“It Came From Within The Brown Truck” - Now In 3D!!

[AussieJimG]

Good work Stan, and I am particularly impressed by your CLEAN hands.

Jim

[sshire]

Those are a 3d print from a scan of my hands

[zeeprogrammer]

Very nice Stan.

It looks like they solved two of the biggest problems - ease of use (out of the box) and cost.

I'd built my printer but got frustrated after spending hours and hours trying to get one part. Even had a buddy work on it. He took a couple of months (for which I can't complain - he had a family addition in the middle of that) by which time I'd lost interest.

Your end mill holder caught my eye. Perhaps my interest will renew.

BTW Most CAD programs can be used to generate the STL files. I use Cubify.

Dave and Bill are spot on about strength. The plastic itself is quite strong but the shear strength between layers can vary widely depending on layer height, temperature, speed etc. Depending on how well the unit is made, shear strength can also differ according to the height of the part if mechanical resolution is not maintained and/or the further you get away from the heated bed.

Enjoy. I look forward to seeing more of your projects.

[RonGinger]

You are lucky you didn't get the solidoodle. I bought one last spring, for $999. About a month later they dropped the price to $599 which didn't make me to happy. I have been able to make a few items with it, but have had a lot of problems with loose wires causing it to stop mid-print. I have done some re-arranging of wires and seemed to improve it, but still cannot simply turn it on and make a print. Even my 16 year old nerd grandson was unable to make much with it.

So I am not much of a 3D printer fan right now.

[sshire]

Ron
I remembered you having issues at the M.E. show in Vermont.
Yet, I ordered the Solidoodle Press anyway. I'm thinking that I was lucky that they had so many delays which resulted in the cancellation of my order.
The Press and the Da Vinci are a new class of "prints right out of the box" printers. Dremel also has one now. Since Solidoodle has not shown any detailed pix of the Press, I can't comment on the build quality or what they've done to make the wiring better. As I said in my original post, the DaVinci engineering dept. (could be one guy) has done a beautiful job in design and construction.
That said, there is a (fixable) downside to both of these printers: proprietary filament carts with built in "authenticity chips". They appear to be using King Gillette's concept of "give away the razor and we'll make our money on blade sales."
Never having used a 3D printer, I had no idea what constituted "good" filament. I assumed that filament was pretty much all the same.
It took very little time for a few guys to figure out a work-around. The chip can be reset with an Arduino or a dedicated chip resetter.
I bought a resetter on Ebay and it works perfectly. I ordered some "3D printer forum recommended filament" on Amazon. After printing an external spool hanger and using the new filament (SainSmart) I immediately noticed a difference. 1) About ˝ the price 2) better print quality  3) better at sticking to the bed 4) many more colors available.
I've learned that any part larger than 2-3" requires a raft.
Of all the prints I've done, only 2 were bad from lifting. Both were 5-8" long and had no raft. Lesson learned.

[Niels Abildgaard]

Is it possible to 3D print a kind of lost wax casting model for making aluminium parts?

[sshire]

Neils
Yes. Google "lost Pla"
PLA and ABS are the two primary filament types. PLA has a low melting point. It works in a similar manner as lost wax casting.
Also many YouTube videos on lost PLA casting.

[cfellows]

Stan, that's a great price on what looks to be a pretty well built printer.  Wonder how products like Ultimaker and Makerbot continue to sell at prices over $2,000?

Chuck

[Niels Abildgaard]

Stan

Thank You

Will walk dog and then watch Youtube rest of nigth.

Niels

[sshire]

Chuck
Name recognition and good quality. A decent quality printer for <$500 is sure going to give them a run.
It's possible, as it was with computers in the '80s, that the Compaqs and IBMs will hang at the higher prices until people get comfortable enough with them and realize that they're all pretty much the same inside. (Compaq, as a company is long gone. The name is licensed) The IBM PC was beautifully built (in typical IBM fashion) to last forever. Then users realized that they didn't WANT to keep a PC forever.

I see the same thing happening, with 3D printers. Look at anyone's specs. They all print ABS and PLA. They all resolve layer heights of .1mm, the software is the same open source Slic3r and Repetier. Except for a very few, most have heated beds. Bed size: 6", 8" or 12".

It's quite possible that Ultimaker and Makerbot have better steppers, better linear bearings, better hot ends, etc., but I don't know that.

The nice thing is that all of the parts are fairly standard so maintenance should be a non-issue.

[Dave Otto]

Compaq was purchased by HP back in the Carly years.

One thing I can see happening and it probably already is; the big guys like Stratasys and 3D Systems run around and buy up anything that that is new and upcomming and/or may cut into there bisiness.

Dave

[sshire]

Desktop 3D printers are old technology, with slim profit margins. No worries about Statysis, et al buying them up.

[zeeprogrammer]

Compaq was purchased by HP back in the Carly years.

That was great...if we're thinking the same Carly.

One thing I can see happening and it probably already is; the big guys like Stratasys and 3D Systems run around and buy up anything that that is new and upcomming and/or may cut into there bisiness.

It is. Not unusual either. Many startups look to be bought up. It's a good way to make their millions. Also good as 'if you can't beat them...buy them' tactic. We got bought a year ago by our competitor...because they couldn't beat us. Unfortunately it seems like they are not coming up to our standards...but bringing us down to theirs.

Oops. None of you are affiliated with my company are you? 
Ah...who cares?

[Dave Otto]

I'm sure we are Zee 

Dave

[b.lindsey]

Stratysis already bought MakerBot in 2013 in an attempt to enter the home market.

Bill