I see Aldi are offering their 3D Balco Printer @ £149.99 normally £249.99. I have heard that at its normal price it was good value for money if not a particularly exceptional quality. So at the Black Friday price is it now very good value for money?
If anyone in the know can have a look at the specs. I would be interested in their opinion.
Richard
It seems pretty good to me. I bought a Tronxy P802 for £99 including postage and it's excellent. However it now costs £160. The Aldi one seems to have all you need, especially the automatic bed levelling system. It has a metal frame which some people say is superior to plastic although my plastic-framed printer works fine.
If you just want to get a toe in the water printers can be got for <£70 but would need a lot of trouble (fun?) building and would need manual levelling.
Another Dave
Its the consumables you need to think about, in my view. Also are drivers available for it still, ie is it being pensioned off by software. Brian
Is it the same one as being reviewed on Youtube (possibly with a different badge)
I think I would buy this
Whichever one you buy expect to print upgrades and stuff for it.
I've been interested in a 3D printer for a while,
Can anyone describe briefly how you get from idea stage to actually printing?
Assuming it is something custom/one off.
Draw it in a CAD / 3D illustration program to create a model, and then use some CAM software to slice the model up and turn into a series of instructions for the printer.
Note there are some web sites that let you do all those bits from one page - many are specific to one makers range of printers.
Design it in something like tinkercad (look on youtube for how)
Save it as an STL format file
load the file into a slicer I use Cura, see youtube.
Print.
Is that something that a occasional user could do, or are we in steep learning curve territory.
You see, I want to make a bunch of drawer dividers, wondering whether to get a 3D printer or a load of plywood!
would use a lot of plastic, which is steeply expensive. Reckon I'd use ply or sheet plastic. At a pinch triple wall cardboard would also work.
NT
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Something like drawer dividers ought to be a nice simple thing to do, arguably a good first project. One thing to check on is that your design will fit onto your printer. If the drawer is bigger than the printer, then you'll have to come up with a design that can be done in two or more stages.
For what you are looking at, the plywood will be cheaper, but where is the fun in that.
Adrian
From what I have seen, very doable. Plenty of online tutorials.
...and a CNC router to go with the plywood :-)
You can use the same 3D model to make both printed and machined versions then.
Also worth looking at sites like thingverse - you may well find someone has already designed what you need and you can just download the model:
A bit of both, depending on how you see things and your general PC / mouse experience.
It might be worth having a play with Sketchup: (Free / Web version if you PC is up to it or I think you can download a local copy 30 day trial (that then might revert to the free version / Layout).
It depends of the width of them. Up to about 200mm long you should be good and how long you want to wait for them if there is 'a bunch'.
Open Sketchup, select the rectangle tool and drag out a rectangle on the screen then type in x,y to give you those dimensions.
Get the pull tool and pull the flat face up however thick you want the divider to be (or any amount and then type in what you want, like 1 Enter for 1 mm thick if working in mms).
Save.
Install a plugin thing that allows you to export an .stl file (free).
Export the file.
That's the design bit done. ;-)
Open up something like Repetier Host.
It will (normally) have all your printer details and settings in there (there are templates and some common settings for the printer movement / speeds and extruder nozzle etc). Select Slic3r
(Slic3r is included and I think possibly the default but can be used separately
Then you would either hit 'Print' directly from the PC or save the final .gcode file to the printer via a file transfer (over USB) or on an SD / USB stick.
The heated print bed will warm up to about 60 DegC (if printing with the more common PLA) and the extruder to about 200 DegC and then it will start to print. It can print as many objects at once as can fit on the print bed (typically 150 x 150 - 200 x 200mm).
Once finished, allow the bed to cool down and the items should just lift off, sometimes with the help of a razor blade.
Once the job is in the printer, you just need to select the object again and hit print. ;-)
It is advisable to not leave the printer unattended, as they suggest when charging batteries or cooking etc.
Some things can be a problem re warping if you don't get your temperatures right and sometimes you can print with a skirt, a thin extra border around the job to help it stick to the bed.
Once you have printed your dividers, you will need to order more filament (~£15/kg) for all the other things you will want to print! ;-)
Cheers, T i m
I'm wondering whether it's workable to 3d print something hollow then fill it with molten plastic eg in a domestic oven. If a usable combination of plastics exists that could cut costs a fair bit. HDPE, the most common diy processed plastic, is processed at 180C, upto about 200, and warps a lot when setting. No good with PLA. PET filling perhaps?
NT
Plywood I'd imagine. I guess you might find a matching door handle the sort of use it might be good at from what I've seen. I've often wondered if it might be possible to print tactile maps on a piece of card using one. Brian
Cura has a mould option. Fill it with epoxy resin and use that?
First of all check that it really is custom/one-off by looking in:
You then import this file into the software which controls your 3D printer. I use:
Another Dave
Liquid resins are expensive, but still cheaper than 3d printed plastic, so that would work. Household trash plastics melted in would of course be far cheaper. I suppose liquid resin could always be filled with something free or nearly so, eg sand.
Wiki says PET's mp is over 250C, but it certainly softens at under 100. So who knows what temp it's runny enough at. Having never played with PET remoulding I don't know its issues either.
NT
Not easily, not without a dissolvable filler filament or plenty of supports (if you actually want it hollow etc)?
But isn't that what honeycomb infills are all about?
Supports and a resin of some sort might work, depending on the goals etc?
Cheers, T i m
hollow with supports is routine in 3d printing
no. Honeycomb gives partial strength at partial cost. Molten plastic gives 100% fill at apx no cost.
We know that. And we know that liquid resins cost. Garbage fill could, if workable, much reduce the cost of a fair bit of 3d printing. The question is whether it's workable.
NT
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