the welding, with spare filament & a soldering iron.

4. As the layers built up, we also welded them together.

5. All fitted together, roughly. Note that the top layer is just resting in place at this point, but it's starting to look better.

6. The finished product - after more welding, fiberglassing the interior, bondo, dremel, XTC-3D, paint & moss (from a model train supplier) and we have one lifesized Groot helmet!

7. And - here's a candid shot of the final costume. That's m'darling wife in the Rocket Raccoon costume - it shows what 15" stilts will do to a 6'4" guy!

If anyone wants details on what we did, happy to share!

Edit: Spoiler'd the pics. Sorry!

doraemon · Aug 27, 2015

^^ That's really cool!

I never thought of welding together PLA with a solder iron and filament; at work we just use Loctite since it's what we have lying around, either that or epoxy. We mostly print in ABS so we just solvent weld it.

A coworker is doing a similar type of project, drawing up a helmet for an anime character for his wife, and then printing with PLA. He's been trying to keep it small enough to fit on the build plate but also fit on his wife

, so the filament weld method might work out as an option for him.

KT421 · Aug 27, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29642633#p29642633:198hb99k said:
doraemon[/url]":198hb99k]^^ That's really cool! I never thought of welding together PLA with a solder iron and filament; at work we just use Loctite since it's what we have lying around, either that or epoxy. We mostly print in ABS so we just solvent weld it.

You can also weld PLA by clipping off a 2 inch segment of filament and putting that into a dremel and using it as welding rod. The friction of the spinning filament will heat it up enough to melt it. It can be difficult and the filament wears down pretty quick, however.

I'm going to try doing it with a soldering iron next time... that sounds like it might work better.

gregatron5 · Aug 27, 2015

I've started printing again with the new Hatchbox filament KT421 recommended from Amazon. It definitely prints… differently from the other filaments I've used. I've printed a few 3DBenchy models to get things going. There are a ton of little whispy strings from nozzle movements across gaps. (I can post pics later if you want to see what I'm talking about.) What's the way to correct this?

BloodyCactus · Aug 27, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29642705#p29642705:31g0y1xz said:
vafarmboy[/url]":31g0y1xz]I've started printing again with the new Hatchbox filament KT421 recommended from Amazon. It definitely prints… differently from the other filaments I've used. I've printed a few 3DBenchy models to get things going. There are a ton of little whispy strings from nozzle movements across gaps. (I can post pics later if you want to see what I'm talking about.) What's the way to correct this?

sounds like retraction problems and or temperature.

did you recalibrate with the new filament? you need to recal every time you change filament.

KT421 · Aug 27, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29642705#p29642705:3cyplub2 said:
vafarmboy[/url]":3cyplub2]I've started printing again with the new Hatchbox filament KT421 recommended from Amazon. It definitely prints… differently from the other filaments I've used. I've printed a few 3DBenchy models to get things going. There are a ton of little whispy strings from nozzle movements across gaps. (I can post pics later if you want to see what I'm talking about.) What's the way to correct this?

Ooze and stringing is a perpetual problem and a lot of factors go into it. Basically, the plastic is too liquidy and oozes right out of the nozzle even while the printer isn't actively extruding. Try lowering print temperature to as low as you can get it and still get smooth extrusion and good layer adhesion, and if that doesn't quite solve the problem, then increase retraction in extruder settings.

Pretty much every spool is going to have a different ideal printing temperature, although 195C is a pretty good starting point for PLA.

gregatron5 · Aug 27, 2015

I'm printing at 190. Not sure how low I should go :/

It's also the new Ubis hot end, and the instructions explicitly state to only retract 0.5mm at most. I'm not sure I want to muck with that too much as I'm already on Ubis hot end #3.

KT421 · Aug 27, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29643063#p29643063:hxzbd6bw said:
vafarmboy[/url]":hxzbd6bw]I'm printing at 190. Not sure how low I should go :/

It's also the new Ubis hot end, and the instructions explicitly state to only retract 0.5mm at most. I'm not sure I want to muck with that too much as I'm already on Ubis hot end #3.

I've gone as low as 180C. At 170C you hit the firmware failsafe, where it will refuse to extrude in order to protect your hotend.

Edit: Scratch that: I've printed at 175C but there were layer adhesion problems so I turned it up to 180C.

