3D printers
I am not sure this counts as a garage tool but I have been eyeing up some 3D printers. We have them at work and use them all the time to make custom stuff for the production line. Over the holiday I noticed they have dropped in price. Borders had one for $250 but it was pretty small and you had to buy certain spool to work with it. The more I look into it the more I am thinking of a 3D printer Kit. Anyone doing anything with 3d printers?
Acrylic Geeetech I3 pro B 3D Printer kit [800-001-0189] - $278.00 : General Electronics-Tech |
This is the one I ordered, my first job will be new center caps for my rims.
https://www.monoprice.com/product?p_id=13860 |
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Still a work in progress, I am learning. It takes about 8 hours to print one of these so to try different setting can take awhile. I did a 1/8" X 1" X 1" square to check accuracy. It measures .997 in both X and Y axis.
My original Design Attachment 12344 A couple pictures, I think this was my 3rd or 4th attempt Attachment 12345 Attachment 12346 |
That's cool. How big of a piece can you make? Is there a rough time per square inch to know how long a certain part would take to print? How about the software, is that difficult to learn? I presume you already had that nailed down from using 3-D at work.
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Yes designing is the easy part for me since I do that all the time. The above model is 5 minutes to make once I measured the original part. There is also 1000's of models you can down load from https://www.thingiverse.com/ .
The print time varies so much based on your setting. The prints are not 100% solid. You decide how thick the outer layers are and how dense the inner honey comb is. On my center I did 1.2 MM thick wall and 50% honey comb. That was about 8 hours and 11 meters of 1.75 MM PLA plastic. Drop the honey comb to 35% it might drop the time 20 minutes. Drop the shell to .8MM it could drop the time an hour. You also set the print speed. Slower = better. For mechanical thing you need stronger, My son in-law was excited because he can print his D&D guys with the correct armor and weapons. LOL I am not burning a lot of plastic for that. I posted the link for the machine above. It is a 8" X 8" X 7" machine. Software is VERY easy to use. Open your model, rotate is around and move it where you want it, start with the default settings and you are 95% there. When you buy the above printer it ships with the Cura software already setup for this machine so most of the settings in the below video come already set. |
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