Heat of the night

[PerranOak]

I’m trying to get into 3D printing but, of course, am having trouble choosing a printer.

It’s an impossible question to answer (i.e. which one do I get) so I’ll ask about another thing that’s concerning me.

I was shocked to see how slowly they print with YouTubers routinely talking about prints of 5, 10, 30 hours!

There is no way I’m leaving a 200degC piece of metal whizzing around in the tinderbox that is my “lab”, overnight.

Therefore, one of my criteria must be speed (the Ender 7 seems fast). Is this sensible or am I being too careful?

[bdunham7]

Oh dear, no.  Speed almost always results in low quality.  I just printed a small lampshade with translucent PLA and I used 'medium-slow' (just a description, the actual settings are more detailed) settings to keep the print time to 40+ hours and although it turned out OK, I sort of regret not using even slower settings.  If you only print small things, you can limit the time to a few hours, but I routinely run multi-day prints on a not-very-large 3D printer (Ender 3 Pro).

[dferyance]

You are right to be concerned about fire. There are fire alarm and suppression options for 3d printers and you can look for printers that have increased safety features.

There is only so much you can do about speed due to the way FDM printers work. If you need to make a bunch of copies there are printers that can do two at a time.

Depending on what you are making, it doesn't have to be all one part. I have a small printer so I always have to print smaller parts and join them together. Fasteners, adhesives, solvent welding, and heat welding are all options.

[Lindley]

Some printers will have more self protection  than others , but never seen any site do a comparison on that point.
Would assume the more expensive the printer the better the protection ?

We use our own temperature and smoke detectors in the printers enclosure which will independantly cut the mains power and sound an alarm etc.
Also the whole room (outdoor workshop)   is covered by a smoke alarm connected to the houses buglar/ fire alarm system.

If in any doubt house it in some  isolated outbuilding/shed etc and use remote control like Octoprint which also has a camera function and believe you can also program it use a temp sensor to turn the printer off.

[thm_w]

Go for speed if you want, but it will come at a large cost.

Any modern printer should have thermal runaway protection.
Combine this with:
- A smoke alarm
- A non-flammable bench/plate/enclosure for the printer
- Checking the wiring and grounding on the printer
- Crimp all wires with ferrules

and you should be fine

Some printers will have more self protection  than others , but never seen any site do a comparison on that point.
Would assume the more expensive the printer the better the protection ?

[PerranOak]

Cheers all.
I did think of putting it in the shed. Problem is the shed is very cold at night and the printer would rust over time.
Therefore, I would have to keep taking it out there and bringing it back in.
Can 3D printers take this kind of treatment or do they really have to be left in one place?

[MarkF]

Trying to print in a shed that gets cold will not work.
Some filaments (ABS for example) will not print even if there is cool air movement.  Hence, printers within an enclosure.

Also, you will not want to move your printer after you get it setup and tuned.  Getting your printer adjusted and dialed in can take some time.  And when you get it just right, you don't want to redo it before every print. 

My printer, a Creality CR-10 Mini, is actually in two parts connected with cables.  Not something to be moved around often.

Any print other than very small ones will take hours to print.  Just a fact of 3D printing.
However, you can keep an eye on your print, even if you're away from home, and shut it down if you see a problem.  I setup Octoprint on a Raspberry Pi with a webcam.  You can stream video and control your printer from the internet via your phone.  Not ideal but better than nothing.

[Jeroen3]

I have mounted a smoke detector above my printer and have a raspberry pi with camera and obico* pointing at it, there is also a smart plug that I can turn off.
That means I can monitor the prints from my phone, it will tell me when it's going bad, and it will beep when it's on fire. But I'm confident my prusa won't ignite itself.
I still don't want to go very far when it's printing, but I'm comfortable printing through the night when I've seen the first layers being a success.

The workplace bought an Ender 3S1, and I don't trust that thing at all, it needs custom firmware before it's even capable of doing it's basics.

*former 'the spaghetti detective'

[PerranOak]

Cheers both.

