Dr Simon Ford, University of Cambridge: Reprap 3d printers are lower-quality.

Dr Simon Ford an expert on technological obsolescence has stated that Reprap 3d printers are of a lower-quality than the industrial FDM 3D printers.

3D printing: The shape of things to come?
the 'maker' movement has spawned a plethora of lower-priced, lower-quality, consumer-grade machines based on FDM technology, such as those offered by RepRap, MakerBot, Ultimaker and PrintrBot.
Provided by University of Cambridge
[phys.org]


Dr Simon Ford
Research Associate, Institute for Manufacturing, University of Cambridge
Simon also completed his PhD at the centre on the subject of technological obsolescence.
[www.csap.cam.ac.uk]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2014 02:24AM by A2.

When the editors don't proof their own work, I don't think that it is worth reading. This mis-pasted half sentence is where I stopped reading:

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Alongside the development of high performance industrial 3D printers such as those developed by 3D Systems and Stratasys, the 'maker' movement has spawned a plethora of lower-priced, lower-quality, Alongside the development of high performance industrial 3D printers such as those developed by 3D Systems and Stratasys, the 'maker' movement has spawned a plethora of lower-priced, lower-quality, consumer-grade machines based on FDM technology, such as those offered by RepRap, MakerBot, Ultimaker and PrintrBot. The result of these two parallel developments is an industry that is now worth an estimated £1.3 billion.

If the sloppy editing isn't enough shame on the University of Cambridge, keep in mind that an American has found fault with their English writing.....

What exactly is the problem with pointing out that low cost 3d printers are inferior to their 400,000$ industrial brethren?

If you watched a Fortus machine print for 5 minutes you would understand the difference in capability. Hell, at least people expect industrial printers to work out of the box. In the hobbyist community we jump on new users who expect a printer to work without a bunch of calibration.

Our belief is that the rep-rap printers are an ecellent way to gain epertise on the processes involved with 3D printing. As technology advances and becomes more affrordable those with a strong background in rep-rap I feel will have an easier time adapting and using the new technlogies than those who only know that one machine or type of printer or software ect. The more you know the more you can eplore and think out side the box.

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691175002
What exactly is the problem with pointing out that low cost 3d printers are inferior to their 400,000$ industrial brethren?

I don't think the print quality is lower as Dr Simon Ford stated, I've provided examples from Fortus (Stratasys), and Reprap machines to show the differences.

To begin, here is a comparison of the $185,000 Fortus (Stratasys) to Reprap derived printers:
Stratasys Fortus prints are not that great looking.




[www.3ders.org]


@691175002:
Below are a few more examples of what a Reprap 3d FDM printer is capable of.
They were printed using a classic Mendel, and a Sumpod 3d FDM printers, using a Merlin hot end.







Sumpod
[stohn.de]


Mendel
[reprap.org]

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691175002
If you watched a Fortus machine print for 5 minutes you would understand the difference in capability.

Here are a few examples of the capabilities of the Stratasys Fortus.
I don't think they look any better than a Reprap printed object, and in some cases the Fortus looks worse.


[www.engineering.uiowa.edu]

[www.engineering.uiowa.edu]

Black ULTEM 9085 for Fortus 3D Production Systems
[www.3dvision.com]

Stratasys Dimension SST1200ES 3D Printer.
[www.cadalyst.com]

Dr Simon Ford is simply not up to speed with the current capabilities of hobbyist 3d FDM printers.
I think Stratasys needs to up their game, it looks to me like their print quality is loosing ground to the hobbyist.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/12/2014 04:03PM by A2.

A2 - you make a very good point!

---

_______________________________________
Waitaki 3D Printer

A2 is right, but sadly so is Dr. Simon Ford. My best prints I will hold up against anything from the commercial FDM printers for finish, strength or dimensional accuracy; but my first attempt of anything substantially new will like be well short of this standard - a standard that they are required to achieve most of the time.

If I could venture my thoughts on why this shouled be: I think that our advantage - the rapid dissemination of ideas, is also our greatest weakness - wrong ideas get around just as fast. To quote mark twain “It ain't what you don't know that gets you into trouble. It's what you know for sure that just ain't so.”

Mike

p.s. And I save about £74,500 on the price of each of my printers.

