Hello completely new looking for advice

OK so I went ahead and read the wiki a few times. I went through and looked at a variety of models of 3d printers. The one I seem to like at least by looks and the amount of variables that can be done (frame made of wood, plastic, steel) is the prusa i3. One thing I had issues finding was the size of the printable object that can be made. I only seen once where there was 8 inch 10 inch reference. My ideal printable area would be 12x12x12. I just can't find any reference to anything for that. Site is kinda hard to follow. I do wish it was a little easier to navigate.

Anyways I am floating between buying a kit and build from scratch. I'm very mechanically inclined and not afraid to try it. . part of my introduction is this, if building from scratch do I have an advantage in my printable area?
Is the prusa i3 the newer of the diy builds? I find a lot of YouTube videos on it. I plan on using abs to start, as I need to prototype a item and a 3d printer will save me a lot of time between design and concept.

I'm not outside of buying a kit, but I do find the you build it you truly know it concept. So it holds more value in it limitations and upgradability.

Any pointer's you can send me to on this site would be awesome. Like more info on prsua builds or options. (Maybe should have searched more but I feel like I'm circling the wiki) I do plan on using the smaller diameter (not 3) filiment .

I feel confident in saying the object I want to prototype is about 70 parts largest 8 inches long 4 inches at its widest and tallest part being 6 inches tall.

Would that fit inside it's dimensional print area?

If I'm on the wrong track for a printer just recommend a different one. I seen this was a very popular one normally popularity means more time spent tuning, playing with and modifying.

Well that's it. A hello and a question. Nice to meet you all, hope to not be flamed and maybe pointed in a direction.

Most low cost designs have a printable area of about 200 x 200mm. That allows use of budget components such as a PCB bed heater, 12V electronics, and extrusions or linear rails of small diameter. When you go larger than that, the costs rise. You need a 24V bed heater and electronics to match (there are workarounds but they are more complicated and cost about as much) and larger extrusions or linear rails. So if you really want about 300x 300mm printable area, be prepared to spend a lot more.

If you haven't built a 3D printer before then I strongly recommend you build a printer from a kit initially, to learn what it's all about. You might wish to consider the E3D BigBox printer, or one of the larger Kossel kits.

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Large delta printer [miscsolutions.wordpress.com], E3D tool changer, Robotdigg SCARA printer, Crane Quad and Ormerod

Disclosure: I design Duet electronics and work on RepRapFirmware, [duet3d.com].

Building from scratch is a fine idea, but it is quite a lot of work. If you really want the printer as a tool for working on another project then I'd echo David's suggestion of buying a kit. If you're happy to put the original project on hold while you explore the intricacies of printer design then a scratch build makes sense. I'm a year into my first build, and I suspect I have another year to go before I consider it 'done', at which point I will probably start work on a second one. In the meantime, the stuff I thought I was going to do with a printer is getting neglected...

I know your feeling. I'm sourcing parts for my first printer and I have so many things to print which don't fit in to the 20x20x20cm cube.

I started a month ago reading wiki and this forum. Then I studied different electronics and Marlin firmware. And I have so many questions still in my notebook. Most of them is how something works.

My solution was go to P3 steel V4 version. 20x30x20cm gives me the freedom I want.

My guess is steel frame is rigid enough and the upgrades in V4 seem to be quite good. I'm not mechanical engineer but what I've learnt here and books gives me impression of improvements. Some compromises though. 230V heater -> 100€ more to SSR and its enclosure. And any dumpster ATX-PSU can drive the 12V part.

I'll start as cheap as possible. Then I'll start working upgrades. Hot end and extruder excluded. Debugging them isn't fun. For me the journey is more important than the goal. After all it is boring to listen printer when it builds your piece quarter of millimeter at time.

So keep studying, evaluate different solutions, take the BOM and start searching different suppliers and compare them.

