3D Printing

[nönöbär]

As I recently good a 3D Printer (which unfourtunally failed complelty after just 2 weeks so I have to return it....  ), I wonder if anyone here in the board has some experienece with such things?

As I went into several question issues in while using it, maybe soemone came acress similar issues before. Tried to get some help in a (German) 3D Printing board, but it does not seem as if they like questions from rookies - they have a very unfriendly reaction towards such questions.

This is why I like this board, very friendly and helpful conversations here 

[NARSES2]

I'm not certain but I think Martin H has some experience with them. PM them

[Burncycle]

I use a CR-10 for 3D printing, has a build volume of about 300x300x300mm.  It is a type of printer known as an FDM printer.  SLA type printers use liquid resin and deliver vastly higher quality for small objects, but are only recently coming down in price to affordable levels.

The limitation for our purposes of course is what is available to print online for free, and while there are some low detail tanks out there, there's very little in the way of variety with aircraft, with most being very simple / toy like.  One could presumably create their own with 3d modeling software, but unfortunately I'm awful and the best I could come up with was a rough and very simple X-37C style toy...

[nönöbär]

@Burncycle: I have (or better had) an Anycubic I3 which is about the same price as your CR-10 and also a FDM printer. But the print space is smaller 200x200x200mm.  Which would be ok for me.

It worked fine for 2 weeks, but then the nozzle got blocked. (Big question, how to prevent this and can blocked nozzled be freed again?. Have you encounterd something like this and how did you fix it?

As there were several spare parts with the printer (new nozzles, new hotend), it woudl be easy to repalce it. however the cover around the print head could not be opened becaue on of the screws coudl not be removed.
An attempt to replace the nozzle failed as now filamant was pushed out everywhere and not only at the nozzle. So it got pretty unusable. So I will send it back to Amazon now. And search for another one.

[Burncycle]

Nozzle clogs (and partial clogs leading to underextrusion) are relatively common but most of the printers / kits will come with a thin wire which is ostensibly used to unclog a nozzle.  I haven't had any luck with those, and generally if I start getting irregular performance out of a nozzle I swap it for a new one.   Sometimes if you don't discover a failed print, there is the potential to get a giant solidified plastic glob covering the entire nozzle / hot end which is a real pain to deal with.

I've heard of the I3 but have no direct experience with them -- I can say on the CR10, nozzle swaps are relatively easy.  The nozzle is first heated, and then whatever filament is loaded is withdrawn entirely.  It's important the nozzle stays hot during the process before attempting to unscrew it, otherwise it will be stubborn almost to the point of torquing the entire hot-end.  The new nozzle should be seated as far as it will go without over torquing because any gap inside between the PTFE Bowden Tube and the nozzle will create problems later when it tries to extrude the filament.

Sorry to hear yours was giving you trouble!  Hopefully the next one will work better.   If you have facebook, there are generally printer specific groups you can join, they're usually quite helpful and can address particular problems relatively rapidly

Regards

[nönöbär]

Well, I will send the printer back tomorrow and get a new one. Just looking for the "right" one.

Regarding the nozzle: There were different wires included, but I had no chance to free the nozzle. So after replacing it, printing worked, but I run into the issues that you described. Biggest blocker for me was that due to a manufacturing issu, I could not remove the cover from the hotend (where the fans are installed) so it was very tricky to exchange the nozzle at all.

In the end, I had a printing nozzle, but also the all the plastic around it which finally even caused that something "burned" into the print bed.

And btw, thanks for your explanation - the forum where I tried my luck to get some infos how to solve it were very rookie unfriendly - in the end, the moderator replied with a single "read!" and closed the thread.

[NARSES2]

 the forum where I tried my luck to get some infos how to solve it were very rookie unfriendly - in the end, the moderator replied with a single "read!" and closed the thread.

Very helpful...not 

There is a small piece on 3D printing in the February issue of SAMI which talks about design software. Went over my head I'm afraid, but could be useful ?