I hate to go "academic" on A2, but I don't think that his photo essay above will pass peer review because it fails to provide printer settings and actual print times for each object being compared. If the fan blade above was printed in 30 seconds as a rough draft while a similar RepRap one took 2 hours at insanely slow speeds and high resolution, one could see how the pictures are not telling the whole story. Also, black always seems to show the most flaws in pictures that I've seen, so comparing black to white in the first picture is not being 100% unbiased.....

I agree about the color, that was my first thought when I reviewed the article.
It's not scientific by any stretch of the imagination.
But that black foil is from Stratasys marketing team.

A bunch of pictures of high quality prints from Ultimaker, very impressive.

Dave Durant's Blog
Ultimaker FAQ: but what about the quality of prints?
[davedurant.wordpress.com]

Watching from the professional perspective, RepRap printers are simply only half done. :-) Let me try to explain.

When considers a RepRapper a printer to be finished? Right, typically when the first print appears on the table. For a professional, having a formed blob of plastic isn't sufficient, though. What he wants is reliable operations, simple use and accurate measurements. Accuracy not after the 7th try, but on the spot, each time.

There's nothing wrong with having a printer forming nicely shaped blobs of plastic. From a professional perspective, however, such results are only a toy. You can see this by the Ulitmaker pictures. Octopusses, Yodas, Vases. Not a single part which could be measured with a caliper. RepRapper apparently have no interest in professional results. And there's nothing wrong with having different interests.

RepRap technology is just fine. Cheaper, weaker frames can be compensated with lower print speeds easily. Extruders are pretty reliable. Software does its work.

What RepRap lacks from the professional perspective is emphasis on professional demands. If a printer produces its first part, it's half done at best. What should follow is precision calibration and setting up software to allow prints at the push of a button, without turning the brain on. As there is not much such interest, even technologies and descriptions are lacking. Professional machines, however, deliver such results. Three print quality profiles, a push button and printed parts accurate to 0.05 mm. Every time.

---

Generation 7 Electronics	Teacup Firmware	RepRap DIY

@Traumflug:

I've only ordered STL parts for work, and I've always need better precision, accuracy, and resin properties than what is presently being offered. And so I had to learn to deal with it.

FDM has never been on my radar screen for prototyping products at work.
But for my own product ideas out side of work, FDM is a good option.

I've asked about the precision, and accuracy, flatness, roundness, and squareness of Reprap FDM, and never really got an answer.
After reading a lot I think/guess at best the accuracy is +-0.004 inch, probably more like +-0.012 inch on a tuned machine with an experienced operator.

I've read a few stories of Stratasys FDM printers having similar issues as what Reprap machines have, and some of the older ones have been converted to use Reprap electronics.

It comes down to your expectations, I would never have a use for a FDM prototype for work.
And the trade offs of a home built FDM for a garage inventor, with it's known issues, and capabilities is quite acceptable.
I've also read that a lot of business are purchasing Reprap type machines for prototyping. They might not be as poslished as a Stratasys FDM machine but they are acceptable to a few professionals.

I think you make a good point, and I have no arguments with it, and it was one of my first surprises about some of the Reprap developers, i.e. not validating the precision, and accuracy of their prints.
But I think a few (not many) of the Reprap machines are producing high quality parts.

It depends on what you are doing. I produced a batch of 11 identical parts for work. All printed on the first attempt. They all do the job. Boss is happy. They all had the necessary accuracy. And my RepRap is certainly not highly tuned.

I think there is a difference between accuracy and repeatability.

Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2014 09:47AM by ajayre.

Surface finish is just one of many requirements of a 3d printer. The quality some users manage to achieve is amazing, but you have to remember that a lot of tweaking and tuning went into every single print. The stratasys goes from .stl to finished part with almost zero user input.

The heated build chamber in commercial printers allows enormous prints without any warping, and their reliability means you can start a 200 hour print and walk away with confidence.

A Fortus might not be able to match surface finish in some cases (I suspect that is more of a software issue than a mechanical one), but there is a whole category of large objects, or geometries with overhang, that hobby 3d printers cannot even attempt.

I have access to stratasys FDM at school and use it for prototyping all the time. The parts are very strong and FDM is the cheapest process by orders of magnitude.

