Ill be the guinea pig on the glass - I don't need it but like I said I just like buying junk I guess. Frankly I haven't ever had bed levelling problems since I gouged my first kapton tape. The biggest problem has always been bed adhearance without blue tape (PLA) or slight curling on long (timewise) ABS prints, particularly on this new Kapton tape. I avoided it on my old Kapton by lowering platform temps over the first 5mm of print layers, but it's not working well on this new stuff. With the glue stick I can't wait to try out some ABS prints that used to curl up over time - the PLA immediately improved to the same level as blue tape for the test part I ran last night, and I would contest that the cleanup and application of the glue is easier than blue tape.

I run slic3r inside of repetier and use my abs glue on heated glass bed and print only abs stuff.

Ok.... slic3r is fantastic. dunno wtf I've been doing for almost a year with RepG and Skeinforge... no doubt it improved my ability and I learned a lot with the more user-unfriendly stuff... but slic3r is not only more user friendly, it does a way better job on slicing everything I've thrown at it, and its profile saving system is genius compared to the mess skeinforge creates when I'm at the helm.

if you have not, check out Repetier host. its free (windows/linux/mac).

http://www.repetier.com/

My PC isn't directly connected to the printer (I prefer this and it's also not possible currently) and my printer/firmware requires x3g compiling to print so repetier isn't immediately appealing for much other than visualization and gcode editing.

Octopi looks interesting as there is an extension for GPX to compile x3g on the fly. I have enough unfinished projects going that learning Raspberry Pi and modifying my printing workflow isn't at the top of the list. Using an SD card and walking downstairs is pretty easy and eliminates a lot of potential issues relating to commands streaming from my PC (for these types of printers as I understand).

Ill still look into both though... thank you all.

Not 3d printer but saw this old kickstarter that was successful for a wire bending machine

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1638882643/diwire-the-first-desktop-wire-bender/description

It's been around for a couple years now. The issue is that it has to step the bends, so you'll never get smooth curves
http://www.pensalabs.com/#home

I saw this today which is a precise robot arm made from 3d printed parts, and can stretch up to a 26" radius. The developer wants to eventually make it multipurpose by not just being an arm to pick and place, but also a 3d printer and cnc router (hello playfield)
http://makezine.com/2015/09/25/makercon-brings-robot-arm-brains-braun/

Cool. Lots of stuff going on out there. Thinking about heading to the San Diego Maker faire this weekend.

I've looked into building one of the homebrew equivalent DI wire benders before.

http://www.instructables.com/id/DIWire-Bender/

Seems within my skill set at this point, but the biggest issue is, I have no clue what I would use it for lol. Beyond the odd pinball wireform prototype I have little use for a wire bender.

Worrying about what you would use it for? Geez..

I guess if I was a mod person (I.e., already making money off community) or I was into making custom games then it would be useful to make wireforms. I'm not in to either so one gadget I can pass on. But yeah if curves are out then not useful for that either. It seems with the right software though curves would be possible.. I mean, big boy wire forming machines can do curves and its still similar tech.

When you've got less and less space and more and more projects and tools you have to start asking these types of dumb questions... lol

That said heres the video that got me wanting to build one - step to the 1:05 mark:

Looks good enough to me

Ok, just did my first small ABS print on glass with glue stick. It was only a ~40 minute part but it printed 100% equivalent to glue on Kapton as far as I could tell (did that variant last night). Big difference was when I went to remove the part after it 100% cooled to room temp, it popped off without any effort at all - no spatula, or prying necessary. Just a push with fingers and it broke free. What I don't know is how well it was stuck while hot - I will try removing prints while warm to see how good the first layer bond really is - I might need to increase my first layer width a touch based on what I witnessed. One nice thing is the glass is removable from the printer so the prying (and any pre/post-printing cleaning or treatments) can be done on a tabletop instead of in the printer.

The only con I have found so far is it takes quite a bit longer to heat the build platform up. I would estimate ~30% increase in heating time, and some printers may struggle to get the temp up as high at all. I print first layer ABS at ~115C build platform temp and I would doubt that is attainable on lower power printers that struggle to hit 100 without glass.

Overall if parts stay stuck to the glass during printing and are typically this easy to release, I would highly recommend trying the glass/glue out. I bought the borosilicate glass off ebay, and printed some brackets to keep it on the build platform and printed a z-axis shim to trigger the limit switch appropriately. Very easy, and not too expensive.

Printed it

http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:440022

Fits my printer, but theres probably an equivalent for yours, or you could model one easy enough. It's the same thickness as the glass and straddles the two guide rails on the z axis - It literally just sits there 'loose'.

I installed the glass brackets and shim, put in the glass, and literally went printing. I did check leveling and made sure no contact would occur, but I changed nothing - it was that easy.

An update after a day of 3D printing experiments: ABS stays stuck really well to the glass/glue at higher temps (+60° I did need to pry and spatula to release the same parts) , and it continues to release easily at room temps so far.

I am having some minor first layer defects as the ABS seems like it needs to be pressed into the glass/glue a bit more than on Kapton to prevent the odd dangling stringer. I'm playing with first layer heights/widths with varying levels of success, but overall nothing majorly annoying yet.

