Advice looking for my first 3d printer kit around £200 with specific requirements

[mark.wood_uk]

So basically my goal for a printer is to make high strength/rigidity component parts such as bearing mounts, trunions, also low friction slides and runners and perhaps even a larger printer at some point (should i ever need one)!
It is for cabinet making, tool/equipment making and engineering.

I'm looking at a cheap kit that has a lot of support available:
The Reprap Prusa I3 Pro X MK8 printer kit which seems to have a lot of forum/community support and appears to be very capable and accurate printer when set up and dialled in correctly.

More importantly for me appears to have an extruder temp and heated bed temp which is suitable for Polycarbonate and Carbon reinforced Nylon filament and is only a fraction over £200 shipped!
Again this is not something that i strictly 'need' to do my job, however if higher accuracy prints are achievable this would allow me to save time and hassle machining these components, but i don't want to be spending a huge amount of money on something that may or may not be suitable or practical and i don't have any intention of this becoming a money pit hobby either! (Sorry, i mean no disrespect there)
I am aware that i need to put the effort in the set up in order to get the results i am looking for, but if it physically isn't capable of printing to a tolerance of 0.5mm then no amount of tweaking and set up will make it better!
0.5mm is my lowest tolerence, 0.25mm would be ideal but i'm not expecting miracles from something this cheap!

I have considerable micro electronic and precision engineering experience so feel that i would be more than capable of putting it together tramming the bed accurately and getting all the hardware set up and functioning as it should!

However the specs for the printer only state it can use PLA, ABS, Nylon, Wood-Polymer (would be useful to me), PVA and Flex PLA but when i check the Filament requirements the printer should be capable of using Polycarbonate and Carbon filaments.
Am i correct to assume that it is capable of using these?

My other concern is that i really struggle to get my head around 3d cad programs (even the super simple free and web based ones specifically for 3d printing) which is a big contradiction as coming from engineering and cabinet making background i am a very capable draughtsman (old school pen and paper)

So you see i'm just looking for advice on initial outlay and set up, but within my specific application requirements!

Thanks in advance

[mark.wood_uk]

RIghto, well i jumped in feet first and splashed out and am now sat twiddling my thumbs waiting on the post!

What i got for £230:
Geeetech Prusa i3 X kit,
1Kg - 1.75mm PLA in Fluorescent green (not my first choice of colour but was 1/2 price )
Sintron all metal bowden hotend 0.4mm (indirect kit),
0.4mm E3D hardened steel nozzle,
40x40 fan,
75mm radial blower.

Think i did pretty well for my money?
(At this point you can all jump in and say i got ripped off )


Right so the plan is:
build stock printer,
Calibrate,
Rework x,y,z, tensioners etc. (thank you thingiverse )
Convert to Bowden (thanks again thingiverse )
Get the hang of it,
Move on to Carbon filament and make my bearing mounts and band saw blade guides!

...

See you all in the new year
Or at least until i'm banging my head against a wall!

(3 days after it arrives LOL)



Ps.
if anyone is interested i will try and remember to take pics of the buid etc. to post

[fcwilt]

Hi,

Good luck with your project - it is likely to be great fun and some frustration.

I recently decided to build my first printer and was interested to see what $300-$600 would buy from China.

I liked the concept behind deltas so I bought one with decent reviews off of Amazon and another two with decent reviews from a on-line store with a ton of choices. They three kits ranged from $300 to $500.

Two have arrived.


The first one (the cheapest) lives up to it's price point. Neatly packed but the packing was not very robust - clearly parts had shifted in shipping - the thermistor on the heated bed was busted.

No instructions at all - had to track down a video but it left a lot to be desired - some errors.

The design seemed sound but quality control was lacking. A couple of crimped on connectors needed work as the crimping was poorly done and there was no electrical continuity. Fortunately I had the experience and tools to fix them.

Got it assembled and it seems to be functioning but I am in the process of calibrating it and that is going slowly as there were no instructions or videos.


