Anyone into 3D printing?

[Roger Mills]

I see that Maplin is about to offer a 3D printer for £700.

Any comments? Is it likely to be worth a punt?

[Bob Eager]

If Maplin want £700, it'll be a great deal cheaper elsewhere. That's why I deleted their promotional email!

[Theo Markettos]

It's Maplin, so you can almost certainly get it for half the price elsewhere. For example:

- looks like the Maplin kit is a Wallace clone.

The question is: what do you want to make, and out of what material? Materials really matter. The PLA that many 3D printers use isn't very strong - fine for an ornament or a phone case, but you'll notice the gears and bearings on the 3D printer are made out of nylon which it won't print. However, it may be a useful platform if you want to experiment with the materials (will need printing head and software changes).

The other big question: how do you plan to design things to print? Are you going to download other people's designs? How happy are you with designing things in 3D CAD (either pointy-clicky or writing code)? It would be very handy to be able to 'photocopy' 3D objects (broken something? No problem, just photocopy a replacement) but I don't know of an easy way to do that. I don't mean AutoCAD/ProE/etc (unless you really must) but it takes a while to go from 'I want something shaped' to drawing it and getting it right in real life.

Worth downloading and getting familiar with some of the CAD tools so you have a better feel for what you might do with it.

Theo

[The Other Mike]

Possibly, it's a bit of an unknown quantity. You can roll your own for less. I built one of these over Christmas 2010 for less than half what the Maplin one is.

I bought the plastic parts (3D printed) from an ebay seller - there are lots of sources now for a number of DIY designs, fasteners/steel rod/threaded bar I had most already on the shelf (you need hundreds of fasteners), steppers from ebay, electronics using an Arduino I already had, with a shield based on this design

Stepper drivers an earlier version of these

Now replaced all the electronics with this (expensive and less modular so if something blows you need to be able to do surface mount repairs)

Lots of info here on more 'modern' DIY designs

If starting now I'd be tempted by this rather than the Velleman / Maplin kit

A heated bed and an enclosure is more or less essential to ensure good quality prints. I only print using PLA, ABS stinks. The software is open source.

[Lobster]

What do you make with it?

[dennis]

You need to ask

can it print in more than one material at a time? If it can you can print soluble supports to allow more complicated objects. If you can't you may not be able to print the object or you may need to trim a lot of internal supports.

You can already buy 3D printers for about that cost or kits for better machines for that cost, but you may get done for VAT and import duty from some suppliers.

[Martin Brown]

Almost certainly not. I would however be interested in seeing an playing with a 3D printer in the North of England somewhere.

I think for the number of times I would want to print something in 3D I'd be prepared to buy in the service rather than fight my own printer.

[Andrew Gabriel]

My dentist does that when I break a tooth. (CEREC) However, the software is probably very expensive, and the "printer" is a tiny milling machine which makes up a new piece by milling a small block of ceramic for 20 minutes while you go back into the waiting room (or in my case, stand there and watch it being milled).

[Theo Markettos]

Sounds like there are DIY options:

Something using a Kinect or similar might be one idea.

Theo

[RayL12]

I feel the same way.

It looks horrid. There are far better DIY machines at..

[Rick Hughes]

print file for Glocks appearing soon then ?

[pastedavid]

Where abouts are you? Manchester Hackspace has one:

[Martin Brown]

Thanks. I live actually over in the North East but have to visit Manchester fairly often although not usually on a Wednesday :(

There seems to be a Hackspace in Newcastle which I also visit fairly often but again not usually on Wednesdays (but it is a bit nearer).

I know both cities fairly well so apart from finding somewhere to park I don't see any problem finding them if I am in the area. Thanks again.

[pastedavid]

The Manchester one is a two minute walk from the Arndale NCP car park.

I would be tempted to just pop down (to either) if you had the time on any day, I would imagine that if someone is there, they'd be over the moon to show off to you :-)

[iamshanelewis]

It's really cool that they sell it in a very cheaply. But I'm wondering if it can support different types of filament materials. Have any of you tried it? My friend has been asking me about this machine because he plans to pu rchase one soon; however, he is quite hesitant that it might not print rubb er or nylon from 3d2print.net. What do you think guys?

[Martin Brown]

If you are anywhere near Manchester the Maplins on Regent Road at the shopping mall with the big Sainsbury's has one on demo. Or rather did last time I was in there together with a few things it had printed.

I haven't got one but was considering it. OTOH for the number of times I might need to 3D print I think one of the online services might actually be more cost effective. See a previous thread of mine here.

£700 would buy a fair amount of printer bits with (a lot) less hassle.

[Alan Braggins]

And give you options for better resolution, option of larger pieces, far more choice of materials, etc..

Having your own would be fun though. And if you were doing a lot of test print, modify design, test print, modify design cycles, having immediate results has obvious advantages.

For $100

has to be a contender for 3D printer as toy to play with.

But they keep getting better and cheaper, if you aren't sure, I'd wait and see how some of the "coming soon" ones turn out:

[Jeremy Nicoll - news posts]

If you have a local 'hacker lab' or 'maker faire' group you might be able to get access to one. I wouldn't be surprised if art colleges, some design studios etc also have them.

From what I've read, as you might expect, the cheap ones aren't very good - they can only create small items, perhaps only use a small set of types of filament, and don't have a very good mechanical precision - so maybe ok for ornaments / jewelery, but not for making - say - parts for new machines.