Electronics > Beginners
Buying 3D printer
Mechatrommer:
--- Quote from: exe on August 17, 2018, 08:33:43 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 17, 2018, 02:58:27 am ---I could get a Prusa i3 reprap derivative for under 250€ (which even I could afford)
--- End quote ---
It will be nowhere as good as Prusa without putting a lot of efforts, imho. Just quality electronics, direct extruder and a few other crucial parts will cost 250 alone.
I saw people having good printing results using junk parts, but I wasn't able to achieve the same with my cr10 (I spent 3 or 4 months tuning it). Now my printer costs twice the original price, yet doesn't print well because controller board is not good. So, if I want to remove printing defects I need new brains (like duetwifi, but it costs 160euro), or I can spend another few weeks tuning firmware, playing with drivers' trimpots, etc trying to repair the original board. The funny thing is, after half a year of owning the 3d printer I printed just a few useful parts. The rest was calibration cubes, etc.
So, my advice don't underestimate cost of your time. Now I'd pay three times more than what I paid originally for the printer just to get a decent device I could trust.
--- End quote ---
my earlier comment on your printout crappiness was nothing to do with the lacking you mentioned above, you certainly dont need new printer brain unless it is a china mcu blob on a pcb, i suspect your printer brain will be some atmel avr cpu variant which i think adequate (prove me wrong). my printout is just as crappy as you are, same avr brain and self modified firmware, imho its just the nature of layer deposition mechanism that make its crappy (visible layer by layer on the finished product) and the dynamics of the motors (acceleration and decceleration commands) in the firmware will provide plenty of processing power for other stuffs and if you still think its lacking, try to print even slower, and i suspect the dynamics is coded as interrupt based mechanism inside the fw, so excuses such as lack processing power is moot as we should see lagging in GUI if that is the problem.
please do show me the best OSHW/reprap printout using some GHz raspberry pi brain i suspect its will be just a little bit better if not as the same crapiness. there are more technological involvement (price) if we want a better print, heat chamber, sensories etc. thats what make $$$ unit apart from cheap OSHW unit. accept what it cant do and enjoy what it can. i agree dont waste your time too much on it, if you really concern, there are few used stratasys unit sold on ebay for fraction of the original price, get those, but then, it will not be guaranteed CNC moulding grade product output. yes i've seen the printout result of stratasys, they are still "layered visible based" product, just a little bit shiny due to better fusion inside the heat chamber.
--- Quote from: Sudo_apt-get_install_yum on August 17, 2018, 10:37:23 am ---
--- Quote from: CJay on August 17, 2018, 08:26:10 am ---
--- Quote from: Sudo_apt-get_install_yum on August 16, 2018, 01:45:06 pm ---Flash forge finder (We have like 10 of them)
-High quality prints, is easy to use. You’re locked to its slicer, has a small build plate and not heated bed
--- End quote ---
I'm not convinced you are locked to their slicer, there's at least one commercial offering that supports their machines and it seems there are a few open source/free packages that work too (I've not tried them yet, Flashprint works for me so far but I did look when I got the machine)
Unless you know different?
--- End quote ---
It might be so, I think Simplify3D has support but I’m not sure. At least with the older flash forge you were locked but it’s probably changed by now.
The slicer is good and works just fine, i just miss "advanced" features.
I really like these printers, they print 24/7 and have been doing so for a year or two and are holding up just fine. Only thing we have had to replace is the nozzle but after several thousands of hours of printing it’s kind of expected from a brass nozzle.
--- End quote ---
if the printer can accept standard gcode command/file, i believe any slicer producing descent gcode file can be used. i use KISSlicer that came with Repetier Host.
metrologist:
This a very typical dead end experience. How to convert stl to gcode.
stupid article stops half way, just gets the stl design into fusion and says good luck with the rest.
https://support.bantamtools.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001671634-Converting-STL-Files-to-G-code
the best masheen in the world can't do anything if the idea can't get into just the right kind of machine language.
So slicer is analogous to cam? always the wall.
exe:
--- Quote from: Mechatrommer on August 17, 2018, 10:41:38 am ---you certainly dont need new printer brain unless it is a china mcu blob on a pcb, i suspect your printer brain will be some atmel avr cpu variant which i think adequate
--- End quote ---
Sorry, but saying "better brains" I didn't mention lack of computational power. I meant the whole board. I did some research about seemingly random defects on my prints, I found other people have them as well. What else I found is one guy reported that replacing original board with duetwifi solved it. Rumors say the problem is in cheap drivers. Duetwifi has TMC2660 which are presumably much quiter and don't suffer from this.
May there is not enough current to steppers, I dunno. I adjusted current pots so the printer does not produce horrible loud noise when driving steppers, while yet able to move them (looks like I have resonance problem as well). That's why I just want a controller board with good drivers -- to forget about noise and missing steps.
PS I'm not really proficient in 3d printing, so whatever I write here can be wrong.
CJay:
--- Quote from: Mechatrommer on August 17, 2018, 10:41:38 am ---
--- Quote from: exe on August 17, 2018, 08:33:43 am ---
--- Quote from: Nominal Animal on August 17, 2018, 02:58:27 am ---I could get a Prusa i3 reprap derivative for under 250€ (which even I could afford)
--- End quote ---
It will be nowhere as good as Prusa without putting a lot of efforts, imho. Just quality electronics, direct extruder and a few other crucial parts will cost 250 alone.
