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Registered Member #8120
Joined: Thu Nov 15 2012, 06:06PM
Location: Moscow, Russia
Posts: 94
IamSmooth wrote ... Artlav, what are your thoughts on the Lutzbot taz 3 and the Replicator 2x? Are you familiar with them?
Not much. MakerBot have a good reputation, LulzBot i haven't heard much either way. Both are ludicrously expensive compared to what one can make on your own. But judging by Replicator's Troubleshooting&Maintenance manual, it requires about as much maintenance as my custom one. Both apparently can print without being connected to a PC, which is fairly important. LulzBot uses 3mm filament, which is more common where i am, MakerBot uses 1.75mm, which offers greater precision of fine-layered prints (when extrusion rate is very low).
Many things depend on what you want - to use a reliable 3D printer, to make one and understand the technology, to obtain one cheaply, etc. In the first case, i'm not the right person to ask, since i never used any of the retail or kit ones, so i know about as much as i heard in the 3D printing community. So, i can only recommend to ask at RepRap forums - , it's sort of a nexus.
Try reading the manuals for both of them - they describe things to do in many failure modes. Assume every described (non-destructive) failure mode would happen at least once, gauge how annoyed you will be.
About filament getting stuck or chewed by the extruder - that's about as common as paper getting jammed in a regular printer. You might never encounter it, you might encounter it every now and then. But it's not a breakdown, but a minor annoyance. I tried a total of 6 nozzles, from crudest custom job, to nicely designed and reputable ones ordered on the internet - all had the skipping and clogging issues, at least once a moon. Don't expect to avoid that one completely, no matter what the cost or reputed quality is.
Registered Member #3414
Joined: Sun Nov 14 2010, 05:05PM
Location: UK
Posts: 4245
I saw one on TV the other day (Kevin McCloud's Supersize Salvage) which can use 'any' thermoplastic. They were shredding some plastic mouldings in a cheap paper shredder, and then feeding the 'chips' of plastic into the 3D printer.
If I was to build one, I'd certainly incorporate this facility.
Registered Member #96
Joined: Thu Feb 09 2006, 05:37PM
Location: CI, Earth
Posts: 4062
What about my modification of a technique pioneered by HP, that uses a video camera from an optical mouse to read back the fibre density and actually stops the print before it can jam? Seems a logical next step, also any old cheap B/W camera will also work. EDIT: Apparently "Lightscribe" sensors also have something similar, even if it is only one dimensional it should be enough to at least sense fibre getting too dense using IR scanning and warn the system so it can correct itself.
Registered Member #2939
Joined: Fri Jun 25 2010, 04:25AM
Location:
Posts: 615
My mates got together to "group buy" a lot of the parts, as I recall they would have spent about $600 (NZD) on each printer. Its a bit tricky to quantify as we had access to a laser cutter and a commerical 3d-printer to make some of the parts. Another mate built a "delta" style printer, for around $500 - its a beautiful looking machine, and the way I'd go if only for the aesthetics of the three-way symmetry.
One of the key points that came out of the builds i've seen is buy good quality parts. You wont save money by buying elcheapo motors and bearings etc because in the end the poorer quality will piss you off and you'll end up buying quality replacement parts anyway.
Registered Member #190
Joined: Fri Feb 17 2006, 12:00AM
Location:
Posts: 1567
Got a printer kit. Built it. Just made my first print. It is the bottom part of a project box. This is a rough print. I'll have to figure out where to put the port holes. Anyway, I'm making progress.
Registered Member #2431
Joined: Tue Oct 13 2009, 09:47PM
Location: Chico, CA. USA
Posts: 5639
IamSmooth wrote ...
Got a printer kit. Built it. Just made my first print. It is the bottom part of a project box. This is a rough print. I'll have to figure out where to put the port holes. Anyway, I'm making progress.
May i ask what are the dimensions of this box, and its print time? im thinking of getting a flash forge, but the print time worries me on any of these printers.
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3d printers
to read back the fibre density and actually stops the print before it can jam?
