3D PRINTING

jeepinmatt said:
Nah, the spikes would be less painful because the might actually break the skin instead of just leaving a bone bruise.
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this was one of the other pics
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RatLabGuy said:
So things are really about to be cookin' in ol' RatLab's lab.
View attachment 416503
That's a Form3 resin printer on bottom... And Form3BL on top.
'B' for bio-safe material certified and 'L' for ... Damn that's huge.
The resin wash tank takes 11 gal of IPA. We had to buy a 55gal drum to keep on hand.

Also ... If you have a need for beefy-ass cabinets.... Stronghold is where it's at. These are 3' deep
View attachment 416504... And hold >230 lbs extended. The cabinets are around 700 empty.
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What's your thoughts on the Formlabs Fuse 3L, it's one that is currently on our curiosity radar for work. We've got a Fuse 1 which is great but accuracy sucks and print time is even worse but overall we've been happy with it and their software is easy to use.
 
Chris_Keziah said:
What's your thoughts on the Formlabs Fuse 3L, it's one that is currently on our curiosity radar for work. We've got a Fuse 1 which is great but accuracy sucks and print time is even worse but overall we've been happy with it and their software is easy to use.
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No opinion, as I have not delved into SLS yet. We'd love to but don't have enough need in our processes to buy our own yet. I can get one-off jobs done in another lab.
 
Tacoma747 said:
The white filament prints SOOO much better than the orange. Maybe the orange needed to be dried right out of the package. Oh well.... All orange pieces are done, basically just have to do the elevators, and all the backside of the wings.
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Do you need ~230mm cubed for all the plane stuff?
 
shawn said:
Do you need ~230mm cubed for all the plane stuff?
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All the pieces for Dusty fit on my printer (250mm cubed print size). I am not sure what the largest piece was for Dusty, but I have used the FULL height before. Actually had to modify files slightly to make them fit on the 250mm height. The machine is advertised as 256mm cubed but without some modifications it is limited to 250mm.
 
Printed a Frisbee today out of PLA. It flew great but split at a layer, then it was done for. I am going to print one out of TPU, I just did one out of PLA to verify it flew well. It is 250mm in diameter.
 

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So, with the Bambu stuff on sale... I need a plausible use case for having one at the house.

I saw a meme the other day that said something to the effect of "Oh, you have a 3D printer? What do you make with it? / Knick knacks my wife could buy at Target for $3 and parts for the 3D printer." There seems to be a lot of truth there.

What sorts of use could the kids get out of it, other than printing plastic crap for their friends?
 
shawn said:
So, with the Bambu stuff on sale... I need a plausible use case for having one at the house.

I saw a meme the other day that said something to the effect of "Oh, you have a 3D printer? What do you make with it? / Knick knacks my wife could buy at Target for $3 and parts for the 3D printer." There seems to be a lot of truth there.

What sorts of use could the kids get out of it, other than printing plastic crap for their friends?
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If they are into anything mechanical or building, there are many opportunities to design functional parts and things that do stuff.
On top of that its a great opportunity to learn the connection between CAD and how things actually come out - when you screw up your design, it doesn't work.

With the A1 mini being only $200 right now, its a cheaper educational tool than almost any kind of building set, robotics kit, or anything else worth its salt.

On Makerworld there are all kinds of useful things you can quickly print yourself that are actually quite practical. Tons of tools storage things.
Last week a made a new set of rubber feet for an outside chair to replace the old ones that had worn down. Delaney printed a bunch of things for cosplay outfits, some she designed, some just downloaded. I'm designing a custom radio bezel for my 4runner right now bc the OE isn't very compatible w/ modern DIN radios. Oh I also just made a hook to hang the crank bar for our retractable awning when its not it use.

Again, for a couple hundred bucks - you could view it like any tool. Maybe you'll only use it a couple of times and spend a lot of time sitting but the times you need it, very handy.
And Bambu is really idiot-proof. IMO perfect for kids bc you don't have to do anything w/ the printer itself, it just works.

EDIT - he's hardly still a "kid" but Jonas just designed and built a 2 DoF turret for a nerf tommy gun with a webcam on it that autodetects people (using the YOLO AI library and OpenCV) and shoots them. Most of the mechanics of the turret are 3d printed :D
 
RatLabGuy said:
Again, for a couple hundred bucks - you could view it like any tool. Maybe you'll only use it a couple of times and spend a lot of time sitting but the times you need it, very handy.
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That's where feature creep becomes a problem for me. If you're gonna spend $200 on this one, you ought to think about spending $350 on that one, and if you're gonna spend $350, might as well spend another $100 to get a 256mm print area, etc....
 
