New 3D Printer

[RustySocket]

While the Anycubic order didn't work out for me and I feel for the situation going on in China, they did finally reach out to me and say they were not going to be able to get me a printer for a while and promptly credited my account and refunded my money. For that I have a lot of respect to them as a company going through some tough times over there with the coronavirus.

I want to publicly say thank you to both @localfiend and @jhitesma for tolerating my incessant questions and pointing me in the proper direction. It will still be a few weeks but I have a Prusa MK3s kit on order and I am looking forward to assembling it and starting my learning curve. It was a tough pill to swallow, but after I thought about it a bit the Prusa was less expensive than my first RC helicopter kit and it is very unlikely it will destroy itself trying to learn inverted nose in hover in my front yard.

 

[Pony1023]

LOL, welcome to the party.
I ordered mine with the Black Friday deals this year.
Assembled, (make sure to follow their printed manual, when they keep telling you to assemble using the online manual, make sure you follow the online manual, even though the printed one is nice) and because life is so busy, it's been collecting dust since I finished it in a couple of days after it arrived.

Buy extra gummy bears, and don't rush it. I made one mistake, and had to order a extra spool of filament to correct my mistake for a part not sold by the online store. I love my printer, and it's worth every penny to me, even though I haven't put it fully through it's paces yet.

All the reasons you were given, is exactly why I paid the extra money. I fully believe in your choice as well, and don't think you'll regret it.

 

[sprzout]

While the Anycubic order didn't work out for me and I feel for the situation going on in China, they did finally reach out to me and say they were not going to be able to get me a printer for a while and promptly credited my account and refunded my money. For that I have a lot of respect to them as a company going through some tough times over there with the coronavirus.

I want to publicly say thank you to both @localfiend and @jhitesma for tolerating my incessant questions and pointing me in the proper direction. It will still be a few weeks but I have a Prusa MK3s kit on order and I am looking forward to assembling it and starting my learning curve. It was a tough pill to swallow, but after I thought about it a bit the Prusa was less expensive than my first RC helicopter kit and it is very unlikely it will destroy itself trying to learn inverted nose in hover in my front yard.

You're gonna love that printer. My dad bought the Prusa Mk2s...2 years ago, I think it was? We've printed a bunch of stuff on it, and for the most part, it's just worked. We had a minor issue with the bed leveling sensor on it (that was more my father not understanding how it was supposed to be set, or how to determine from test patterns whether it was laying down a good first layer of PLA) but once we got it dialed in, he was a printing fool.

As others have said, get some more filament (I'd recommend buying some decent quality material, like Hatchbox or Matterhackers - I had some bad experiences with eSun and Shaxon being REALLY brittle coming off of the roll, and breaking on its way to the hotend), as you'll find you're going to be wanting to print a bunch of stuff.

 

[RustySocket]

LOL, welcome to the party.
I ordered mine with the Black Friday deals this year.
Assembled, (make sure to follow their printed manual, when they keep telling you to assemble using the online manual, make sure you follow the online manual, even though the printed one is nice) and because life is so busy, it's been collecting dust since I finished it in a couple of days after it arrived.

Buy extra gummy bears, and don't rush it. I made one mistake, and had to order a extra spool of filament to correct my mistake for a part not sold by the online store. I love my printer, and it's worth every penny to me, even though I haven't put it fully through it's paces yet.

All the reasons you were given, is exactly why I paid the extra money. I fully believe in your choice as well, and don't think you'll regret it.

I had contemplated getting an assembled printer but I had already exceeded my budget by quite a bit. And then the whole thing about if the order exceeded 800$ having to pay customs and taxes on top. I just couldn't do it.

I have since learned that most people have not had import duties to pay despite the warning.

I am indeed looking forward to the actual build process as it will be similar to putting together a helicopter kit. I also enjoy precision tasks.

 

[OliverW]

If you can find an Ender 3 in the US, it can work for planes, but you'll be much better off after modding it to be direct drive.

I primarily use genuine Prusa printers, and it's what I recommend if you can afford it. If you end up not liking 3D printing, and want to get out of it, a Prusa will sell used very easily for a decent price. The cheaper stuff, no one generally wants used unless it's basically going for nothing. They can take a gamble on a new one instead.

I've got one of these as I wanted something bigger than a Prusa that would work well for planes.

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07QKJMJKG/?tag=lstir-20

It's already direct drive (way better for thin wall airplane printing, and other things like TPU), and has an AC heated bed. Assembly and leveling was quick and easy. $419 on amazon. You can probably shop around and find it cheaper. When I ordered mine, I think it came from China and was around $350. It's also amazingly quiet. I think the newer Prusas are probably comparable. All mine are the older Mk2s.