Bardon · Aug 27, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29642669#p29642669:szaif1ga said:
KT421[/url]":szaif1ga]

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29642633#p29642633:szaif1ga said:

doraemon[/url]":szaif1ga]^^ That's really cool! I never thought of welding together PLA with a solder iron and filament; at work we just use Loctite since it's what we have lying around, either that or epoxy. We mostly print in ABS so we just solvent weld it.

Click to expand...

You can also weld PLA by clipping off a 2 inch segment of filament and putting that into a dremel and using it as welding rod. The friction of the spinning filament will heat it up enough to melt it. It can be difficult and the filament wears down pretty quick, however.

I'm going to try doing it with a soldering iron next time... that sounds like it might work better.

Yeah, we've tried the dremel welding method but to be honest it's more fiddly, you have to change the filament fairly often and in a job this size it just wouldn't be workable. The soldering iron method's pretty quick too. For helmets etc we only do that on the inside as it's a bit of a pain to smooth out again and you can lose minor details along the join, so we weld the interior and bondo the exterior of the joins then XTC-3D.

Bardon · Aug 27, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29642633#p29642633:2uferhfy said:
doraemon[/url]":2uferhfy]^^ That's really cool! I never thought of welding together PLA with a solder iron and filament; at work we just use Loctite since it's what we have lying around, either that or epoxy. We mostly print in ABS so we just solvent weld it.

A coworker is doing a similar type of project, drawing up a helmet for an anime character for his wife, and then printing with PLA. He's been trying to keep it small enough to fit on the build plate but also fit on his wife , so the filament weld method might work out as an option for him.

Save him some grief and definitely make sure he welds only on the inside, as it's kinda unsightly unless you spend a fair bit of time smoothing it out and I'm guessing the anime helmet needs nice smooth lines.

doraemon · Aug 28, 2015

I mentioned it to him today and he said since it would fit in one print, it wasn't a problem. At least with ABS, a vapor bath is an option for smoothing out the exterior.

Reefab · Aug 28, 2015

I've been heavily into RepRap printers in the past couple of years, building and designing printers. It has been a lot of fun and a huge learning experience.

Parts I've designed: http://www.thingiverse.com/reefab/designs

Example prints: https://www.flickr.com/photos/reefab_pr ... 1943218993

Just beware of the rabbit hole, it starts with a printer kit then you upgrade some parts. With the leftover parts, you starts thinking: "hey, I just need to get a few more to build a spare printer!". Rinse, repeat.

You end up with that: https://www.flickr.com/photos/reefab_pr ... 209107594/

Aurich · Aug 28, 2015

Glad to see this make a home here.

I'm actually hoping someone will do something similar with some of the cool desk CNC machines that are out now. I keep being tempted by them, but I just don't have any experience in the field.

3D printing is really cool, but for finished quality work I think subtractive methods are still way ahead. But depends on what you're making really. My hobby focus these days is pinball, and people are doing lots of cool things with both CNC/laser and 3D printing.

BloodyCactus · Aug 28, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29649871#p29649871:36b1o8if said:
Aurich[/url]":36b1o8if]Glad to see this make a home here.

I'm actually hoping someone will do something similar with some of the cool desk CNC machines that are out now. I keep being tempted by them, but I just don't have any experience in the field.

3D printing is really cool, but for finished quality work I think subtractive methods are still way ahead. But depends on what you're making really. My hobby focus these days is pinball, and people are doing lots of cool things with both CNC/laser and 3D printing.

was looking at the xcarve 3, put longer rails on it and you could cnc a widebody pf

Aurich · Aug 28, 2015

was looking at the xcarve 3, put longer rails on it and you could cnc a widebody pf

Pfft, widebody.

Alien will probably stay my only widebody!

The xcarve is definitely part of that interesting new breed. They're not cheap, but not crazy expensive either.

gregatron5 · Aug 28, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29649871#p29649871:2grzya1m said:
Aurich[/url]":2grzya1m]I'm actually hoping someone will do something similar with some of the cool desk CNC machines that are out now. I keep being tempted by them, but I just don't have any experience in the field.

Printrbot is supposed to have a CNC machine available soon.

Nekojin · Aug 28, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29651429#p29651429:2v3uyy2t said:
Aurich[/url]":2v3uyy2t]

was looking at the xcarve 3, put longer rails on it and you could cnc a widebody pf

Click to expand...

Pfft, widebody. Alien will probably stay my only widebody!

The xcarve is definitely part of that interesting new breed. They're not cheap, but not crazy expensive either.