No word yet on how well PLA bites onto the glass/glue but I'd assume it's fine as PLA seems to stick to almost anything. The other thing I thought of that might be sweet is covering one side of the glass with Kapton so I can simply flip it from one side to the other for ABS or PLA... to be honest though with how easy ABS is with glue and slic3r, I might abandon PLA altogether... or maybe it's time to try a dual extrusion with PLA as support material...

On my machine the ABS sticks very good to the glue/glass. Only when it is cooled down to 30 degree C or lower the part is removable. If the temperature is higher,it can removed by prying it off. But the glue will stick to the ABS, and you have to fill the holes in the glue layer.

Never tried PLA and glue. The glue is unneccesary when printing PLA: just wipe the glass with white vinegar and it sticks very good.

I'm getting ready to dive into the 3D printing world. Hoping for some guidance from those of you with experience.

If you guys were buying a 3D printer today for $1000 or less. What would you get? Consider size, speed, number of extruders, type of material it will work with, and other things? If there's a consideration that will save a bunch of money what would it be.

From this thread I think I need:
1. glass bed
2. Large enough bed

Seems like a few here have the Printrbot:
http://www.amazon.com/Printrbot-1412-Assembled-Metal-Plus/dp/B00QT3RT74/ref=sr_1_6

Or you could always go with a makerbot clone:
http://www.amazon.com/TECHNOLOGY-Extruder-Desktop-Structure-Filaments/dp/B00SB6ZO8S/ref=sr_1_7

Rigidbot 2.0 prob going to be announced soon

Couple of people I know bought prusa i3 kits on aliexpress (watch the sale on 11-11). They are not perfect (for that amount of money you can't expect that) but they deliver surprising good prints. Lot of parts available on thingiverse to improve them. Possible use the metal frame version with full graphic display.

I use a mendel90, build from scratch. Very good printer. Sadly Nophead has stopped making kits for them , so you can only build one from scratch like me.

A 200x200 mm bed is good enough for most things. Always buy a printer with a heated bed.

another option is a delta printer (mini kossel), good for tall designs and have a self leveling feature built in

there are plans on the net to build your own or go for a kit though advise to go for a 20mm square extrusion over the original 15mm square extrusion.

https://www.think3dprint3d.com/Kossel-Mini-3dPrinter-Kit

It depends on how much tinkering you want to do with it. Do you want something that you take out of the box and print or do you want something that comes in a kit and you put together, then mess with to get printing well? If you want something you take out of the box I would recommend one of the Davinci printers.

I have a 12" Makerfarm that I assembled from a kit and it took me the better part of 6 months to get it printing well. On the other side of that coin I bought my Daugther a Davinci Jr and took it out of the box and produced a good print within about 15 min.

The Makerfarm is more flexible and can produce better prints but it takes a lot to get there. It is probably the same with most kits.

I want to be able to make something in the first day or so even if it's printing other parts to make using the printer easy. I figure once I get some experience I might dive into something that requires more of an assembly.

Great feedback folks. Appreciate it!
Is there a "resolution" consideration? I presume there is...

resolution range is 0.10mm for a nice fine finish but the job can take many hours and commonly 0.20 to 0.25 for prototyping a idea or a unseen part.

http://makezine.com/2015/11/04/digital-fabrication-shootout-winners/?utm_source=MakeNewsletter+20151110&utm_medium=email&utm_term=Read+More&utm_content=button&utm_campaign=newsletter

Read

Ken

The mechanical resolution for most FFF machines is about the same. All use stepper motors and similair hotends. More important here is if the machine is mechanical stable.Nothing is worse in a 3d printer that needs calibrating every time you start it!

The nozzle diameter defines the smallest details that you can print. Smaller = better. But smaller = longer printing time! larger = easier printing.
I use 0.4mm as compromise between them. Also popular is the 0.3mm nozzle. 0.2mm are also available, but you will face long printing times and possible bed leveling & adhesion issues. Some persons go the other direction and use 0.8mm nozzles for a very fast print time, but with less details.

Good selection chart:

https://www.3dhubs.com/best-3d-printer-guide

I want to see the Stargate 3D printed!

check here

http://www.thingiverse.com/search/page?q=stargate&sa=

that is very cool, nice work

would make a awesome topper

Thanks Wolfmarsh, that is impressive!!! Now I need one. Doh!

I like the slowed down version as well, smooth!! Nice work!

omg wtf - I did not need to see that Stargate.

Like I need more distractions...

You for sure don't want a kit then.

Davici just released a new printer called the Pro that will allow you to use 3rd party filament so that is for sure a bonus over the other models that require you to use their branded filament. I think it is supposed to be out for sale the first part of December.

You will find good and bad reviews for just about every printer out there. The reason being even if you buy an out of the box ready printer it still takes a bit of tinkering to get them to print at their best.

I think a lot of people buy a 3d printer and think they are going to be plug and play like a normal laser printer and that's just not the case.

Whatever you end up getting I would recommend getting something that uses 1.75mm filament as it seems to be easier to find and has a bit better selection. My makerfarm 12" is 3mm and I will probably be converting it to 1.75mm in the not too distant future.

