3D PRINTING

[orange150]

Printed this tray and cup holder for the loaner. Previously there was a very small tray and a tape holder that held six tapes there.

Grabbed the file off thingiverse so can’t take credit on design.

 

[RatLabGuy]

What programs are you guys using to design stuff? I have a few simple projects in mind and want to find something user friendly to use. I'm about to break down and buy an Ipad just to use Shaper3D.

People are gonna laugh but 90% of the time I use TinkerCAD. Its free and stupid easy to learn, specifically made for kids. Runs in the cloud so you can run it on any kind of POS device, even an old cell phone.
Its my go-to for anything that is just a combo of simple shapes, which is almost everything.

For more complex things I use Onshape (also cloud based) or SolidWorks

 

[JSJJ388]

People are gonna laugh but 90% of the time I use TinkerCAD. Its free and stupid easy to learn, specifically made for kids. Runs in the cloud so you can run it on any kind of POS device, even an old cell phone.
Its my go-to for anything that is just a combo of simple shapes, which is almost everything.

For more complex things I use Onshape (also cloud based) or SolidWorks

I used solidworks using my student version until they went subscription based.

 

[RatLabGuy]

I used solidworks using my student version until they went subscription based.

Start mentoring a FIRST team, then you can use it for free

 

[NCJeeplover]

Printed this tray and cup holder for the loaner.

I've got a beater TDI jetta that I absolutely love except for the damn cupholders. Germans can't do cup holders to save their lives (the wife has a E320 and cupholders were clearly an after thought, a completely overcomplicated mouse trap of an after thought). I've been looking for a good cupholder alternative for the MK4 jettas but have been coming up short. There's not a lot of real estate with 2 plus size guys in the front seats.

 

[orange150]

I've got a beater TDI jetta that I absolutely love except for the damn cupholders. Germans can't do cup holders to save their lives (the wife has a E320 and cupholders were clearly an after thought, a completely overcomplicated mouse trap of an after thought). I've been looking for a good cupholder alternative for the MK4 jettas but have been coming up short. There's not a lot of real estate with 2 plus size guys in the front seats.

VW Golf 4 mk4 cup holder by reinitis21

I remixed yimas file,Made cup holder part taller and smoother and added small tray.Base size is the same, read advices about that at original file.Printed at 107% but for Skoda octavia mk1, was too big, had to push it in hard, and now I can't close rear ash tray fully.

www.thingiverse.com

 

[ckruzer]

What is the best 3d printer recommendation here. Car duDads, bang stick parts, etc.

 

[RatLabGuy]

What is the best 3d printer recommendation here. Car duDads, bang stick parts, etc.

Unquestionably the best point-and-shoot machines are from Bambu Lab.
If you wanna be able to do any kind of exotic materials that will survive an engine bay etc, you need an enclosed printer.

The best deal going right now is probably the Bambu Lab P2S with the AMS material station. You don't necessarily NEED the AMS, it allows you to (1) do multiple materials / colors within 1 print, which is cool, but frankly only useful for either making neat looking things or special rare cases or (2) it will auto-change to teh next spool for you if one runs out.
You can add it later too, its just cheaper by $50 or something to get as a combo.

 

[ckruzer]

Unquestionably the best point-and-shoot machines are from Bambu Lab.
If you wanna be able to do any kind of exotic materials that will survive an engine bay etc, you need an enclosed printer.

The best deal going right now is probably the Bambu Lab P2S with the AMS material station. You don't necessarily NEED the AMS, it allows you to (1) do multiple materials / colors within 1 print, which is cool, but frankly only useful for either making neat looking things or special rare cases or (2) it will auto-change to teh next spool for you if one runs out.
You can add it later too, its just cheaper by $50 or something to get as a combo.

Thank you
I’ll order it this evening!

Edit: ordered

 

[RatLabGuy]

Thank you
I’ll order it this evening!

Edit: ordered

well shit, since when does anyone actually listen to me?

 

[jeepyjman]

anyone printing with cf or gf? What dryer are you running?

 

[orange150]

I'm hoping to print with CF later this year with the QIDI printer, but haven't messed with it yet

 

[RatLabGuy]

anyone printing with cf or gf? What dryer are you running?