I have printed 2 ailerons for an eclipson model t on my ender, and it works great!

 

[RustySocket]

You're gonna love that printer. My dad bought the Prusa Mk2s...2 years ago, I think it was? We've printed a bunch of stuff on it, and for the most part, it's just worked. We had a minor issue with the bed leveling sensor on it (that was more my father not understanding how it was supposed to be set, or how to determine from test patterns whether it was laying down a good first layer of PLA) but once we got it dialed in, he was a printing fool.

As others have said, get some more filament (I'd recommend buying some decent quality material, like Hatchbox or Matterhackers - I had some bad experiences with eSun and Shaxon being REALLY brittle coming off of the roll, and breaking on its way to the hotend), as you'll find you're going to be wanting to print a bunch of stuff.

That is good to hear, I'm excited to learn how to use it and get started. This started as something to occupy my time, print some control horns, and wheels and such. I have since learned about entire printed airframes and am simply fascinated by it. I can see how this could turn into another hobby on it's own.

I have not ordered any filament yet as it is hard to decide exactly what to get and what colors to get. Fortunately Amazon prime can get things to me within a day or two.

 

[sprzout]

That is good to hear, I'm excited to learn how to use it and get started. This started as something to occupy my time, print some control horns, and wheels and such. I have since learned about entire printed airframes and am simply fascinated by it. I can see how this could turn into another hobby on it's own.

I have not ordered any filament yet as it is hard to decide exactly what to get and what colors to get. Fortunately Amazon prime can get things to me within a day or two.

For your first few prints, I’d recommend a contrasting color from the print bed, something like a neon green for a black print bed, or a royal blue or black for a white/silver print bed. This makes it easier for you to see how it initially lays down material, in case you need to make any adjustments. It shouldn’t be much to adjust, and maybe not at all if you’ve got things aligned as the instructions specify.

 

[RustySocket]

For your first few prints, I’d recommend a contrasting color from the print bed, something like a neon green for a black print bed, or a royal blue or black for a white/silver print bed. This makes it easier for you to see how it initially lays down material, in case you need to make any adjustments. It shouldn’t be much to adjust, and maybe not at all if you’ve got things aligned as the instructions specify.

That never occured to me and is excellent advice.

I was looking at matterhackers filaments just now. Is the build series PETG good enough or should I spend the extra money and get the Pro PETG.

Is the Prusament filament good?

I don't have a concept of how quickly a 1KG roll will get used.

 

[sprzout]

I’d suggest starting off with PLA for your first few prints rather than PETG. PETG can be a little finicky, and until you know things are calibrated for normal printing and the frame/bed/belts/etc. are all correct, I’d recommend the PLA - it’s more forgiving.

As for Pro vs. regular, I don’t know the quality difference, honestly; I’ve only ever bought the cheaper Matterhackers materials, and gotten quality prints. 😁 I’m not going to say it’s not worth it, or that there’s no difference (there most likely is) - I just don’t know how much of a difference there is.

Prusa filament is great too, but it can be expensive with shipping.

And 1KG will last you quite a while. I’ve had a 3D printer for...3 years now, I think? I’ve gone through nearly 4 1KG rolls in that time, and I have a brand new, unopened roll waiting for me to finish off the blue I’m currently printing with. It may be a while with the stuff I’ve been printing, though - control horns and firewalls barely use any material, and if you print things, most prints don’t need to be solid - you can run at anywhere from 15-25% infill to keep the print light and so you don’t use as much material. The higher the infill, the more material you use, the longer it takes to print, and the heavier the part is, but it can potentially be stronger. There are diminishing returns on that, though - it might only be SLIGHTLY stronger for its thickness, so you might want to just stick with anywhere between 15-25% infill as a rule of thumb.

 

[Pony1023]

Depending on what you got from Prusa, I would hold off on getting more filament at this point. (Mine came with 2 spools) My reason for this, if you need a part, that they don't sell in the store, they have no way to ship it to you, UNLESS you buy something else from them. In my case it was the wiring wrap. It's not sold in the store, so the easiest way to get that original wire wrap, was to order a spool of filament, and they threw the wire wrap in the filament box for free. There were other wire wraps I could have used, however being brand new (And trimmed by me, which was the mistake) I wanted it looking original to start.

Just something to consider. Of course if you plan on enjoying your printer, can you ever have to much filament?

 

[jhitesma]

Brittle filament sucks. I had a roll of eSun that Amazon sent me when I ordered Hatchbox right after I got my printer. I had heard good things about eSun so gave it a try...but it was brittle and gave me nothing but trouble. After every print it would snap a few inches above the hot end - and after a few days the parts I printed in it would crack and break across layer lines Which was a major bummer since I had printed a bunch of MPCNC parts out of it. The bag was still sealed but I later found the date code and learned it was over a year old before it even got to me.

