Choices! sooo many of them, even more questions!!

probably been ask'ed tons of times, but i had no such luck with the search function.

What printer to pick? i have access to a commercial grade 3d printer for printed parts, and waterjet for steel parts, i don't think it can cut plywood.

I considered the orca 0.4 but it seems less and less likly Camiel will share the plans, the 0.3 is available, but i see alot of posts on his forums about stuff not working and the design is not finished

Orca 0.3? can it be upgraded to 0.4? is there any gain? will it be "better"

Mendel v2?

Makerbot?

PrineRbot?

all the rest?

what i need from it is print quality over anything else, next is reliability and then speed. considering the machins i have available what would be most stable, easier/able to upgrade in the near future?

What extruder is the best out there?

Electronics? What boards are the best? i want to purchase plug & play electronics, no soldering, hotbed ofc. what's the difference beween gen 6, ramps and the szhingolu and mizul or whatever they are called?

What's with all the different software i see mentioned everywhere?

Prusa Mendel is a good starting point but unless you but buy a complete kit, like Makergear's, it requires a good dose of effort and skill to get it working nicely. RAMPS is likely a good choice too. Pronterface and Slic3r is the software that will get you printing sooner (IMHO).

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/08/2012 12:02PM by misan.

I always recommend Prusa Mendel's, they are fast (with well picked components), reliable (if built well), have a tonne of upgrade potential, are the cheapest option and are the most popular (so tonnes of support).

That being said if you do not buy a kit and do not build it well, they can be horrifically unreliable. Based on your considerations where price does not seem to be much of a factor, you actually seem most suitable for a makegear Mosaic. [www.makergear.com]

If you realise that your objectives are slightly different and that you want to have fun, tweak it and experiment with new things then build a Prusa or Mendelmax (a more reliable Prusa - structurally speaking).

Here are some links to kits:
Makergear Prusa - [www.makergear.com]
MendelMax (store lacks photos as its a fairly new design, but has been proven) - [store.mendelmax.com]

If you go with a Prusa make sure you use iteration 2 files.
A lot of the parts have been tweaked for easier assembly as well as all round performance

---

My Reprap blog

jds-reprap.blogspot.com

JoeDaStudd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> If you go with a Prusa make sure you use iteration
> 2 files.
> A lot of the parts have been tweaked for easier
> assembly as well as all round performance


here i was hoping you would all endorce a model with lasercut metal parts and some plastic parts so i could do half the machine my self. and not have to buy a complete kit

There is a variation called Prusa Air that follows this approach. it's still very similar to a Mendel Prusa but uses metal or acrylic parts instead of some of the printed parts. However, it is likely more expensive than a normal Prusa (unless you have easy access to a laser/water jet cutter and free raw materials ...). Even this model will require you to get/buy some printed parts.

You have to remember even if you make the frame using laser cut metal you still need to buy the smooth bars, short threaded bars, belts and the smaller nuts, bolts and washers in order to attach the standard printed parts.

Your talking about saving maybe £/$10 to £/$20 by making the frame in laser cut metal and about £/$2 making the print bed.
Thats if your not paying for the raw metal, power or anything else

---

My Reprap blog

jds-reprap.blogspot.com

I get that in either senario i would have to buy eletronics (and so far you've said RAMPS 1,4 is the way to go over gen6) some nema 17 motors, a heatbed, some wiring and some rods plus whatever nuts & bolts are needed.

I do have access to a commercial grade 3d printer and a waterjet (without having to pay for labour and just the raw materials) so for the moment i need to do some research for this prusa air, any cons to this design over a regular prusa? pros? stability?

Check out nophead's Mendel90, he's due to release the files soon.
It looks like a very simple and effective build, it should translate over pretty well into metal.

---

My Reprap blog

jds-reprap.blogspot.com

Don't forget that most likely you will have to buy the extruder and hotend parts too.

You also will need some filament (either PLA or ABS) to print with and a DC power supply.

Please note that what I meant was Prusa Air 2 design [www.thingiverse.com] as the original version (the one on the wiki) lacks of any support against forces in the X-axis direction to make it stable enough.

JoeDaStudd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Check out nophead's Mendel90, he's due to release
> the files soon.
> It looks like a very simple and effective build,
> it should translate over pretty well into metal.


I'd agree that the Mendel90 may be the best route for you, it's going to be a superb printer. DIY is always much more fun!

It can be tough to source things but with an ever growing list of suppliers and the ability to make parts yourself, its much more manageable than it once was!

Do you research though, there are some supremely awful sellers!

My impression from other posts on the forums and discussion in IRC is do not buy any Gen6 electronics because they are severely lacking (HBP and fan control to name two), and do not buy from mendel-parts because of their shipping delays and poor customer support.

... and because if you can solder you can get a Sanguinololu for half the price that can handle a heated bed (but no fan).

I am gonna go with a kit from makemendel.com they have kindly agreed to sell me a orca 0,4 kit without printed and lasercut parts very cheap, having the parts printed with the printer at work and cutting the metal peices at work too, they're level of commitment to customer support is just insane, considering the timezone, they must have long hours when they respond so frequently to my mails

take a look at this gen6.d which adds in the heater bed and fan channel as well as sdcard support.
[romscraj.com]
[github.com]

can you post pics of your build?
im very interested to see how this turns out

Sure, have all the cut peices, getting the eletronics and motors on monday, will start posting pictures then

glrra19 you can see the build here

[forums.reprap.org]