The second one (the next most expensive) was packed MUCH better - no damage - and actually came with a decent instruction book.

Still working on this one.


They both seem decently designed - similar in many ways, different in others.


Looking forward to the last unit as it was the most expensive. I will be interested to see if the extra money buys anything.


Frederick

[mark.wood_uk]

Well it went Tits up from the get go.... got it all off ebay, there was a glitch at checkout and it reverted the postage address to the one used when I created the ebay account.... I haven't lived at that address for 6+ years, ebay and paypal both confirmed that the address it was all sent to wasn't even listed in my account details anymore and to top it off eBay is claiming no responsibility for their error and will not refund the extra £40 to get it reposted + the £4 of missing items that just vanished

The amazing thing is that an old neighbour was able to intercept the expensive parcels for me and I did eventually get everything except the 2 cheapo fans!
So I was pretty lucky there

Yes admittedly the cheapo Chinese printer came with Zero instructions... well it came with a book called 'instructions' but was nothing more than a parts list!
They emailed assembly instructions which was a series of youtube vids which was surprisingly detailed! I had the printer assembled in a day and semi-operational. Perhaps I'm just that way inclined but Imy pretty good with flat pack things so had very little trouble with the assembly anyway.
I had no issues at all with the electronics and can't fault that part of the kit for its quality.

The only fault I had with the mechanical parts was that the large acrylic parts (bed and main frame) were somewhat warped/bent and so too were ALL the guide rods and lead screws! Everything was super well packaged and I can only attribute the warpage to being sat in a 120C Chinese warehouse for 2 years without moving (packaging date was stamped on as July 2015) This was born out by the fact that the rods and acrylic was warped exactly the same amount and in the same direction as gravity (I marked the top of every item as I removed it from the box so I could check it's packaged orientation)

I emailed geeetech directly and they have posted replacement parts no quibble and FOC and I am just waiting on them to arrive. So can't complain about their customer service!

A few minor issues with my first attempts to print calibration cubes which was rectified very eaisily by removing the factory nozzle throwing it in the bin and putting a new 0.4mm one on.

The factory nozzle looked like some small animal had chewed up a piece of brass, spat it out and some chinese kid picked it up and called it a nozzle!

After changing the nozzle and a few tweaks to the bed height the printer (still with un-modified factory firmware) spat out a surprisingly accurate and tidy looking cube that was 20.04mm x 20.03mm x 20.03mm...
So I must have gotten insanely lucky and got the 1 in 10,000 that was a good one!!

I have remade the entire x axis, the hotend carriage, fitted the bowden hotend which now allows me to get the same quality prints but now at 60mm/s instead of the stock 30mm/s.

My only Huge issue now is the firmware.... I'm a no go at all when it comes to coding, and to fit my new bowden extruder I need to alter the steppers at a firmware level, and tweak the other settings which i can manage thanks to the forums and youtube tutorials, but the copy of the firmware from the website will not compile due to errors!

So now I'm stuck with factory firmware until their tech support gets back to me. And no one on the forums seems to even acknowledge my pleas for help.

I think i must smell or something cos all the 3d printer forums seem to be very 'clicky'
No one talks to each other, I feel like I've walked into a Wild West Saloon and everyone just stops and stares at me for being an outsider!!

On the 4 forums I've signed up to and posted something on you are only the 2nd response I've had to date!

[fcwilt]

Hi Mark (correct name?),

I'm impressed that you've already gotten decent printing. I haven't yet attempted that as I am still trying to sort out all of the calibration that needs to be done.

The information is out there, it seems, but scattered about on different sites and often incorrect or out of date.

The parts of the printer are moving and they seem to be moving in basically the correct way - so that's good.

The parts that are supposed to get hot are getting hot and that parts that are not supposed to be hot are not - also good.

No sign of any "magic smoke" leaking out.