I printed a whole computer case in two parts that can fit power supplies, hard drives, two mini-itx motherboards and a graphics card:
[imgur.com]
Printed using 100% default settings.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2014 10:11AM by 691175002.

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Traumflug

RepRap technology is just fine. Cheaper, weaker frames can be compensated with lower print speeds easily. Extruders are pretty reliable. Software does its work.

Or you can reinforce your frame to keep up print speeds.

Quote
Traumflug

What RepRap lacks from the professional perspective is emphasis on professional demands. If a printer produces its first part, it's half done at best. What should follow is precision calibration and setting up software to allow prints at the push of a button, without turning the brain on. As there is not much such interest, even technologies and descriptions are lacking. Professional machines, however, deliver such results. Three print quality profiles, a push button and printed parts accurate to 0.05 mm. Every time.

I agree, you must calibrate the firmware and thanks to Tiffid Hunter's calibration wiki it was simple. I do calibrate for each spool of material though as I have not decided on one supplier yet. I get very accurate and repeatable prints, usually the first time but that is because I have enough notes from past prints to know what changes to make in slicer or gcode for a certain part to print well. Hopefully I will eventually be able to put all this into configuration files so anyone getting/buiding printer like mine can use the "standardized" configurations without having to, turn the brain on, as Traumflug put it.

I think that whatever is generating the toolpath is the biggest seperation between the repraps and proffessional printers. Cura is real nice and since Ultimaker is developing it with their printer, Ultimakers make awesome prints.

I think that if you compare the latest Stratasys printer to a home brewed FFF printer built with 3D printed bits, bits of threaded rod designed for house building, bits of MDF or plywood from the local hardware shop, electronics and software largely courtesy of the Open Source movement made with sweat, persistance and enthusiasm, then the Stratasys will win. But if you keep it calibrated and well cared for, you will have a printer that can compete with a Stratasys made in 2003 and run by a business that believes in minimum user input. You will also save enough to buy a really good car and have a round the world trip.
Mike

Rep-Rap all day! Just wait until us hobbyist get SL under a grand =D
-UNF3D

... I think, there's nothing wrong with all the points - a comercial FDM printer should be so good designed and tuned, that it will work out from the box ... and a DIY-printer can be tuned (with much experience) to be even better or more precise than the comercial ... but then a comercial can be supertuned too ...

I'm now active in the RepRap-scene since 2007, but don't own a working RepRap (only some FDM-heads for my CNC-mill) ... mostly for accuracy/strength issues.

Even a 'supertuned' comercial FDM-printer won't fit to my needs, as it won't be printing finer details than possible with the nozzles ... and the material is plastic at all.

But the ideas, concepts and options I've found (or developed) around the basic idea are more than 'only a FDM-printer' - I was printing (or better fabbing) with clay, UV-curing and thermoset epoxies, presintered ceramic sheets and some laser-based methodes ...

So comparing 'comercial' to 'DIY' could be a much more complex scenario

---

Viktor
--------
Aufruf zum Projekt "Müll-freie Meere" - [reprap.org] -- Deutsche Facebook-Gruppe - [www.facebook.com]

Call for the project "garbage-free seas" - [reprap.org]

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691175002
I printed a whole computer case in two parts that can fit power supplies, hard drives, two mini-itx motherboards and a graphics card.

Nice, but a commercial FDM printer was not required. A buddy of mine printed this on a Mendal:
[itbbs.pconline.com.cn]
Final: [itbbs.pconline.com.cn] (near the bottom)

And this:
[itbbs.pconline.com.cn]

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/14/2014 10:19PM by Timaz.

i'm with A2 whatever excuse you give... and my 2cnts, simon ford probaly is a paid commentator (well you know all these prof they got deals with factories or maybe stratasys? not sure dont have proof) reprap is slow where stratasys can complete in 2nds? probably correct but well i'd rather $500 printer than putting all the things that i have on stake to get @200K printer that can output the same thing or worse. i want to mass produce? i'll find someone that can do the job, and with the right material that does not melt at 200degC. i agree reprap is half done from pro perpective, but i believe this $500 half is the core functionality of it, where the community concetrate hard on. the other half that is not finished? well, its the $200K minus $500 on aesthethic casing, or maybe super big stepper motors that can squirt more volume.