I saw people having good printing results using junk parts, but I wasn't able to achieve the same with my cr10 (I spent 3 or 4 months tuning it). Now my printer costs twice the original price, yet doesn't print well because controller board is not good. So, if I want to remove printing defects I need new brains (like duetwifi, but it costs 160euro), or I can spend another few weeks tuning firmware, playing with drivers' trimpots, etc trying to repair the original board. The funny thing is, after half a year of owning the 3d printer I printed just a few useful parts. The rest was calibration cubes, etc.
So, my advice don't underestimate cost of your time. Now I'd pay three times more than what I paid originally for the printer just to get a decent device I could trust.
--- End quote ---
my earlier comment on your printout crappiness was nothing to do with the lacking you mentioned above, you certainly dont need new printer brain unless it is a china mcu blob on a pcb, i suspect your printer brain will be some atmel avr cpu variant which i think adequate (prove me wrong). my printout is just as crappy as you are, same avr brain and self modified firmware, imho its just the nature of layer deposition mechanism that make its crappy (visible layer by layer on the finished product) and the dynamics of the motors (acceleration and decceleration commands) in the firmware will provide plenty of processing power for other stuffs and if you still think its lacking, try to print even slower, and i suspect the dynamics is coded as interrupt based mechanism inside the fw, so excuses such as lack processing power is moot as we should see lagging in GUI if that is the problem.
please do show me the best OSHW/reprap printout using some GHz raspberry pi brain i suspect its will be just a little bit better if not as the same crapiness. there are more technological involvement (price) if we want a better print, heat chamber, sensories etc. thats what make $$$ unit apart from cheap OSHW unit. accept what it cant do and enjoy what it can. i agree dont waste your time too much on it, if you really concern, there are few used stratasys unit sold on ebay for fraction of the original price, get those, but then, it will not be guaranteed CNC moulding grade product output. yes i've seen the printout result of stratasys, they are still "layered visible based" product, just a little bit shiny due to better fusion inside the heat chamber.
--- Quote from: Sudo_apt-get_install_yum on August 17, 2018, 10:37:23 am ---
--- Quote from: CJay on August 17, 2018, 08:26:10 am ---
--- Quote from: Sudo_apt-get_install_yum on August 16, 2018, 01:45:06 pm ---Flash forge finder (We have like 10 of them)
-High quality prints, is easy to use. You’re locked to its slicer, has a small build plate and not heated bed
--- End quote ---
I'm not convinced you are locked to their slicer, there's at least one commercial offering that supports their machines and it seems there are a few open source/free packages that work too (I've not tried them yet, Flashprint works for me so far but I did look when I got the machine)
Unless you know different?
--- End quote ---
It might be so, I think Simplify3D has support but I’m not sure. At least with the older flash forge you were locked but it’s probably changed by now.
The slicer is good and works just fine, i just miss "advanced" features.
I really like these printers, they print 24/7 and have been doing so for a year or two and are holding up just fine. Only thing we have had to replace is the nozzle but after several thousands of hours of printing it’s kind of expected from a brass nozzle.
--- End quote ---
if the printer can accept standard gcode command/file, i believe any slicer producing descent gcode file can be used. i use KISSlicer that came with Repetier Host.
--- End quote ---
--- Quote from: Sudo_apt-get_install_yum on August 17, 2018, 10:37:23 am ---It might be so, I think Simplify3D has support but I’m not sure. At least with the older flash forge you were locked but it’s probably changed by now.
The slicer is good and works just fine, i just miss "advanced" features.
I really like these printers, they print 24/7 and have been doing so for a year or two and are holding up just fine. Only thing we have had to replace is the nozzle but after several thousands of hours of printing it’s kind of expected from a brass nozzle.
--- End quote ---
I'm going to have to check when I get home but there seems to be an option to display advanced print options in Flashprint. I'm happy with the software and I'm not seeing any reason to change it but of course if there is better out there...
I bought mine faulty from eBay and when it arrived the status display claimed it'd only got 7 hours printing on it so I'm really happy they last for thousands of hours.
--- Quote from: Mechatrommer on August 17, 2018, 10:41:38 am ---if the printer can accept standard gcode command/file, i believe any slicer producing descent gcode file can be used. i use KISSlicer that came with Repetier Host.
--- End quote ---
I think the files the FLashprint utility uploads are .stl but I'm really not certain, I'll have to check later.
Mechatrommer:
--- Quote from: metrologist on August 17, 2018, 11:02:32 am ---This a very typical dead end experience. How to convert stl to gcode.
stupid article stops half way, just gets the stl design into fusion and says good luck with the rest.
https://support.bantamtools.com/hc/en-us/articles/115001671634-Converting-STL-Files-to-G-code
--- End quote ---
:-\ :-// the link you provided is relevant only if you want to modify the model, you really need an answer that is relevant to your question... "How to convert stl to gcode" is a simple step as... https://www.repetier.com/ perhaps with many other OSS softwares.
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