I did not realize that there were advantages of a bowden setup. I thought it was only needed when the extruder was a long way from the hotend, like on a delta. You live and you learn.


I'm also into model railroading and the forums I frequent answer questions in a timely fashion and the answers are often quite good.

I haven't posted many questions on any 3D printing forums yet but on one most questions have gone unanswered, have been brief to the point of useless for a beginner (as I identified myself) or have simply been wrong.


Still I'm having a good time. Hopefully I will figure out the calibration procedures and actually try to print something before dementia sets in.

Are there standard test objects that are to be printed to verify performance? If so can you point me to them so I have them ready to go?

Thanks.

Frederick

[mark.wood_uk]

Yes its Mark
I'm not the most original when it comes to usernames for forums lol!

A calibration cube is pretty simple really.
Its essentially just a small open top cube, its made to check that the printer is printing the right size!

eg. The cube should be 20.00mm X 20.00mm X 20.00mm with a 1.00mm wall thickness!
Print it off and get the digital calipers out and measure it... If its dab on all good!
If its not thats what you need to tweak settings in the firmware (youtube has plenty of simple vids showing exactly what to do and how to tweak the settings)

General printer settings are 0.5mm extrusion width and 0.2mm layer height (that seems to be a widely used standard)

Here is the link to my test cube on thingiverse:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2191330


The advantages of a bowden setup particularly on my Cartesian style printer is basic physics (Newton's 3 laws)!
The extruder, hotend and X carriage assembly weighed in at around 1/2Kg, That much weight zipping back and forth followed by sudden stops really knocked the printer about even at a low speed of 30mm/s, it also puts a lot of strain on the stepper motor having to stop that much mass suddenly.
With the replacement carriage, hotend and remotely mounted extruder the moving mass has now reduced to less than 200g. On a dry run to test the difference i could run it at around 120mm/s before it started to rattle about like the factory assembly did!

Thats not to say i would try to print at that speed though!
The fastest i've pushed it is 275% of 30mm/s (82.5mm/s) and the print quality still deteriorated significantly! I believe that it was mainly because i can't yet finetune the firmware and add a better extruder as most of the problems at that speed seemed to be extruder related... Random under extrusion, over extrusion, slipping of the filament etc

If you aren't already using a CAD program i Highly recommend Autodesk's 'Fusion 360' its Free, Cloud based and is insanely powerful for a free program!
Downside is its only available in 64bit!
It starts as a 30 day trial, but if you sign up from your account preferences tab in the program you will get a free 12 or 36 month licence depending what you select and can be re-licenced as long as you like for free (it tells you all that when you're signing up anyway, i've added the link for you)
You can also save locally as .stl files which is handy for using 'Repetier-Host'

Here is a link to my first thingiverse thing:
http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2155807
This was my first design using Fusion 360, took me a day to complete (and id never used cad software before!)
If you haven't already, get yourself signed up to makerbot and search around on thingiverse there are lots of little bits n bobs and also complete upgrade parts available for most open source Delta/Prusa type printers.

Again if you're not already using something, Repetier-Host is a super easy prog which connects to the printer via usb and allows you to make minor adjustments to filament size, xyz offsets, add support material, real time temp changes, manual control of the printer. it is bundled with both Cura and Slic3r for slicing so i've found it super simple to use.
it will also export the G-code if you wish to print from memory stick instead

Basically Repetier-Host is an easy 1 stop prog and it has generic setup options for Delta style printers too (in the settings i believe its labeled as 'Rostock' printer!)
Connect printer on usb, preheat hotend, manually check extrusion, load .stl file, hit Slice, hit Print, sit back and wait... then wait, and wait, then wait some more... and Ta-Da!

Autodesk Fusion 360:
http://www.autodesk.com/products/fusion-360/overview

Thingiverse:
https://www.thingiverse.com/

Makerbot:
https://www.makerbot.com/

Repetier-Host:
https://www.repetier.com/