3d printers are all the rage...


^ Does that look like a steam loco to you?

(Actually, I'm being unfair. Some diesel locomotives were fitted with whistles, driven off the compressed air system!)
 
i also see the new "original" i3 prusa Mk2, which also has good open source support, and is a bit cheaper than the lulzbot mini. it may actually be fun to build it from a kit, just so i know how it all works and fits together...

(note: it's very strange to see "original" and "mk2" in the same name, as an english-speaking person. just so you know, whoever decided on that name, it sounds weird!)
 
You can have an 'original' Mk2 VW Golf for example, to distinguish it from a heavily modified one, but I'm not sure what the alternative is to an 'original i3 prusa Mk2' is really.
 
Its a nice concept.
This concept is around since several years.
But got discarded because of the high waste % because of the nozzle cleaning every layer / color.
There will be more material used on cleaning then printing.

And there is the high risk of conterminating the color because of the structure of the nozzle.
All the color-wires are connected together and get in one heating camber.
Because there is no valve which is separating the color wires, there is always the risk of pulling other colors out .

Its easier, cheaper and faster to build the colors as separate parts and snap, screw or glue them together.
 
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would love to get something like this, second or third generation... after i know it works with open source stuff :)


once i hear "printable circuitboards", i start getting excited about a real rep-rap, capable of producing its own PCBs and stuff. still a ways out from that, though.
 
Im a bit sceptical when it comes to hardware-crowdfunding.
Even without the rip-off projects like the selve filling water bottle, Batteriser, Triton's 'Artificial Gills',.... the percentage of finished projects is extreme low.

And have you seen the price of this tiny cardridges?
I think this will be a expensive, good lookeing toy.
(I looks like a student - school project where they try to get some extra money.)

But if this project works out, it would be really cool.

But at the moment, it looks like a fancy version of the beamer DLP-3D printing, where the parts always stay a little bit sticky.

My favorite way is at the moment is still a little cnc mill to mill the parts diekt or mill a aluminium cast and use a DIY injection molding press.
 
My favorite way is at the moment is still a little cnc mill to mill the parts diekt or mill a aluminium cast and use a DIY injection molding press.

I'm thinking this might also be a nice option. do you have any examples of your work?
 
Sorry, at the moment, I have no molds or parts available.
I've seen the milling / injection molding in a friends garage.

At the moment I'm building a mill myself, to be able to start simple injection molding.
 
i looked into it (a while back) and injection molding looks pretty hands on and even dangerous for my type :D. probably should stick with a 3d printer. (still saving up...)

the mk2 prusa does sound ok, as a kit, to build. it would be nice to have a heated bed and auto-leveling (the latter, for a beginner like myself).

though something rather strange popped into my head the other day. to make it a 3d printed thing really hands on, one might arrange in a 3d way (this is the tricky part) some perler beads and stick them in the oven. i guess the second tricky part is making sure it all doesn't just come out as some blob.

for instance, you could "print" layer by layer (using an iron as usual), then put them all together and melt them together somehow. (on the site they use glue in certain 3d examples.) i'd like to avoid glue by principle, but maybe that's too strong a requirement.

anyway, i have no experience trying to do perler beads like this, but it might be more fun for kids than the regular old 3d print method.
 
Auto leveling is your very best friend. I don't have autoleveling, and it's a pain to level the bed every so often. Also, since the prusa has multiple points that it measures across the bed, you don't have to worry as much about the bed warping due to heat. On my printer, the only way for me to do a print that takes up the whole bed was to convert it over to a glass bed (as glass is perfectly flat, for our purposes anyway). But that brings different issues as things don't stick to glass very well.
 
I'm not in to 3D printing.
But glass is more bendable and warped then you think ;)

I've heard that frosted glass works good.
Other people use in acetone solved ABS to prepare the bed.
Some say glue stick works fine too to prepare the bed.
 
What's actually in hairspray?
Something dissolved in acetone?
I don't think so, I think it has something to do with the properties of the hairspray itself. it does keep hair stuck together.

I have a nice clean Kapton topped Aluminium bed it works wonders on PLA and the print just pops right off when the bed is cooled, so a little hesitant to try ABS with things like Holt melt and hairspray or the Acetone bath method.
 
I'm not in to 3D printing.
But glass is more bendable and warped then you think ;)

I've heard that frosted glass works good.
Other people use in acetone solved ABS to prepare the bed.
Some say glue stick works fine too to prepare the bed.

I know it's not, but for the tolerances that my printer has, it's close enough. Now if I were machining something, that would be a different story.

I've been wanting to try frosted glass. Right now the thing that works beautifully is a solution of gelatin and water spread onto the glass bed while it's hot. Both ABS and PLA stick very well. I didn't really want to use hairspray or abs juice since they're hard to clean off the bed.
 
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