stephenleeeyan
New member
As the title said, what's the key point when you want to get your first 3d printer? Speed or others?
What's the most key point when you decide to get a 3d printer
- Thread starter stephenleeeyan
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Aslansmonkey
Well-known member
This kind of depends on what you want to use your 3D printer for. If you want to print miniatures for playing D&D or blanks for making jewelry for instance, you want an SLA (resin) printer. They're kings at doing detail work, but require more care as the resin is UV sensitive and you need gloves when working with it.
If you plan to print a lot of RC airplanes with it, then you need a bed size of 200x200x200 minimum, as most designs I've seen require that volume.
Most of the FDM (filament style) printers out there are Cartesian types (X,Y,Z movement) based on the Prusa design with a single gantry controlling the X and Z axis over a bed moving on the Y axis. This design is tried and true and generally is the least expensive to be found. It'll probably be what you get first if you're just getting into the hobby. So do as others have said and see if you can find a printer that has decent community support. My first printer was a Monoprice Maker Select V2 (direct Prusa knock off) and I still have it to this day (Been about 5 years now I think). I prefer the debian designs myself where the bed moves down on the Z axis and the X and Y move together at the top. I've had tall parts topple on the Prusa design. My main printer is an Ender 5 Pro Plus. Avoid the Delta style. They're very cool, but their cylindrical print volume is typically limited and the design is more complicated. Great for printing vases or tall skinny things, though.
Don't worry about speed much. You'll be waiting for parts no matter what you do and in general any increase in speed equates to a decrease in quality, or at least the risk is greater for a quality drop. It's possible to find (or build) a relatively high speed printer, but you'll spend a lot more time tweaking it to get the prints to come out good.
DO think about what plastics you want to print with, though. Mostly you will be printing with PLA. It's generally the cheapest and easiest to print with. But if you have a need to print with a stronger material like PETG or ABS, you'll need a printer with a more tolerant all metal hot end. Sure, you can print ABS with a regular hot end, but extended use will break down the PTFE tube inside and if you know you'll be using hotter filaments a lot, it's best to start with an all metal hot end. That said, many printers have after market all metal hot ends available, so don't feel like you need to be tied to that. If you're not sure what plastics you want to print with, just get the best printer you can afford and swap the hot end later. Light Weight PLA, btw, requires higher temps, so keep that in mind if you want to print a lot of 3D planes.
Be aware that stepping into 3D printing is going to open the door to some frustration and need for tinkering. A 3D printer is a very precise STUPID machine. At their core they just move a tiny bit this way and that way and spit out X amount of filament. And they doggedly keep going through those motions no matter how screwed up things can get. You WILL have parts that come off the print bed. You WILL have snot form on the print head. You WILL print balls of loofah on occasions. None of this will be common, but it WILL happen and when it does, you'll have to patently figure out what went wrong, make adjustments (either in your slicer or your printer) and try again. Don't let that scare you, but know you're getting into a hobby that will require some attention and isn't entirely "Fire and forget."
And clear some shelf space. When you first get into the hobby you will print a TON of crap just because you can. Eventually that will settle down and you will mostly just print what you need, though. About that time you'll figure out how to design your own stuff and suddenly your solution for most little things in your house will be "Hey, I can 3D print that!" Probably half my planes have 3D printed parts on them and I have a shelf full of partly 3D printed rockets.
If you plan to print a lot of RC airplanes with it, then you need a bed size of 200x200x200 minimum, as most designs I've seen require that volume.
Most of the FDM (filament style) printers out there are Cartesian types (X,Y,Z movement) based on the Prusa design with a single gantry controlling the X and Z axis over a bed moving on the Y axis. This design is tried and true and generally is the least expensive to be found. It'll probably be what you get first if you're just getting into the hobby. So do as others have said and see if you can find a printer that has decent community support. My first printer was a Monoprice Maker Select V2 (direct Prusa knock off) and I still have it to this day (Been about 5 years now I think). I prefer the debian designs myself where the bed moves down on the Z axis and the X and Y move together at the top. I've had tall parts topple on the Prusa design. My main printer is an Ender 5 Pro Plus. Avoid the Delta style. They're very cool, but their cylindrical print volume is typically limited and the design is more complicated. Great for printing vases or tall skinny things, though.
Don't worry about speed much. You'll be waiting for parts no matter what you do and in general any increase in speed equates to a decrease in quality, or at least the risk is greater for a quality drop. It's possible to find (or build) a relatively high speed printer, but you'll spend a lot more time tweaking it to get the prints to come out good.
DO think about what plastics you want to print with, though. Mostly you will be printing with PLA. It's generally the cheapest and easiest to print with. But if you have a need to print with a stronger material like PETG or ABS, you'll need a printer with a more tolerant all metal hot end. Sure, you can print ABS with a regular hot end, but extended use will break down the PTFE tube inside and if you know you'll be using hotter filaments a lot, it's best to start with an all metal hot end. That said, many printers have after market all metal hot ends available, so don't feel like you need to be tied to that. If you're not sure what plastics you want to print with, just get the best printer you can afford and swap the hot end later. Light Weight PLA, btw, requires higher temps, so keep that in mind if you want to print a lot of 3D planes.
Be aware that stepping into 3D printing is going to open the door to some frustration and need for tinkering. A 3D printer is a very precise STUPID machine. At their core they just move a tiny bit this way and that way and spit out X amount of filament. And they doggedly keep going through those motions no matter how screwed up things can get. You WILL have parts that come off the print bed. You WILL have snot form on the print head. You WILL print balls of loofah on occasions. None of this will be common, but it WILL happen and when it does, you'll have to patently figure out what went wrong, make adjustments (either in your slicer or your printer) and try again. Don't let that scare you, but know you're getting into a hobby that will require some attention and isn't entirely "Fire and forget."