shawn said:
That's where feature creep becomes a problem for me. If you're gonna spend $200 on this one, you ought to think about spending $350 on that one, and if you're gonna spend $350, might as well spend another $100 to get a 256mm print area, etc....
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This is how most everything goes for me. Oh, I'll just get a cheap ______....hmm, just a little more and I get a much better value....hmm, if I spending that much, I should really just get what I "need"....hmm, how did I end up spending $3000 on sheep shears when I just wanted to buy a better beard trimmer?
 
shawn said:
That's where feature creep becomes a problem for me. If you're gonna spend $200 on this one, you ought to think about spending $350 on that one, and if you're gonna spend $350, might as well spend another $100 to get a 256mm print area, etc....
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Small learn it it’ll be obsolete In A year or so then go,
Mine was cheap if I still do it in a year or so I’ll get something better,
I do wish I’d have done this sooner and spent time learning code and cad
 
@shawn
You could get the A1 or A1 mini as a test to see if you want one and use it enough. I have sold a few of the guns I have printed on eBay, has the printer paid for itself? NO. But I have made enough to cover a fair bit of the filament I have purchased. Filament is the big expense, as instead of buying one roll at a time, it's way more cost effective to buy 5-10 at a time.

I have been working on tool organization stuff a little at a time. Some I have downloaded files, some I am designing. I still need to print about 5-6 socket trays as the store bought ones are too tall for my box.
 
shawn said:
That's where feature creep becomes a problem for me. If you're gonna spend $200 on this one, you ought to think about spending $350 on that one, and if you're gonna spend $350, might as well spend another $100 to get a 256mm print area, etc....
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If this philosophy is holding you back, then don't plan to buy any kind of utility device ever, because everything has the same issue. Just decide what features you want now and buy it to try out.

I'd think of it this way. If you're really dubious if its something teh family needs or will use much of, or whether you'll need a bigger bed etc.... just get the basic $200 A1 mini. Hell I read a thread yesterday a guy got a $25 coupon from Microcenter, then used his Rewards account for 10% off and bought one for $155. This isn't a lot of money. @Ron or @UTfball68 would spend more on a bottle of booze and get less time out of it.

What features are you worried about? That unit already covers all the typical "upgrades", you get auto bed leveling, auto spaghetti detection, it goes 3x the speed of anything else, webcam, phone integration, cloud integration.
The only features you might want would be multiple materials in a single print (which is super rare and very few people actually need), a bigger bed (and note, the mini is the size many printers were for many years), or an enclosure so you can print exotic materials (yet you can make 90% of things aroung the house w/ PETG variants).

Just get the cheap one now and in a year, get another one and donate that one to your favorite charity. The tax writee on the "value" based on the OE price would be nearly 100 bucks.
 
YotaOnRocks said:
Is stuff like this easily printed on the basic a1 mini mentioned above?
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As long as it will fit on the bed, yes, any of this stuff could easily be printed on an A1 mini. If it was me, I'd go for the A1 though just for the increase in print size.
 
RatLabGuy said:
If this philosophy is holding you back, then don't plan to buy any kind of utility device ever, because everything has the same issue. Just decide what features you want now and buy it to try out.

I'd think of it this way. If you're really dubious if its something teh family needs or will use much of, or whether you'll need a bigger bed etc.... just get the basic $200 A1 mini. Hell I read a thread yesterday a guy got a $25 coupon from Microcenter, then used his Rewards account for 10% off and bought one for $155. This isn't a lot of money. @Ron or @UTfball68 would spend more on a bottle of booze and get less time out of it.

What features are you worried about? That unit already covers all the typical "upgrades", you get auto bed leveling, auto spaghetti detection, it goes 3x the speed of anything else, webcam, phone integration, cloud integration.
The only features you might want would be multiple materials in a single print (which is super rare and very few people actually need), a bigger bed (and note, the mini is the size many printers were for many years), or an enclosure so you can print exotic materials (yet you can make 90% of things aroung the house w/ PETG variants).

Just get the cheap one now and in a year, get another one and donate that one to your favorite charity. The tax writee on the "value" based on the OE price would be nearly 100 bucks.
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If the kids are into Lego’s you’d recoup your cost in no time.
 
Tacoma747 said:
As long as it will fit on the bed, yes, any of this stuff could easily be printed on an A1 mini. If it was me, I'd go for the A1 though just for the increase in print size.
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but that's scope creep

Here's a fun thought
The 3d diagonal across X/y and Z planes is almost 2x the length. You just have to be creative with support.
 
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RatLabGuy said:
just get the basic $200 A1 mini. Hell I read a thread yesterday a guy got a $25 coupon from Microcenter, then used his Rewards account for 10% off and bought one for $155. This isn't a lot of money
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The A1 Mini isn't the best deal.
 
shawn said:
The A1 Mini isn't the best deal.
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If by deal you mean what you get for a dollar I'd love to hear what you think to be better.
Other things may be cheaper but you're going to pay for it in time and frustration.
 
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