If you ever consider getting another wide-body pin, consider Road Show, one of my top 5 tables. It's finally available on Pinball Arcade, yay!

As for the Xcarve 3, that definitely looks like an interesting way to make the playfield. I can just imagine getting together all the machines to manufacture your own table could end up costing more than just buying a good table and refurbing it. =@_@=

gregatron5 · Aug 31, 2015

I tried printing at 180 and it's just as, if not more, stringy. On top of that, it broke in half (the layers separated) when I tried to pull it off the bed.

[Edit]

KT421 · Sep 1, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29665851#p29665851:8kik5jvo said:
vafarmboy[/url]":8kik5jvo]I tried printing at 180 and it's just as, if not more, stringy. On top of that, it broke in half (the layers separated) when I tried to pull it off the bed.

OK, delamination indicates too cold, so bring the temp back up to 190. This may just be an oozy batch of filament. The internet tells me that the Ubis All Metal has a really small melt zone, so I'd advise sticking to their cap of 0.5mm retraction. You can still try turning the retraction SPEED up (200 or more - as fast as it can go without skipping steps)

Here are all the relevant settings in slic3r that you can muck with to try and minimize this: http://manual.slic3r.org/expert-mode/fighting-ooze

Edit: You'll also want to make sure "Use firmware retraction" is OFF.

gregatron5 · Sep 1, 2015

Thanks. It's been a while since I went back to the Slic3r manual. I won't have a chance to get back to it until Thursday, and then it'll be the better part of a week before I have time again.

Interestingly, Cura does a much better job with 3DBenchy than Slic3r, but Slic3r does a much better job with the low poly figures. Seems Slic3r does better with angles and edges and Cura does better with curved surfaces. I should be able to finagle similar settings in both, though.

Also, it appears that the MatterHackers filament is just crap. The Hatchbox stuff, while oozy, seems to work fine pretty much all the time, but the MatterHackers stuff stops extruding after about 20 minutes. I don't get it.

alohadave · Sep 4, 2015

http://www.technologyreview.com/news/54 ... s-barrier/

Printing glass.

Dilbert · Sep 4, 2015

@Bardon, that's amazing. Me and my lady go to Comicon, in fact that's how we met many years ago. But we are lazy and we just wear Jayne t-shirts from Firefly.

Add me to 'want 3D printer, don't have one yet' camp.

Bardon · Sep 7, 2015

Be prepared to lose a lot of time playing with your cool new printer when you get one, Dilbert!

We're starting to consider getting a laser cutter, just need to find out what's available that's less than the mortgage on a house. Anyone here have some experience with these?

Ostracus · Sep 7, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29701101#p29701101:2cbq9vnt said:
Bardon[/url]":2cbq9vnt]Be prepared to lose a lot of time playing with your cool new printer when you get one, Dilbert!

We're starting to consider getting a laser cutter, just need to find out what's available that's less than the mortgage on a house. Anyone here have some experience with these?

Didn't someone in one of the 3D printer articles say something about a homemade laser cutter?

Mike Bridge · Sep 11, 2015

we used EVA foam, a heat gun, and a dremel for the girlfriend's groot mask last year https://goo.gl/photos/9PxMpW6o9sueJ3Ev9 (mostly because the printer was busy printing a starlord mask for me, that i ended up not assembling yet)

Bardon · Sep 14, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29735185#p29735185:2697q5mg said:
Mike Bridge[/url]":2697q5mg]we used EVA foam, a heat gun, and a dremel for the girlfriend's groot mask last year https://goo.gl/photos/9PxMpW6o9sueJ3Ev9 (mostly because the printer was busy printing a starlord mask for me, that i ended up not assembling yet)

Sweet - probably a lot cooler than mine, I've had to add several fans to the inside!

rithm · Sep 14, 2015

For those looking to dabble in laser cutting, engraving:
http://endurancerobots.com/products/las ... accessory/

That came across my radar last week and I forgot to post it here then

Regards,
'rithm

Bardon · Sep 15, 2015

[url=http://arstechnica.com/civis/viewtopic.php?p=29746813#p29746813:16upz3ik said:
rithm[/url]":16upz3ik]For those looking to dabble in laser cutting, engraving:
http://endurancerobots.com/products/las ... accessory/

That came across my radar last week and I forgot to post it here then

Regards,
'rithm

Thanks, taking a look now!

The new perpetual 3D Printing Thread

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