And clear some shelf space. When you first get into the hobby you will print a TON of crap just because you can. Eventually that will settle down and you will mostly just print what you need, though. About that time you'll figure out how to design your own stuff and suddenly your solution for most little things in your house will be "Hey, I can 3D print that!" Probably half my planes have 3D printed parts on them and I have a shelf full of partly 3D printed rockets.
Downdy
New member
If you are a beginner, I think the most important key is ease of use, many products on the market such as ender 3 are difficult to operate. Sometimes you may spend a few nights practicing, which can be frustrating for beginners.
And few machines are beginner friendly. I recently joined a new print group called the Elyarchi User Group. It looks like a new company, their printer is simple, self-levelling, enclosed, no assembly, 7 "screen, nice looking, case, side LED light case, looks like an Alienware PC. This is a printer that looks good in the living room, even as an ornament.
And few machines are beginner friendly. I recently joined a new print group called the Elyarchi User Group. It looks like a new company, their printer is simple, self-levelling, enclosed, no assembly, 7 "screen, nice looking, case, side LED light case, looks like an Alienware PC. This is a printer that looks good in the living room, even as an ornament.
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stephenleeeyan
New member
Thank you so much for your reply, so detailed!
stephenleeeyan
New member
Yes, ease of use is the most important to me. I don't want to use a difficult one. But the quality, like printing speed, is also important. I saw lots of machines said that they can print at 150mm-300mm, but many users said actually they cannot reach that high speed.
stephenleeeyan
New member
Yes, that's also my question.
Aslansmonkey
Well-known member
This depends. They Hypercube (a home built 3D printer) made with the right materials can print pretty fast, relatively. But generally a to print good at high speed equates to high cost. If you see a printer claiming to print over 100mm/s and it's under $1000 it's for sure lying to you, or at least being a little misleading. Oh, maybe it can move that fast, but the quality will likely suck.
But it's more complicated than that anyway. LW-PLA works by foaming based on the heat. That foaming process takes time. Not GOBS of time, mind you, but you will want lower print speeds with it. Other filaments like to print slower too. The reality is that you will have to experiment with the printer you choose and the filament you are printing with to find the speed that is acceptable to you. I manufacturers speed claims are generally based on how fast the head can move "theoretically" but not how fast it can move and produce an acceptable print. And even "acceptable" is somewhat based on the users expectations. If you know you will be sanding a part and using filler on it, print lines and small defects are simply more acceptable.
If you REALLY NEED speed, you're better served getting multiple printers, so you can have more than one printer going at once. I often have both my machines going printing parts (in different materials) for the same project. Even then, it can take days to print all the parts for an RC plane, for instance.
For the record, the Monoprice Maker Select V2 has a stated print speed of 100mm/s. I never print over 50mm/s on it, and generally print at 40. Higher speeds produce worse quality. The Ender 5 Pro Plus has a rated top speed of 180mm/s. I generally keep that at 60mm/s, though I've honestly not tried to test that at faster speeds so it could theoretically do acceptable work at a greater speed. I've gotten used to being patient with 3d printing, though and seldom feel the need for more speed.
One of my winter projects will be to build the aforementioned Hypercube using parts from my original Maker Select (the one I am using now is my second...well, really a combination of my first and one my daughter bought). But I'm mostly not building that because of the speed. I'm more building that to have another printer with over 200mm of height where the bed moves in the X axis (so tall parts don't wobble). But the designs inventor got it to print pretty reliably at over 80mm/s. Also, I just want to build a core xy printer (I've previously built a delta and a few other 3D printers, long since retired).
ALL 3D printers require a level of tinkering. They should NOT require you to constantly be fixing something, but you can expect to be checking the bed level with some frequency. The Maker Select needs it's bed level checked every 10 prints or so (depending on the size of the prints). The Ender with "auto bed levelling" still needs the bed level to be manually checked (and the Z offset for the probe to be checked) every 20 or so prints. Mostly that's because the tip of the probe on the auto level sensor (a BL Touch) can get bent over time, which changes the Z-offset setting.
stephenleeeyan
New member
Thank you so much, I would go and check, but I will also want to know more about it.
stephenleeeyan
New member
Reliability means stable when you print something right?
stephenleeeyan
New member
Thank you, but I've never heard about Elyarchi, a new brand?
Xamith
New member
In this case reliability for me means being able to trust the printer on long print jobs to not fail as well as limiting the amount of time tinkering between jobs to get everything dialed in.
Aslansmonkey
Well-known member
Great definition! Nothing worse than having a part fail at hour 9 of a 10 hour print! My Maker Select is "unreliable" to me for tall prints, for example. It doesn't always fail at them, but fails often enough that I don't trust it. Keep in mind my Maker Select has probably thousands of hours of print time on it and is showing it's age a little. The Ender is "reliable" to me in that aspect, but "unreliable" for plating a bunch of parts at once. With it's 300x300x400 print area you'd think it be great for plating a bunch of parts at once, and maybe it is, but I've not spent the time tweaking it to cut down stringing between parts so I don't use it that way.
Which just brings up the point that part of "reliability" is how much effort you are willing to spend tweaking slicer settings to get what you want out of the printer. I can make my MS more reliable by positioning the parts differently, for example.