That gives me another problem: I have restricted height in the only place I could leave it inside.

Lots of them have the spools on top and so would probably not fit. Specs usually don’t give the machine dimensions in a way that I can be confident that the spool is included.

[MarkF]

You don't need to put the filament spool at the default location for the printer.
I have seen spools placed in plastic boxes with a bowden tube running the filament to the printer.
Thingiverse has several different styles, one example.

Or, the perfect first cad design.  I use FreeCAD. 
There was a recent topic discussing which cad program people use (you'll have to do your own search for it).

[PerranOak]

Hmm. Interesting.

I was considering the Ender 3 S1 Pro which is a direct drive - so no Bowden tube - would this still apply?

[Jeroen3]

You can guide the filament from a spool holder next to the printer with some ptfe tube. Doesn't matter on what side the extruder is. It just is more hassle when unloading filament.

Do not buy the ender 3 s1, get the older ender for which there is working firmware.

[PerranOak]

Cheers.

Yes I saw that there was a software (firmware) problem with the S1! So, the Ender 3 Pro is a better choice? I guess this can be made direct drive in the future?

[RoGeorge]

If you want fast 3D printing, without noise and without the risk of fire, then you may want to look for a photo polymerization based printer (sometimes called SLA).  The printing resin is apparently more expensive, but this might not matter at all for occasional printing.  Other advantages is that resin printers require no fiddling, and the finish surface looks much better.

Fused deposition printers (the "normal" plastic wire filament printers) are complicated to run, quality is not repeatable and the printer requires constant maintenance and very fine tuning, even the room humidity matters, often requiring multiple prints until the right size and speeds and temperatures are guessed in order to produce a perfect object.

Resin printers are better in everything when compared with filament printers, except the cost per printing volume.

[Jeroen3]

What other requirements do you have for your printer and what would you like to print? Where is it going to live?

[janoc]

If you have a long print and aren't comfortable with leaving it work unattended (good idea!) then look into the printers which support resuming print after a power failure. In that way you can stop the print before calling it a night and resume it in the morning.

However - doing this would likely require applying some sort of glue or something to the heated bed or leaving the bed warm overnight because once the bed cools down it is likely the part will detach. Doesn't always happen (depends on the surface of the bed, design of the part, material you are printing, etc.) but if it happens there will be no way to resume the print anymore because you wouldn't be able to re-align the machine with the part.

Another option is to print larger objects in multiple smaller pieces and gluing them together (or using screws).


Generally speaking, there are limits with FDM printers how fast you can go. And unless you want to build a custom high-speed machine, you will not be able to print very fast simply because the cheap printers are not sufficiently rigid/stiff. Regardless of whether the machine is flinging the hotend/extruder around or the bed is moving (or both), beyond certain speeds you will have problems with vibrations, frame flexing, stepper motors losing steps, various resonances, etc.

Also the hot end and extruder must be actually capable of pushing and melting huge amounts of plastic for fast printing. None of the cheap machines (or even the hobby-level expensive ones like Prusa's or Lulzbot) can do that with the stock extruders and hot ends. You could buy replacement high performance components (like the Hemera extruder, Volcano hotend, etc.) - but you will still not be able to overcome the mechanical stiffness and performance limits mentioned above without essentially rebuilding the machine from scratch.

Oh and the molten plastic also needs to actually manage to cool down quickly enough so that it is sufficiently solid to support the layers above it - but not cool down so fast as to cause deformations and cracks (e.g. ABS is notorious for this).

So don't focus on high speed printing. Unless you are planning to print huge pieces, then you should be able to fit it into a day. If the piece requires more than 12+ hours print time, you should probably look into a different fabrication method. Don't get stuck with the "I have a 3D printer ergo everything needs to be 3D printed" mindset. Many things make a lot more sense to build using other methods. Or even to buy something that exists already and repurpose it, possibly using 3D printing for building some pieces for it. 

3D printing is great for fabricating small details like various brackets, fasteners, gears, etc. Not huge structural or even decorative pieces that take ages to print and increase the chance of failure exponentially (and also cost arm and leg in filament!). That some Youtubers do that doesn't mean it is a sensible thing to do (or that you will get sponsored printers and filament like they do!)

