Electronics > Manufacturing & Assembly

Have 3d printers changed much in the last few years?

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wraper:

--- Quote from: e100 on February 01, 2023, 03:21:14 pm ---The other manufacturers have seen this coming since at least June 2022 but have remained silent.

--- End quote ---
It will take a lot of time to put into production something comparable. As it seems, they decided to mass produce it in large numbers from the start, otherwise there is no way to not lose money on it at such price point.

Rat_Patrol:
I run mainly Prusa printers, along with a home-brew high temp unit I'm currently building up. I have an MK3s, Mini, and then a large format resin printer I use regularly. I also have a 5 head XL on pre-order (since announcement day). I make a lot of jigs, manufacturing helpers, custom adapters/feeders, etc. Stuff like that, plus whatever else I may need (mounting brackets for various everything is common). I use ESD PLA for stuff that micros touch.

The MK3s is getting a bit long in the tooth for the UI, but it works, doesn't glitch, and just makes prints w/o complaint or problems or tinkering. The Mini works just fine as well, I keep a .4mm nozzle on it for more detailed prints (.6 on the MK3s). I upgraded both with the Super PINDA sensor, and use the Satin bed sheets.

The satin bed sheets are a game changer.
The slicer upgrades and improvements are game changers.
The Super PINDA helps a ton when changing bed temps from different filaments all the time (more constant first layer offset).

I can't wait to get my XL.

The Bambu looks interesting, but all the hardware is proprietary and the company is a startup. Also, to get full utilization from the machine, you need to use their slicer (and IIRC was cloud?), but basic prints can be done from any slicer apparently, so you have to hope they make a good slicer and keep it up to date. I'm not sold on them yet, we shall see. If that company goes under, or they simply decide to stop parts production, your machine will lose all support.

thm_w:

--- Quote from: Berni on February 01, 2023, 10:53:37 am ---
--- Quote from: e100 on February 01, 2023, 07:24:49 am ---I saw this picture on Reddit that was posted today https://i.redd.it/49a3x9zamhfa1.jpg
which shows a complete inability to detect basic positional errors. I was really hoping that stuff like this would be a distant memory.

--- End quote ---

Prusas need to have new enough electronics with Trinamic drivers to detect lost steps, and the detection has to be enabled in settings. Either way lost steps are a sign that something else is wrong. Be it something with the printer (mechanical issues, wrong stepper power settings) or the printer was asked something it can't do, leaving a plastic blob or similar somewhere that solidified and gets caught.
We needed very little tweaking with a Prusa and failed prints are rather rare.

--- End quote ---

Yeah, as someone who has multiple printers, one with DIY closed loop, you don't need it. If the printer is setup correctly you won't have issues with shifts.

https://www.trinamic.com/technology/motor-control-technology/stallguard-and-coolstep/

hli:

--- Quote from: Berni on February 01, 2023, 10:53:37 am ---Yeah 3D printing will never be as easy as printing on paper.

--- End quote ---

When I compare 3D printing today with the 2D (on paper) printing of, let's say, 30 years ago, I would say it will be. Paper printing was awful back then. Mostly on the software side, but even on the hardware side of things it was sometimes more magic than reliable tooling. (I remember a customer once explained to me that their main issue was when they wanted to print like 2000 packing list on Monday morning, going through all orders which arrived over then weekend, their main issue was that their big printer quite often pulled in multiple sheets at once. IIRC they worked on that for over a year, and finally resorted to buy a completely different printing solution. They never found out what the real issue was.)
So lets give it some time - sooner or later there will be a company who figures out how to do this correctly to go into the real consumer market. Prusa did this to an extend with their reliability of the MK3, and Bamboo also does some real progress on that with all their sensor stuff. The combination of both might be what we need.
This leaves us with the issue that 3D printing in itself is complex (as in coming up with a good model), but then coming up with valuable stuff to print on paper is also not easy, right?

wraper:

--- Quote from: Rat_Patrol on February 01, 2023, 09:07:54 pm ---The Bambu looks interesting, but all the hardware is proprietary and the company is a startup. Also, to get full utilization from the machine, you need to use their slicer (and IIRC was cloud?), but basic prints can be done from any slicer apparently, so you have to hope they make a good slicer and keep it up to date. I'm not sold on them yet, we shall see. If that company goes under, or they simply decide to stop parts production, your machine will lose all support.

--- End quote ---
You can use cloud but it's a bonus, not necessity. If you are concerned about spare parts, you can buy some extra right away, they are quite cheap. For example P1P complete screen unit costs only $25, and $150 for X1. Hot end with nozzle $10-15 depending on type, complete hot end assembly with heater, sensor and fan $30-35. Extruder unit $35-45 https://us.store.bambulab.com/collections/extruders-and-parts Compare that with Prusa XL you pre-ordered, a single additional extruder/tool head costs $200 less than a whole P1P and half of X1. As I've seen from some discussions, many people cancelled their Prusa pre-orders and got Bambu instead. It is a startup in a sense they are a new company but not is a sense what startups usually are. It's founded/run by serious ex DJI guys and the thing was already in mass production before it appeared on Kickstarter. If the company goes under, IMHO there will be plenty of 3rd party major consumable parts considering how many of these were already sold.
EDIT: BTW they open sourced BambuStudio and there is a fork already which works with other 3D printers too.

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