All the time.
I have used several dryers now, both at work and at home. At work we have some fancy things, but for home I have been most happy with the Polymaker Polydryer. It has several heat settings, and holes you can spool right out of it. What cool is that if you want to, the base is removable and it leaves the material in a tub, so you could just buy several of the tubs and a single heater base.
However honestly its a lot cheaper to just buy the plastic cereal boxes everyone uses for storage, I have probably 24 or more of them now.

Note if you're drying material properly, also invest is good drying packets or individual pellets. I use the Dry n Dry pellets in little bins I made for the AMS so it keeps that environment dry, and every now and then I replace them with fresh ones, then dry out the used ones and put back into the jug. For the cereal boxes I use color changing packets.

Some things to know about CF materials....
- as stated, drying and keeping dry is important
- they WILL wear down any gears that are just plastic over time. Use hardened parts, and always hardened steel extruders / nozzles.
- CF makes nice hard parts, but keep in mind you definitely are creating things that have tiny bits of carbon nanoparticles on the surface. When you rub your fingers over it, you're splintering off those things onto your fingers. You can't see it but its there. If you sand those parts, absolutely wear a mask. Carbon filter for your printer is highly recommended.

If you want some super durable, tough stuff, look into Polymaker Fiberon CF-PA6-20. It's an amazing formulation that doesn't require a wildly hot environment and is extremely durable, could be good for many automotive underhood kind of things. However to get the strength it needs to be annealed.

PETG-CF is amazing stuff. At work its become our default unless we need it to be nonconductive. Actually prints much better and more stable than vanilla PETG.

 

[Lankford]

Thank you
I’ll order it this evening!

Edit: ordered

Got a link? Been thinking about getting something myself.

 

[ckruzer]

Got a link? Been thinking about getting something myself.

I got this one. Hopefully I didn’t read it wrong but supposedly can print carbon fiber

Bambu Lab P2S Combo - Top-Tier Materials Bundle

Introducing the Bambu Lab P2S 3D printer is a state-of-the-art printer offering a seamless user experience akin to a smartphone with a spacious build volume of 256 x 256 x 256 mm and an enclosed chamber for temperature stability. The Bambu Lab P2S 3D printer produces reliable desktop FDM prints...

www.matterhackers.com

 

[ckruzer]

First print petg

 

[Macdaddy4738]

Well I decided that I'm finally in the market for a new printer. I love my Artillery X2, but it's substantially outdated at this point and it just randomly implodes on itself every 50th print or so, requiring a total tear down. I can never quite figure out what's wrong with it either, so I typically just throw parts at it until it's up and running again. Wasn't really an issue for it to be down a week or two before, but now I've figured out how to design my own things and I've been using it almost non-stop the last two months or so. I'm also moving towards 3D printing larger RC models (have a sail boat I'm working on now, will be doing another boat and plane once things are fixed, and I have my eye on a huge submarine from Nautilus Dry Docks).

So, suffice to say I need to move on from the Artillery, at least as a main printer. I was almost completely decided on the P2S with AMS but the lack of an active heated chamber concerns me. I'm planning on moving on almost entirely from PLA to more engineering type materials. ABS, ASA, and nylon are really intriguing to me. I know the P2S heats the chamber up passively, but I'd rather just stick with something that has an active heated chamber.

The H series Bambu fits my needs, but it's just more than I really want to spend. The Qidi Q2 looks to tick all my boxes, but I don't really know much about Qidi as a manufacturer. I've never heard of them, and reviews are....spotty. Thoughts? I can fix most things myself. I'm not above tinkering to get stuff to work, but I don't want significant downtime, nor shady manufactures dodging support issues.

EDIT* Well f**k it, I'm going with the H2S. Simply put, for my needs, there's just nothing better in the market right now. The Qidi has all the same capabilities on paper, but Qidi has questionable business practices, don't tend to cash in on their promises, and the entire unit seems to be very similar to my Artillery, where it'll go great for a week or two and then implode with no hint beforehand. It's interesting to see after 4 years of being out of the market for a 3D printer, that despite all the advances in tech, basically one company dominates the marketplace. Ultimately I may even replace the Artillery entirely with an A1 for shorter PLA prints. The Bambu stuff is just that freaking good. They also seem to be one of the rarer companies in this particular marketplace that actually has solid customer support WITH continued support for legacy machines.