[MarkF]

An aside:

Creality printers use to come with the Cura Slicer. The latest version of Cura dropped support for Windows 7.  I just switched to the Prusa Slicer.  I'm liking it much better and it seems to perform about the same as Cura.  The Prusa Slicer supports many printers besides the Prusa ones and has a custom printer if you can't find their pre-configured printer.  Most of the Creality printers are included.

[janoc]

Resin printers are better in everything when compared with filament printers, except the cost per printing volume.

I guess you aren't using one, are you? 


I suggest the OP does a bit of research of what a typical consumer resin printer can do and what is involved (nasty toxic resin, washing with IPA, UV light curing, dealing with a ton of support material), strength of the parts, max build dimensions ...

(Consumer) resin printers are at best a complement to FDM printers, certainly not "better at everything".

[Jeroen3]

If you want fast printing you should build a voron kit, just look at this guy...



And prints can take 12 hours don't need to be "big", there are other parameters that increase time. Such as perimeters.
I printed these for someone, both legs in one go with 5 perimeters. This took 14 hours on a mk3s.

[janoc]

If you want fast printing you should build a voron kit, just look at this guy...

Not the best advice for a newbie. He could do that - and then be totally screwed because he would in waaay over his head. Both with the cost and assembly of a Voron machine and also because just it being a Voron doesn't mean it is able to print super fast.

One still needs to use suitable extruder, hot end, lot of tweaking, etc. However, at least with a Voron one has a chance to upgrade it to something that will eventually be able to print fast because it has been designed to be a very solid printer, not necessarily a cheap one.

And prints can take 12 hours don't need to be "big", there are other parameters that increase time. Such as perimeters.
I printed these for someone, both legs in one go with 5 perimeters. This took 14 hours on a mk3s.

Sure. But:

a) You could have split it easily up into two batches and do it over two days (so no need for overnight printing).

b) What is the point of doing the design like that - apart from "looking pretty"? Sure, that's maybe a sufficient reason for someone but there you always have a choice and don't need to spend so much time printing it.

c) The design likely isn't optimized for fast printing (see the previous point).

d) If one wants surface quality and thus uses small layer height, it will take ages. Alternatively one could print fast using thick layers, large nozzle (and possibly using adaptive layer height in places requiring detail) - but then putty and sanding are required.

e) There is always an option of having a complex or large part printed professionally. Plenty of services do it - Shapeways, Sculpteo, even PCBWays offer 3D printing these days.

So there are always options.

[Lindley]

The head design of the S1 does look like it needs a top mounted spool , side mounted on that would perhaps add too much strain ? whereas the the Pro or V2 take their feed from the side so its no problem to have the spool on the side of the machine or even on the bench.

We have the V2 and think its the slighty better buy over the older Pro,  you can always update the Pro or V2  to a Direct Drive if neeed, they are very adapatable machines with plenty of aftermaket bits and pieces.

Creality printers can be assembled easily But there are a few things find out / know about  that help you get good prints easier , they can take some finessing and there is little in the user manual to tell you how to do that, Ytube has  lots of detail on the Enders  , CHEP being one of the most popular.

Check out Creality uk own site as they often have good value flash sales.

If you want something that works more out of the box, think its the Prusa printers you should look at, though a lot more expensive.

[Jeroen3]

Yeah, the voron is special. It's not a product but an open sourced design you have to build yourself, from almost scratch. Some components kits are available though. Can be fun.

@janoc
a) Yes, but then my printer would be doing nothing for 5 hours during the night, and I would need two evenings.
b) Someone is paying for it. Other manufacturing methods would be even more time consuming and expensive.
c) It's not that bad, the smooth corners don't require much deceleration, and with so many perimeters you need minimal infill.
d) This is a structural part. If smooth surfaces are required you can sand and paint it.
e) see b.