Well what size is a printable area of a prusa? I will buy a kit then. Eventually I can build more. Which I will need as well as a scanner over to!e but not a needed in the her future. Pretty much my initial thought was to draft then have built from aluminium, sent for testing and revisions etc. I build 3d printer I can cut that time 100 times (not even talking cost for tooling and fabrication, lawyers, confidential agreements... What I spend on a printer can go into r and d. Seeing as all this is done on a budget as I'm injured from work and have time to just sit here. I can build a prototype, test it out for a day. Come home change needed aspects redesign, a day later test again. Taking that time and crushing it into months not years. Final product might even be abs plastic! Needs to take a beating but the parts that will be impacted the most will be of another material entirely. Something a printer can assist with but not create. So basically rd and money motivate me to a printer.

So what size area does a prusa or a reprap printer print? Like I said ideally 12x12x12 but I can make do with less. Won't affect quality or even parts. Just would be nice.

Looking at kits I seen them starting at about 600 USD from I think if I read the site right the designer of prusa. But I will look more into kits from your wiki. Is it still up to date? I am working off a tablet as I just am into a remodel of my work area. Installing benches, moving PC etc. So irc is out and I'm not very tablet savy.

Basically if it can build a pop bottle I'm sold

20x20x20 cm is 'normal' (8" cube), but it's difficult to print right to the edges so figure more like a 7" cube in practice.

Another option that's not usually really considered a RepRap but which uses two printed parts in stock guise and can use more modded would be the Rostock Max. Stock, its build volume is (roughly) 280mm diameter (some have better luck getting to the edges than others, depending on how well they built their machines) by 375mm, and the height is fairly scalable with longer extrusions and wires.

How much are you willing to invest? I am designing my own printer at the moment with a build volume of 300*300*525mm. First I thought of a print size of 400*400*500mm, but this would have ended up in a too expensive model as the cost raises exponentially with slightly bigger print sizes especially for the heated bed.
I have not done the calculation yet, but it will end up about 800-1000$. The bigger model would have cost something about 1200-1500$.

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Slicer: Simplify3D 4.0; sometimes CraftWare 1.14 or Cura 2.7
Delta with Duet-WiFi, FW: 1.20.1RC2; mini-sensor board by dc42 for auto-leveling
Ormerod common modifications: Mini-sensor board by dc42, aluminum X-arm, 0.4 mm nozzle E3D like, 2nd fan, Z stepper nut M5 x 15, Herringbone gears, Z-axis bearing at top, spring loaded extruder with pneumatic fitting, Y belt axis tensioner
Ormerod 2: FW: 1.19-dc42 on Duet-WiFi. own build, modifications: GT2-belts, silicone heat-bed, different motors and so on. Printed parts: bed support, (PSU holder) and Y-feet.
Ormerod 1: FW: 1.15c-dc42 on 1k Duet-Board. Modifications: Aluminium bed-support, (nearly) all parts reprinted in PLA/ ABS, and so on.

I was just reviewing the build instructions of the Prusa i3 (http://www.prusa3d.com/) and it looks like a very nice build. Nothing daunting, and very clear instructions with plenty of images for reference. With longer belts, rods, and maybe wiring it looks like you could extend the Y-axis to 10 inches without much difficulty, and that should satisfy your project requirements.

Well I tried contacting ipursa company. Never got a reply. So I'm guessing I'm just gonna build a machine from scratch.
Still on this as a prototyping machine. Again I have read the site but from your use, what do you consider a good reliable machine? If I get into it heavy, like you folks are. I see add on or modding that can be done. I'm not asking to pick one for me but from your use and builds what do you suggest or what to stay away from? I'm looking at a budget of about 800 give or take a bit. If I need to go higher OK just takes longer. From what I read I can buy replicated parts and assemble from people here. I'm already buying a pi or andrino (maybe both) depending on what will be better for something else (motorcycle lighting system) I'm building. (Not in a rush for that, part of it's rebuild. Rewiring and changing over all lights to led, and want some cool features.

That was off topic. Back to machines, what's your experiences with some of the reprap ones you have built?

My experience with any reprap printer is that you either buy one ready made by someone else, and spend about 4 weeks of evenings fixing everything that was built wrong. Or you buy a kit and build it in 2 days then spend 4 weeks of evenings ironing out the design issues and upgrading it to print well.

At present I'd say reprap is for enthusiasts, I am one so I'm really enjoying it. If you want a printer to just print stuff and not require so much of your time and energy then look at a low end commercial printer like the cubicon.