 

[RatLabGuy]

Well I decided that I'm finally in the market for a new printer. I love my Artillery X2, but it's substantially outdated at this point and it just randomly implodes on itself every 50th print or so, requiring a total tear down. I can never quite figure out what's wrong with it either, so I typically just throw parts at it until it's up and running again. Wasn't really an issue for it to be down a week or two before, but now I've figured out how to design my own things and I've been using it almost non-stop the last two months or so. I'm also moving towards 3D printing larger RC models (have a sail boat I'm working on now, will be doing another boat and plane once things are fixed, and I have my eye on a huge submarine from Nautilus Dry Docks).

So, suffice to say I need to move on from the Artillery, at least as a main printer. I was almost completely decided on the P2S with AMS but the lack of an active heated chamber concerns me. I'm planning on moving on almost entirely from PLA to more engineering type materials. ABS, ASA, and nylon are really intriguing to me. I know the P2S heats the chamber up passively, but I'd rather just stick with something that has an active heated chamber.

The H series Bambu fits my needs, but it's just more than I really want to spend. The Qidi Q2 looks to tick all my boxes, but I don't really know much about Qidi as a manufacturer. I've never heard of them, and reviews are....spotty. Thoughts? I can fix most things myself. I'm not above tinkering to get stuff to work, but I don't want significant downtime, nor shady manufactures dodging support issues.

EDIT* Well f**k it, I'm going with the H2S. Simply put, for my needs, there's just nothing better in the market right now. The Qidi has all the same capabilities on paper, but Qidi has questionable business practices, don't tend to cash in on their promises, and the entire unit seems to be very similar to my Artillery, where it'll go great for a week or two and then implode with no hint beforehand. It's interesting to see after 4 years of being out of the market for a 3D printer, that despite all the advances in tech, basically one company dominates the marketplace. Ultimately I may even replace the Artillery entirely with an A1 for shorter PLA prints. The Bambu stuff is just that freaking good. They also seem to be one of the rarer companies in this particular marketplace that actually has solid customer support WITH continued support for legacy machines.

Fyi I have an X1C. No heater. And I have printed almost anything on it (except PPS). Nylon, Polycarbonate, cf-petg, etc.
You just have to turn on the bed at full heat way in advance and let the chamber pre-warm.
You can also add a separate block heater SUPER easily.

The H series are fantastic but if that is the one feature that you feel like is missing.... It's not worth the price difference at all

 

[RatLabGuy]

Oh btw we had the QIDI plus 4 at work. We bought it specifically because of the larger bed because at the time there was nothing of that size available from Bambi.

I would rate it as a good value for the money, but you were definitely losing out on build quality and support by saving a buck.
We just got their new AMS for it. We're keeping it it as a "throwaway" device for running homemade filament or other weird applications where if we were to break the printer we wouldn't care because it's cheap and parts are cheap.

 

[Macdaddy4738]

Fyi I have an X1C. No heater. And I have printed almost anything on it (except PPS). Nylon, Polycarbonate, cf-petg, etc.
You just have to turn on the bed at full heat way in advance and let the chamber pre-warm.
You can also add a separate block heater SUPER easily.

The H series are fantastic but if that is the one feature that you feel like is missing.... It's not worth the price difference at all

The Artillery has a 300x300x300 print space. While I haven't technically needed it, I have used it from time to time. Not so much the vertical limit, but I have packed the build plate from time to time.

Seems the H series can get the hot end up to 350 while the P2S only hits 300. From what I've read and watched so far, it seems that without the heated chamber, the higher temp items require some tweaking to work, while the H series can just go without touching anything.

There's also a host of H series upgrades that are somewhat interesting. The laser cutter and plotter are kind of cool. I don't see needing them, but having the option to adapt is nice. The H2S only gets the 10w laser, but that's likely plenty good.

Honestly, do I NEED the H2S over the P2S? Probably not. Do I WANT the H2S over the P2S? Hell yeah.

 

[NCJeeplover]

I don't have much to add but after years of fighting with other printers I will not even consider any printer that's not Bambu.

 

[Macdaddy4738]

I don't have much to add but after years of fighting with other printers I will not even consider any printer that's not Bambu.

Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at with it. I understand that the compromise there is that Bambu is basically a closed ecosystem, but I'm fine with that. Their slicer doesn't look awful. I'm still using Cura since the Artillery really won't talk to much without reflashing the software (which is apparently a pain in the ass). Cura has really fallen behind in the last several years from what I understand.

Now I'm sitting here trying to decide between the H2S and H2D. Do I really NEED two nozzles? I'm thinking more towards 2 material prints, using something cheap like PLA for supports while the more expensive stuff is used for the actual part.

 

[RatLabGuy]

Yeah, that's exactly where I'm at with it. I understand that the compromise there is that Bambu is basically a closed ecosystem, but I'm fine with that.

I've come to realize its like Apple vs other misc. Its closed but you trade the access for shit working consistently. I have sworn off Apple products but thats bc of the company, not the products.

Their slicer doesn't look awful. I'm still using Cura since the Artillery really won't talk to much without reflashing the software (which is apparently a pain in the ass). Cura has really fallen behind in the last several years from what I understand.

You don't HAVE to use Bambu studio. check out Orca slicer, the open source project they forked from. It doesn't have all of the same super fine details but it has other tweaks and you can use it for tons of other printers AND control all those printers remotely from the same desktop session. Its what I use at work and don't have to worry about Bambu "accidentally" slipping in a backdoor to my system in an update.

Now I'm sitting here trying to decide between the H2S and H2D. Do I really NEED two nozzles? I'm thinking more towards 2 material prints, using something cheap like PLA for supports while the more expensive stuff is used for the actual part.

Here's my experience.... in 3 years of having an X1C and 3 other printers at various times at home I can only think of one or two times that I had to change my plans due to not having multiple nozzles. I also very rarely do multicolor things. But keep in mind... even w/ multiple nozzles there are a lot of material combos you can't mix bc they require different bed or chamber temps or airflow rates etc. In fact pretty much the only things you really can combine are PLA, PETG and TPU. Oh maybe PCTG, my most recent fav. The only thing you can combine with "more expensive stuff" - bc it all requires high ambient temps - is high-temp support, which is only mildly less expensive... most people just do a single layer of it at the interface anyway and just do the rest of the support in the model material and accept the loss.
And remember even dual nozzles take more time w/ 2 materials that just minimizing the number of layers of the your secondary material, that extra layer time w/ the 2nd nozzle isn't instantaneous.

We have an H2D at work and I love it but I couldn't justify the cost for home hobby use. Personally If I were really opening my wallet for the H2D I'd go all the way for the H2C and go wild w/ all the auto tool changing.

 

[Macdaddy4738]

Here's my experience.... in 3 years of having an X1C and 3 other printers at various times at home I can only think of one or two times that I had to change my plans due to not having multiple nozzles. I also very rarely do multicolor things. But keep in mind... even w/ multiple nozzles there are a lot of material combos you can't mix bc they require different bed or chamber temps or airflow rates etc. In fact pretty much the only things you really can combine are PLA, PETG and TPU. Oh maybe PCTG, my most recent fav. The only thing you can combine with "more expensive stuff" - bc it all requires high ambient temps - is high-temp support, which is only mildly less expensive... most people just do a single layer of it at the interface anyway and just do the rest of the support in the model material and accept the loss.
And remember even dual nozzles take more time w/ 2 materials that just minimizing the number of layers of the your secondary material, that extra layer time w/ the 2nd nozzle isn't instantaneous.

We have an H2D at work and I love it but I couldn't justify the cost for home hobby use. Personally If I were really opening my wallet for the H2D I'd go all the way for the H2C and go wild w/ all the auto tool changing.

That never even occurred to me. That makes perfect sense. That use was the only real thing I had interest in with the H2D. I think I'll opt for the H2S then. Makes more sense to me.

The H2C is just too much for me. I'd definitely like it, but I don't think realistically I can justify the cost.

EDIT* Well the HS2 is on the way!!

 

[frankenyoter]

We got my son an A1 a couple years ago. I kept waiting for the AMS pro2 update to run it. I got frustrated with it and just got a H2D for him (and me). It’s way more machine than we need. Hopefully I can figure out how to use all of its abilities one day.