Iron3D 12x12x14 / solidoodle 3 or 4 / or something else?

I'm looking to buy a 3d printer.

After looking around some forums including this one it seems the community is pretty helpful. I wanted to get some opinions.

I am buying the 3d printer to use as a tool to help prototype car parts. I would like to have the biggest possible print-build area / volume possible.

My budget is up to $1000

I understand I can print a part in pieces and glue it together, that will probably be done. I just don't want to print pieces in 4" dimensions and piece them together 4 times if I could just print it once if it was 10 inches total length for example.



I don't mind building my own 3d printer, but I don't want it to take up my entire 3d printing career. I see people spend A LOT of time building the printer, and then constantly printing more pieces to fix / upgrade the printer. That is a little too much for me. I really would like to build it, print a few things and changes for the printer itself if needed... but I am not into making it a full time job to design and prototype parts fixing the printer itself. lol.


I found this kit, which I assume its going to take a whole lot of "tinkering" to get it to work, but if I cold get it to work would really love the advantage of being able to print larger parts. Plus it seems modular ... maybe I'm wrong about that.

[shop.diytechshop.com]


I like that is has a 12 x 12 x 14 print volume. The pictures look good and the chassis looks nice... but what will it take to make this a functional printer ? Is it worth my time ? Most of all I would love some input from others who have used these kits themselves.. first hand.

Another printer I am looking at is the Solidoodle 3 / 4 generation printers.

I like these printers because they look simple and I believe they have a good print volume also, up to 8x8x8 which would be ideal for me, I really don't want to go too much smaller than that if I don't have too.

Some people say they are great and some people hate them. I don't know what to go by.


Printers like ultimaker 2 are completely out of my budget, I know thats a highly liked printer on these forums but right now its not practical for me.


Are there other kits I am not aware of that can be built for under a grand with a good print volume over 8x8x8 ?



Also, I wonder about materials... can I print with nylon on a printer made for abs / pla or does it not work like that ? My buddy has a knock off printer from ebay and he prints nylon without a problem and the results are amazing, infact the prints look better and less rigid than most of the pictures I see online / youtube.

Just a note, from personal experience and having just shown a photo of one of my ABS/PA alloy prints, prints in photos and videos look a whole lot more sturdy than in person. The piece I showed flexes a good amount, but the person commented that it looked really sturdy.
As for Solidoodle3, I have one. I want to ditch it and move on but I don't have the budget to get started on my build. Unreliable, but as your baby it will do your bidding. My first months with it were most excellent, I got great prints. New ones have better parts and mods, so you should be able to get those great prints easier and with less hassle later than I have had to go through. I've gotten it pretty stable, but for a few months there I was spending 80% of my printer time fixing and upgrading, maybe more.
But, I do things differently than others, and in general others have had better experiences with them than I have. I wouldn't change anything I did or chose.

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Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

Thanks for your input.. based on what you know now.. would you recommend a 3rd or 4th gen? I rather not buy a 4th gen if its not better than a 3rd generation solidoodle

I could buy a 3rd gen for about $500 vs a 4th for a grand, so would be smarter to buy a 3rd and make some changes to it ? Or will that really take up a lot of time thats just better spent making another $500 to buy a 4th gen?

4th is basically a 3rd supped up, go 3rd and put a bit of work into it.

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Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

If you want to print nylon you are going to have to get a new hot end all metal like E 3-D and adapt it to whatever you buy. The more expensive printers seem to be a little better as far as reliability goes. I would check into whatever vendor you decide to buy from there has been some bad experiences with different vendors. Since its car parts I'm assuming that you want to print in ABS there is a lot of shrinkage and warping I don't think PLA would work even in the interior of a car. Usually any large number of parts or even more than one or two you would want to make a silicone mold of your print and cast them in your urethane or polyester resin

Yeah, the printer will just be used to help speed up the prototyping process and test fit the parts. I don't plan on actually using the 3d printed parts in real world application.

It would be nice to print in different materials for different uses.

I am totally fine with buying a 3rd gen and upgrading the hot end and other areas as needed to have a better printer overall than the 4th gen that prints nylon etc.