And until last week I could say I never had that problem with Hatchbox or fresher filament...but...I got a roll of Hatchbox's "Magic Stone" to print a Mayan pyramid for a project my daughter is doing at school:

The model had some issues (unsupported 90 degree overhangs, and those staircases started 2 layers above the print bed) but still printed really nice...and the filament has a good look.

But...it's also brittle Right out of the box it snapped when I was loading it. And last night I went to print something else out of it and it snapped before the first layer finished (thankfully the prusa detected it and I was able to reload it and keep going.)

So I won't be using that filament for anything structural, only cosmetic. I doubt it's age either since it's a new color they just released...just something about the formulation I guess.

I love the Prusament filament, prints great and adheres great...my only complaint is it's always out of stock on Amazon and shipping from Prusa is a bit steep.

My printer came with a roll of silver/grey Prusa filament (not the prusament but their older self-branded) and it also printed amazingly. And the silver color was great for dialing in the z-offset and getting perfect 1st layers.

1KG will print more than you think. Unless you're doing things like the MPCNC (lots of perimeters and high infill) it takes quite awhile to go through a spool. I was surprised when I made my MPCNC just how much filament it sucked down so fast. But those are some big parts and they use a lot of plastic.

I tend to wind up with a lot of spools that just have a little bit left on them. I don't want to risk using them in big prints but can't bring myself to get rid of what's left on them. So I've got a small bookshelf full of filament now.

 

[RustySocket]

Depending on what you got from Prusa, I would hold off on getting more filament at this point. (Mine came with 2 spools) My reason for this, if you need a part, that they don't sell in the store, they have no way to ship it to you, UNLESS you buy something else from them. In my case it was the wiring wrap. It's not sold in the store, so the easiest way to get that original wire wrap, was to order a spool of filament, and they threw the wire wrap in the filament box for free. There were other wire wraps I could have used, however being brand new (And trimmed by me, which was the mistake) I wanted it looking original to start.

Just something to consider. Of course if you plan on enjoying your printer, can you ever have to much filament?

Good advice!

 

[RustySocket]

Brittle filament sucks. I had a roll of eSun that Amazon sent me when I ordered Hatchbox right after I got my printer. I had heard good things about eSun so gave it a try...but it was brittle and gave me nothing but trouble. After every print it would snap a few inches above the hot end - and after a few days the parts I printed in it would crack and break across layer lines Which was a major bummer since I had printed a bunch of MPCNC parts out of it. The bag was still sealed but I later found the date code and learned it was over a year old before it even got to me.

And until last week I could say I never had that problem with Hatchbox or fresher filament...but...I got a roll of Hatchbox's "Magic Stone" to print a Mayan pyramid for a project my daughter is doing at school:

View attachment 158445

The model had some issues (unsupported 90 degree overhangs, and those staircases started 2 layers above the print bed) but still printed really nice...and the filament has a good look.

But...it's also brittle Right out of the box it snapped when I was loading it. And last night I went to print something else out of it and it snapped before the first layer finished (thankfully the prusa detected it and I was able to reload it and keep going.)

So I won't be using that filament for anything structural, only cosmetic. I doubt it's age either since it's a new color they just released...just something about the formulation I guess.

I love the Prusament filament, prints great and adheres great...my only complaint is it's always out of stock on Amazon and shipping from Prusa is a bit steep.

My printer came with a roll of silver/grey Prusa filament (not the prusament but their older self-branded) and it also printed amazingly. And the silver color was great for dialing in the z-offset and getting perfect 1st layers.

1KG will print more than you think. Unless you're doing things like the MPCNC (lots of perimeters and high infill) it takes quite awhile to go through a spool. I was surprised when I made my MPCNC just how much filament it sucked down so fast. But those are some big parts and they use a lot of plastic.

I tend to wind up with a lot of spools that just have a little bit left on them. I don't want to risk using them in big prints but can't bring myself to get rid of what's left on them. So I've got a small bookshelf full of filament now.

I am willing to order quality filament. I want to have some transparent to do the airframes with. But I also have a teen who will want to play with this too... Have you tried the Matterhackers. Wondering the difference between what they call build vs PRO quality. Maybe I will just call them and ask.

Seems as though everybody has positives and negatives regarding filament brands of choice.. and even then between colors. Hard to make a decision.

 

[sprzout]

Just something to consider. Of course if you plan on enjoying your printer, can you ever have to much filament?