The ender 3 s1 has the filament runout sensor all the way up on the top horizontal bar. Not ideal.
From experience I know the default firmware it comes with is very limited. mrisoc on github offers custom firmware for it, which is a better experience.
But take a while to recognize what I'm saying here: if you buy it the first thing you should do is flash custom firmware. Is that typical?

You should know that the hardware of a 3D printer is not complicated or expensive. Everyone with basic mechanical engineering can make that.
I mean, you can buy a printer the same footprint as an ender for €99 on aliexpress.

The software is what makes the printer a good experience to use or not.
Now people who are already committed to their ender will probably say this is a rubbish statement and their printer is fine. ^{After many hours of tweaking.}

[MarkF]

Personally, I would pick a printer that can/is running the stock Marlin firmware.  Then you can go in and select the options you're most interested in having instead of the ones the vendor has.  Runout sensor, type of bed leveling, LED lights, fan animation, g-code filename sorting on the display, custom logo, etc. (I'm referring to the stock CR-10 display.  I'm not familiar with the other displays.) 

My CR-10 Mini can't run the Marlin 2.0 versions because of program space limitations.  However, I even went in and made code changes beyond the standard options in the configuration.h and configuration_adv.h

The other advantage is that you can have the very latest Marlin version as soon as it comes out and not have to wait on the vendor to incorporate them into their firmware customization.

[janoc]

Yeah, the voron is special. It's not a product but an open sourced design you have to build yourself, from almost scratch. Some components kits are available though. Can be fun.

Yep. I am actually thinking about it but a full kit is >1000€ + shipping. I am still using my Nophead's Mendel90 kit, with a lot of modifications. That one was like 800€ back in 2014

@janoc
a) Yes, but then my printer would be doing nothing for 5 hours during the night, and I would need two evenings.

Sure, but the issue is running the machine unattended. That would avoid it, without having to rely on hacks like the resume on power failure feature some printers have.

b) Someone is paying for it. Other manufacturing methods would be even more time consuming and expensive.

If one wanted a purely functional design, cutting those two things out of a sheet of plywood would likely do the same job. Or, heck, even a single slab of wood ... Both would be a lot faster to manufacture and almost certainly cheaper too, compared to the day long printing time (it is not just the filament cost but also the electricity, wear on the machine and the time needed to "babysit" the machine - even if for no other reason than to make sure it doesn't catch on fire ...)

Of course, having someone else pay you for doing that is a different matter. However, if we are talking only about printing times then my approach to making parts on my Mendel is to always print only things that really are difficult/inconvenient to manufacture otherwise - e.g. by cutting off and drilling a piece of wooden or metal stock (esp. for structural parts). A typical build uses e.g. cheap hardware store aluminum profiles joined by 3D printed components and perhaps a sheet of thin plywood to mount electronics on instead of 3D printing everything. As a result I rarely have to print pieces that take longer than 2-3 hours (no, the Mendel is really not fast, esp. not with its heavy direct drive Wade extruder sitting directly on the x carriage).

The software is what makes the printer a good experience to use or not.
Now people who are already committed to their ender will probably say this is a rubbish statement and their printer is fine. ^{After many hours of tweaking.}

I would look for a printer where there is either open source firmware for the controller board (e.g. a variant of Marlin supports the board) - or the board can be replaced/upgraded later for a more advanced one.

AFAIK (I don't own any Ender variant), Enders use Marlin, so if you don't like what the firmware does, it can be always reflashed with stock Marlin configured to your liking. I am sure there are even pre-made configs for these machines already.

Tweaking will be always required either way, IMO - each printer is slightly different, materials are different, people print different things, the machines need constant maintenance - so tinkering is to be expected.

That said - no amount of tinkering with firmware can fix a rubbish printer where every corner has been cut. So maybe buying that $99 wonder is not the best idea.

[PerranOak]

I would like to able to print some useful stuff but I also like to “tinker” with things so that I understand them better.

However, 3D printing seems to require NASA level tinkering skills! I’m surprised that any noob has ever printed anything!

BTW has anyone ever had or even heard of actual fires started by them?