If i have to take a week to build, setup and tune a 3d printer that is very capable... that is fine with me. It's not worth it to me when it takes 4 days a week of fixing / calibrating / screaming at the printer because I can't get my stuff printed right.


I know ABS has big issues with warping and such, is most of that solved with a hot bed ? I assume these are problems with all printers and nothing can really be done to fix it ?


The more I think about it, I would rather make something like this work [shop.diytechshop.com] unless it will be an ongoing hassle.

I am fine with soldering , crimping , cutting, drilling and taping stuff. I just dont want to do it for every other day I use the thing.

With the moving bed, your speed and resonance become less desirable, mainly for belt driven on the resonance which would then remove speed and price when run by screw method.
Hotends can't fix warping, that's mainly an environmental thing after proper tuning. I've only made two prints, and although my experience is easier than others I can tell you ABS will be a pain with any printer that doesn't have a heated chamber.
Solidoodle may have a smaller bed, but it comes ready out of the box, just swap the hotend for an E3D v6.
If that bed is what's important, I'd say go for the DIYTechShop and make some mods.

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Realizer- One who realizes dreams by making them a reality either by possibility or by completion. Also creating or renewing hopes of dreams.
"keep in mind, even the best printer can not print with the best filament if the user is the problem." -Ohmarinus

That's what i'm thinking.


Does anyone here run any kits from DIY Tech Shop ?

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singh336
I found this kit, which I assume its going to take a whole lot of "tinkering" to get it to work, but if I cold get it to work would really love the advantage of being able to print larger parts. Plus it seems modular ... maybe I'm wrong about that.

When I was there to pick up my printer on Wednesday, they pointed out an Iron3D they had set up, and explained that their intention when designing it was to give people the option to buy longer sticks of metal online to upgrade the build area as the need arises.

Quote
singh336
Also, I wonder about materials... can I print with nylon on a printer made for abs / pla or does it not work like that ? My buddy has a knock off printer from ebay and he prints nylon without a problem and the results are amazing, infact the prints look better and less rigid than most of the pictures I see online / youtube.

I don't think there is any such thing as a knock off printer. I want to print nylon too - weedwacker string FTW! I am planning to order an E3D so I didn't get a hotend when I picked up my i3xl from DIYTechShop. They said the E3D should be a drop in replacement, even though the specs say the mounting groove is slightly wider. An E3D should allow the widest range of options, along with a heated bed and enclosed build area.

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inductor

I don't think there is any such thing as a knock off printer. I want to print nylon too - weedwacker string FTW! I am planning to order an E3D so I didn't get a hotend when I picked up my i3xl from DIYTechShop. They said the E3D should be a drop in replacement, even though the specs say the mounting groove is slightly wider. An E3D should allow the widest range of options, along with a heated bed and enclosed build area.

[www.ebay.com]

Oh dont worry, leave it china and they will knock off knock offs.

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inductor

When I was there to pick up my printer on Wednesday, they pointed out an Iron3D they had set up, and explained that their intention when designing it was to give people the option to buy longer sticks of metal online to upgrade the build area as the need arises.

Yeah I saw that was the case on one of their kits that said more information coming soon. I don't know if thats possible with the 12x12x14 kit though, either way I think I will find with a build area like that. I'm pretty excited about the possibility of having such a big build area, I just hope its something I can work with and get working. I have a feeling its going to be a long uphill battle and I'll be wishing I just bought a ready to go solidoodle or something.

with a big build area like that i would get a larger nozzle also. i use .4mm for smaller detail things but use a .8mm and 1mm for larger things. i have not used abs alot but i think it would be a challenge for bigger prints.

yea I think what I may do is end up with two printers a smaller solidoodle and then later build my own with a bigger build area.

Would it be difficult to effectively heat the bed on a large printer like the 12x12x14 ?

My heated bed is 12 x 12. I power it with a separate 12 volt power supply and a solid state relay. The electronics simply turn the relay on and off to heat the bed. There are folks on here that use 24 volts to power their printers which will heat a bed quickly.

I came across this kit via another forum while searching.

People seem to love this over the solidoodle 3/4 and its still in my budget of a $1000.

What do you guys think ?

[seemecnc.com]

I love the build volume, support for materials and the fact that the bed doesn't move and the precision seems very good too.