As @jhitesma noted, the brittle filament issue from old filament happens a lot. I've got a roll of white eSun that I bought that's doing the same thing - it was on the shelf at Fry's for over a year, was marked down on clearance, and I didn't know any better when I bought it - I figured, "Filament's filament, I can use it for my FT plane parts..."

Well, now I know why it was on sale.

As for transparent color, let me be honest that every version of transparent is never really "transparent", it's more of a hazy crystal color. I wouldn't recommend it for a plane - if you get anything other than a perfectly clear, blue sky day, you'll have a hard time with it blending in with the sky. Just my 0.02.

I know that Prusa filament is great stuff, works really well as others have said, Matterhackers is great, and Hatchbox is great as well. Shaxon and eSun were poor quality.

One brand that I DID like was Monoprice's brand. I have a roll of neon green that I bought from them 3 years ago, and the little bit that I still have isn't brittle. Their prices are in line with Hatchbox from Amazon (about $20 per 1kg roll of PLA), and they ship fro Los Angeles, so if you're on the West Coast they get here pretty quick. Only downside is that you have to pay for shipping unless you get your order above $35, so it usually means you need to order 2 rolls of filament, but that's not exactly a terrible thing.

 

[Captain Video]

Here is my issue: I have bee using Lightwave 3D for graphics, animated logo, etc for a very long time. I have tried to use Fusion 3D but it is painfully slow and very counter intuitive for me. I am not looking forward to learning a new 3D program as there doesn't seem to be a direct STL export from Lightwave. Everything seems to be dumbed down (no insult intended) for the average user to a point when I cannot even create simple text in Fusion 3D. I am looking for a 3D software package I can try before I buy. Any thoughts for someone who is set in his ways.

 

[Captain Video]

BTW, I plan to use the software package for 3D printer design.

 

[sprzout]

Here is my issue: I have bee using Lightwave 3D for graphics, animated logo, etc for a very long time. I have tried to use Fusion 3D but it is painfully slow and very counter intuitive for me. I am not looking forward to learning a new 3D program as there doesn't seem to be a direct STL export from Lightwave. Everything seems to be dumbed down (no insult intended) for the average user to a point when I cannot even create simple text in Fusion 3D. I am looking for a 3D software package I can try before I buy. Any thoughts for someone who is set in his ways.

You can try Google Sketchup, might do what you're looking for.

 

[Captain Video]

Nope not tried it yet but I am willing to try. Why this program over others?

 

[RustySocket]

My printer arrived on Monday. It took me about 15 hours total from box to printing. Since then it has been printing all the parts to make a Lack enclosure. In the end I did purchase both a smooth and textured sheets. I've had no issues printing with PLA or with PETG so far. I took my time, making sure I understood each step. The extruder took the longest of all the sub-assemblies. That and trying to keep the wiring clean and neat.

All of my enclosure brackets will be finished tomorrow evening an then it will be time to pick a plane and get started.

Why would someone choose to use a different slicer program?

I notice that while printing if I rotate the control knob it increases or decreases the print speed. I recall reading a bit about it in the assembly manual and that it wasn't recomended to exceed 200%, but I can't find the little bit I read. What are the tradeoffs when using that function.

So far I have managed to remember to change to z offsets when changing sheets and so I haven't drove the nozzle into the print bed yet. I can see how that would be easy to forget to do. Do you just stick with 0.4 brass nozzles. Do you buy them somewhere other than Prusa.

Anyway, I guess to next step is to find a plane, order more filament and give it a shot.

Any suggestions on a first plane to print, or any benchmarking or accuracy checks I should do?

 

[CrazyFastFlying]

My printer arrived on Monday. It took me about 15 hours total from box to printing. Since then it has been printing all the parts to make a Lack enclosure. In the end I did purchase both a smooth and textured sheets. I've had no issues printing with PLA or with PETG so far. I took my time, making sure I understood each step. The extruder took the longest of all the sub-assemblies. That and trying to keep the wiring clean and neat.

All of my enclosure brackets will be finished tomorrow evening an then it will be time to pick a plane and get started.

Why would someone choose to use a different slicer program?

I notice that while printing if I rotate the control knob it increases or decreases the print speed. I recall reading a bit about it in the assembly manual and that it wasn't recomended to exceed 200%, but I can't find the little bit I read. What are the tradeoffs when using that function.

So far I have managed to remember to change to z offsets when changing sheets and so I haven't drove the nozzle into the print bed yet. I can see how that would be easy to forget to do. Do you just stick with 0.4 brass nozzles. Do you buy them somewhere other than Prusa.

Anyway, I guess to next step is to find a plane, order more filament and give it a shot.

Any suggestions on a first plane to print, or any benchmarking or accuracy checks I should do?

That's awesome!

You should print a 3d Benchy and XYZ calibration cube.

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:763622
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1278865