Just got a fresh roll of PLA to start printing my MPCNC
Really worried about doing it in PLA...here in the desert PLA isn't a very good material since it deforms at such low temps. But I'm not convinced PETG is stiff enough and ABS I just can't get good enough bridging to have confidence that the parts will be acceptable.
One of my long term plans with my 3dprinter has been to print parts to use as patterns for metal casting. Either by simply using them as patterns for sand casting on simple pieces or for more complex shapes trying "lost PLA" casting.
So I'm thinking I'll print everything in PLA and get the machine built (hopefully before summer!) but will have to use and store it inside due to the heat issues and PLA. Which means I'll have to take it apart and put it back together each time I want to use it. Not ideal. But it's the only way I'll be able to store it inside where the PLA won't melt in the summer. (I'm actually thinking about ordered a few rolls of extra PLA now while the weather is nice - I'm concerned that just shipping PLA here in the summer would be enough for the filament to fuse to itself on the roll. (Even this time of year when we have nice 80f weather we can't ship stuff like chocolate. Two years ago my mom sent us some chocolate in March, it shipped from CA with cold packs and arrived in two days...but was still melted.)
But long term...I'm thinking about combining these projects and trying to cast aluminum parts from the PLA originals. Then the machine would be able to live outside, or out in my office (which has AC, but we only run it when we need to to save money.)
Either way it's looking like the first bits should come off the printer today