As far as resolution it all depends on how long you are willing to wait for the print. I normally print at either .3mm or .2mm and if I need something super good quality I print at .1mm. This is the layer height so every layer of the part is that tall so when you go from .3mm to .1mm you are making 3x as many layers so it takes at least 3x as long to print. For larger prints its not uncommon to have something print for 18hrs even at .2mm layers.

monoprice is having a black friday sale on the mk-8 (similar to makerbot?) for $299:
http://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=107&cp_id=10724&cs_id=1072403&p_id=13861&seq=1&format=2&AID=11064683&PID=4485850&ref=cj&utm_source=cj&utm_medium=11064683&utm_term=Slickdeals+LLC-1122587

Is this a decent printer? (not for the price, in general). Has the common 1.75mm filament size, prints to PLA and nylon, decent bed size.

That printer does not have a heated bed, so printing most plastics except PLA is not possible.

So far I have had good luck with my Craftbot3D (www.craftunique.com). They were an IndieGoGo funded kickstarter but seem to have survived.

I literally pulled it out of the box, read the manual cover to cover, did the little bit of assembly and calibration and started printing my first test object (a twisted jar) in less than an hour. The unicorn of 3D printers, a real out of box experience.

One of the features I like is that you can download the model to a USB memory drive after it has gone through their slicer and just plug it into the printer. You don't need a computer attached to print.

My next big purchase (my Christmas present thanks to my lovely, generous and tolerant wife) is a 3D laser scanner. I suck at using Blender and none of my old 3D drawing programs work well on Windows 7, 8 or 10 and would need to be converted before slicing.

After a lot of searching, I found this bad boy on Amazon:

hero-1_small.jpg

It is a Matter and Form 3D desktop scanner (https://matterandform.net/scanner). My wife bought it using her Amazon reward points on Saturday and it showed up Monday night. Now I just need some time to tinker with it.

ken

Did anybody get anything new for their printers from Santa? I got some wood Filament and just love the look of this stuff. It smells so good when it's running too. Like you just put a log on the fire.
I'm also ordering the extended x table for my simple but it's back ordered so I'll have to wait a bit. Here are a few things I printed with the wood.

Brian

mocking_(resized).jpg

barrel_o_fun_(resized).jpg

Thats awesome!! Love Stargate, wish they would have made a SG1 pinball.

Ultimaker and the lulzbot, are the best 2 i've seen at the < $2500 price. I would also recommend that anyone starting out with 3d printing, start with a fused deposition modeling machine (FDM) IMO they are the most user friendly technology out there, and don't forget to research 3d design software, because a 3d printer does nothing without a proper design\file.

Anyone used a delta style printer?
I'm thinking of getting a Rostock Max V2. Seems like pretty good bang for buck. Considering I'm working on a custom pinball machine, having to assemble the printer myself shouldn't be an issue.

So I bought the $650 dual extruder from monoprice:
http://www.monoprice.com/product?c_id=107&cp_id=10724&cs_id=1072403&p_id=11614&seq=1&format=2

Printed a few things, then started having display issues (every other column on the display was bright/dark), and also when print jobs started, the display would start showing garbled text. Read a bunch of forums, even the $1200 flashforge printer (that this printer was copied directly from) sometimes suffers the same issue. There's 2 causes:
1. static shock (dry house) can zap the display
2. The EMI from the motors can trick the display into thinking it's receiving new data

Monoprice has a very good return policy, and they had no issue with giving me an RMA number and a shipping label to return a 46lb printer and ship me a new one 2 days after they received mine back.

New printer is working great. I always discharge myself on the outer case before inserting the SD card (I may buy either a wifi card or an SD extender. And before assembling it, I opened up the bottom and wrapped the data cables in foil tape so they are shielded from noise.
foil1_(resized).JPG
foil2_(resized).JPG

One thing EVERYONE with a printer should invest in is simplify3d software. It does a great job of break-away supports, creates Gcode very quickly, and is very easy to use (and I've had no issues of PLA not sticking to the bed). I'm running a part right now on the fastest speed, and it's sticking fine and the quality is still good.

Toyotaboy, I bought the same printer about a month ago. Within 2 days I was printing my "Thing Signs". Love this printer. I have not had any issues with it, well that were the printers fault anyway.

Using simplify 3d as well. One tip I will give you, if you don't know already, is when you are using the dual extruder, always print a skirt using both extruders. This will keep your second extruder from oozing all over the first layer.

Happy printing!!!

Keith

I make LCD mods, but until now I've been contracting the 3d printing work out. It's nice to be able to quickly print whatever I need now.
http://www.illinoispinballclub.com/randm

The AC/DC bezel I designed came out the best so far:

Wanted to share another cool thing I did with my printer using an Xbox kinect. I 3D scanned my brother in law and then printed him. LOL I used a free program call skanect which works with the 360 kinect hooked to your computer. You can also scan objects! Here are some images from our goofing around.
Brian

20160514_214746_(resized).jpg

20160514_214622_(resized).jpg

20160514_214138_(resized).jpg

3d printed he looks like Arnold Palmer...lol