Guys has anyone experimented with 3d printing.

[victor de souza]

Is it easy?

Is it hard?

Is it expensive?

Is it fun or boring?

[Lucaz97]

There are some threads in hobby electronics, but to answer you:

it is not as complicated as it can seem, it depends a lot on how experimental you want to get, if you stick with common and known 3d printers and use common filaments you should not find any difficulties 

better and reliable the 3d printers Are more expensive than others but usually if you can afford them it is worth it

i find it really fun and useful, but I think is not an objective thing.

 

i think Hackentosher can tell you more about 3d printing...

 

hope i ve been helpful

[victor de souza]

2 minutes ago, Lucaz97 said:

There are some threads in hobby electronics, but to answer you:

it is not as complicated as it can seem, it depends a lot on how experimental you want to get, if you stick with common and known 3d printers and use common filaments you should not find any difficulties 

better and reliable the 3d printers Are more expensive than others but usually if you can afford them it is worth it

i find it really fun and useful, but I think is not an objective thing.

 

i think Hackentosher can tell you more about 3d printing...

 

hope i ve been helpful

http://carbon3d.com/

I found this the most amazing process of 3d printing.

 

[Lucaz97]

Yes, resin printers are really amazing, unfortunately they cost a lot more than classical 3d printers...

[victor de souza]

4 minutes ago, Lucaz97 said:

Yes, resin printers are really amazing, unfortunately they cost a lot more than classical 3d printers...

Is the Ultimaker 2 a good one to start with or should i go with a different one?

[Lucaz97]

The ultimaker 2 is a great printer as far as I know, I have only worked on 2 printers with my hands though...

@Hackentosher should be able to give you a better idea of the printer you should start with

[Julian5]

28 minutes ago, victor de souza said:

Is it easy?

Is it hard?

Is it expensive?

Is it fun or boring?

Start with something cheap and dirty like one of these Chinese 200€ kits, they are great for experimenting. Just take in mind 3d printing takes a ton of setup and you will fail a lot of print.

[victor de souza]

1 minute ago, Julian5 said:

Start with something cheap and dirty like one of these Chinese 200€ kits, they are great for experimenting. Just take in mind 3d printing takes a ton of setup and you will fail a lot of print.

I am looking it up also i see many printing fails due to setting the structure of the print.

[Guest]

51 minutes ago, victor de souza said:

Is it easy?

Is it hard?

Is it expensive?

Is it fun or boring?

It is really fun making a model in CAD and then 3D printing it. 

[Hackentosher]

I have been summoned. 

 

Alright, if there is one thing I have learned about the 3D printing industry is that you really do get what you pay for? Sweet, a $200 reprap kit! Surprise, it's a piece of crap that will cost you more money and much more time then buying a quality machine from the start. The same goes with filament. I made the mistake of buying a $20 kilo of filament from maker geeks. Worked great at first, then I could never get it to print again. Hell, that shit started to burn in my hot end. 

 

To answer the OP's original questions, it gets easy once you figure out how your machine works with a certain material. Hell, even getting a different color of the same filament can totally screw with your prints and the settings required. I mean sometimes my ultimaker just doesn't want to print some days, and the next it spits out perfect prints. 

Is it expensive? Well yeah. At first. If you want to do it right, you need to get a propped printer like an Ultimaker or a Printrbot. These range from $300-$3000 ($1000 is about the sweet spot). After you get your machine working, a $40 spool of material lasts awhile so you don't have to buy that stuff too often.

Is it fun? Hell yeah. When it works. It can be infuriating as every machine has it's own quirks, but once you learn your machine it's a blast. 

[victor de souza]

New tech always needs time to evolve.

[handymanshandle]

I wouldn't mind trying a 3D Printer but yeah @Hackentosher would probably be able to give you his opinion on 3D Printing...

I'd say that it's pretty expensive... US$2,500 or more is quite a bit of money, though some printers can be cheaper.

[Hackentosher]

6 hours ago, victor de souza said:

New tech always needs time to evolve.

It does, but 3D printing has been around since the 80's. It's just within the past 10 years that it's really taken off. 

[Hackentosher]

5 hours ago, wcreek said:

I wouldn't mind trying a 3D Printer but yeah @Hackentosher would probably be able to give you his opinion on 3D Printing...

I'd say that it's pretty expensive... US$2,500 or more is quite a bit of money, though some printers can be cheaper.

Yeah but it's worth it. An ultimaker costs so much for a reason. Although I do have some cheaper options in my signature. 

[handymanshandle]

1 minute ago, Hackentosher said:

Yeah but it's worth it. An ultimaker costs so much for a reason. Although I do have some cheaper options in my signature. 

Well yeah, I'd expect the more expensive printers to be expensive for a reason. I'm sure that an Ultimaker is a lot better than like a $600 printer or something like that.

[Hackentosher]

1 minute ago, wcreek said:

Well yeah, I'd expect the more expensive printers to be expensive for a reason. I'm sure that an Ultimaker is a lot better than like a $600 printer or something like that.

Just today I saw a printrbot play ($350) on a cart with some solar panels built by some 11 year old kid. (maker faire was lit btw) 

[handymanshandle]

2 minutes ago, Hackentosher said:

Just today I saw a printrbot play ($350) on a cart with some solar panels built by some 11 year old kid. (maker faire was lit btw) 

Noice

[Hackentosher]

2 minutes ago, wcreek said:

Noice

He was just wheeling it around while it was printing shit. Also the Lulzbot is really good if you want an ultimaker alternative. It has some really good features such as auto bed leveling and a direct drive extruder, but ultimaker is faster and churns out really nice prints.