On the other hand you might get building a printer and get bitten by the bug and find yourself doing a lot more messing with printers than building much else. That's either a blessing or a curse depending on your point of view.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 04/13/2016 04:59AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Quote
Silverpathic
Well I tried contacting ipursa company. Never got a reply. So I'm guessing I'm just gonna build a machine from scratch.
Still on this as a prototyping machine. Again I have read the site but from your use, what do you consider a good reliable machine? If I get into it heavy, like you folks are. I see add on or modding that can be done. I'm not asking to pick one for me but from your use and builds what do you suggest or what to stay away from? I'm looking at a budget of about 800 give or take a bit. If I need to go higher OK just takes longer. From what I read I can buy replicated parts and assemble from people here. I'm already buying a pi or andrino (maybe both) depending on what will be better for something else (motorcycle lighting system) I'm building. (Not in a rush for that, part of it's rebuild. Rewiring and changing over all lights to led, and want some cool features.

That was off topic. Back to machines, what's your experiences with some of the reprap ones you have built?

If you want a prusa then I could recommend charlies3dt.com
Then I was building my first printer a few years ago I chose the seller by their customer support. And this company always answered my emails within minutes. Their prusa i3 does not cheap out on components and has been reliably printing (except of usual ramps board overheating problems or plastic extruder gears wearing out after hundreds of hours of printing).

Another thing to consider is that by todays standards the i3 is not that great of a design with its moving bed. But if you are not looking for fast printing times then it is a good choice for a first printer.

I think there nothing wrong about starting your own design/custom build as first printer if you have the skill or machinery to do it, you already learn a lot researching to draw your design, sometime you get inspire by someone else work and put some of they work in your design. You learn how every bit come together and plus and minus of many designs, tailor your design to suit your requirement ( bed dimension, speed you want,quality of parts) and when the build is starting to come together that a big motivation to get it right since its your own design/build you cant just lets it go and blame a the badly made kit.

Personally I design/made my own as first printer and if I had to do it again, ill do the same. There just one think... you have to be able to draw in CAD software that a huge + in a good design/build.

Building a printer from ideas is a lot harder than it seems as you have to source all the parts and then build a mechanically sound and square frame. I would find a kit that comes complete and do some printing first then you can decide on perhaps a better extruder or heat bed and things like linear slides as opposed to steel rods. Learning the weakness of a machine makes for a better build. And metal is the only frame material you want with little or no printed parts.

I did three steps:
1. Buying a kit and improving that printer. With a complete ready printer the learning effect would have been less.
2. Rebuilding the newer version buy my own. Not all parts were available so I had to design own parts. And I used improvements.
3. Now I am ready to design my own printer.

I think you should first get experiences with 3D printing. Designing a 3D printer without any background and without having seen what is important and where are problems like ghosting etc. would be very hard.

I have a technical background. Mostly an electrical one with CAD experience (Autodesk products) as well as some mechanical experience.

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Slicer: Simplify3D 4.0; sometimes CraftWare 1.14 or Cura 2.7
Delta with Duet-WiFi, FW: 1.20.1RC2; mini-sensor board by dc42 for auto-leveling
Ormerod common modifications: Mini-sensor board by dc42, aluminum X-arm, 0.4 mm nozzle E3D like, 2nd fan, Z stepper nut M5 x 15, Herringbone gears, Z-axis bearing at top, spring loaded extruder with pneumatic fitting, Y belt axis tensioner
Ormerod 2: FW: 1.19-dc42 on Duet-WiFi. own build, modifications: GT2-belts, silicone heat-bed, different motors and so on. Printed parts: bed support, (PSU holder) and Y-feet.
Ormerod 1: FW: 1.15c-dc42 on 1k Duet-Board. Modifications: Aluminium bed-support, (nearly) all parts reprinted in PLA/ ABS, and so on.

Silverpathic - Where are you based?

It sounds like you want a half decent printer to do a job, rather than a printer that your going to build and then keep making better until it does the job what you want it to do. This can become a major distraction and time black hole.

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Mutley3D
This can become a major distraction and time black hole.

Never a truer word was spoken.

It's an excuse to hide in the shed/garage playing with printers. If I wanted a printer for work I'd buy a commercial machine or something like the Cubicon which works out of the box. Or just use a printing service.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions