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A Year of 3D Printing

brookehatton.com

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Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#51

Post by gambiting »

brovonov wrote: post #22
zihotki wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

any reason to use PETG instead of PLA? PLA is plant based, in theory bio-degradable, while PETG is produced from crude oil.

That is mostly true, PLA is ONLY biodegradable in a facility that can handle that. Your run of the mill recycling center in your city probably can't or won't take your PLA prints.

And then only if it's pure PLA with no additives. Which most PLA has to improve speed of printing or strength or some other property. In practice, I'd wager that 90% of commercially available PLA fillament is not actually biodegradable.

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#52

Post by gambiting »

linsomniac wrote: post #44
LeafItAlone wrote: post #11

All of this was on a Bambu A1 Mini? These are the types of things I want to print. My Ender 3 was so finicky, I only got a few out before I gave up.

I had an Ender 3 Pro, and it was also very finicky, ~18 months ago I replaced it with a Bambu P1S and that thing is just a (nearly) fire and forget machine. I've been super happy with it. In the 18 months I've had it, I've probably gone through 10-20 rolls of filament, in the 4 years I had the Ender I went through maybe 3-4 (because every time I wanted to print something I knew I'd have to spend an hour fiddling with…

Ha, another Ender survivor here. I had the Ender 5 Pro for a few years, recently bought a Bambu H2D and it's like going from a bicycle to a car with heated steering wheel. It "just works" (it still has the classic 3D printing problems of edges of the print lifting up etc, but that's not the printer's fault). Vast majority of the time it just works.

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#53

Post by bdunks »

bborud wrote: post #21

I would encourage people who have never designed physical objects before to try to only print things they have designed themselves as an exercise. For perhaps a year or so. If you have never designed physical objects before it is really challenging at first. The learning curve is pretty steep and, at least in my case, I discovered that I didn't have a mental language for thinking about functional 3D and mechanical de…

I will add that FreeCAD has come a long way in constraint based and parametric part design, and I'm able to use it exclusively running an Arch-based distro.

Deltahedra has extremely impressive tutorials on YouTube. No fluff -- no long intros or filler -- 30-60 minutes of dense content, clearly explained: https://www.youtube.com/@deltahedra3D

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#54

Post by jinushaun »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #11

All of this was on a Bambu A1 Mini? These are the types of things I want to print. My Ender 3 was so finicky, I only got a few out before I gave up.

I picked up a P1S for Black Friday. I’ve been printing non-stop since December, including some stuff I modeled myself. Only failed prints have been because I printed the wrong thing. It’s been flawless with PLA. Haven’t done PETG or ASA yet.

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#55

Post by ofrzeta »

VladVladikoff wrote: post #14

I still have mixed emotions about 3D printing. I do love the idea of being able to print a part when I need it for something. But I do hate myself at the same time for creating more plastic junk. PLA is not really getting recycled, when it fails someone throws it in the trash and it goes to a landfill. Maybe some really diehard enthusiasts are ensuring all their failed prints and broken parts get properly chemically…

I feel the same and that has kept me from buying a printer. That is not to say that I never will but for the time being if I really need a particular part I can always use a printing service.

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#56

Post by hagbard_c »

LeafItAlone wrote: post #11

All of this was on a Bambu A1 Mini? These are the types of things I want to print. My Ender 3 was so finicky, I only got a few out before I gave up.

I got a cheap Ender-3 V2 with a few modifications (extruder moved to the sled, CR-touch sensor mounted) which - after redoing the wiring which the previous owner somehow messed up, replacing some mismatched bolts, putting nuts and washers on the bolts underneath the hot plate, putting the springs in their correct locations, removing a metric ton of hot glue, aceton-glueing a few broken ABS details, installing more capable firmware [1] and tightening all bolts - seems to work just fine. Thus far I've only used PETG to print spare parts to repair broken appliances, this started out with some hiccups but works fine after installing the mentioned firmware. It isn't particularly fast, it isn't particularly pretty but it does work for my purpose: create parts to repair and build things. I have no doubt that a more modern printer can make life easier but thus far life hasn't been hard with this Ender: design a model, slice and dice it and send it to the printer which does the rest. I've printed some fairly 'hairy' models which came out fine (i.e. not hairy/thready) even though I'm using PETG. For those with some technical aptitude - in other words for people who are wont to build and repair stuff - these machines are an affordable step into the additive manufacturing world with the promise of 'spare parts at your fingertips'.

[1] https://github.com/mriscoc/Ender3V2S1

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#57

Post by hagbard_c »

gambiting wrote: post #52
linsomniac wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had an Ender 3 Pro, and it was also very finicky, ~18 months ago I replaced it with a Bambu P1S and that thing is just a (nearly) fire and forget machine. I've been super happy with it. In the 18 months I've had it, I've probably gone through 10-20 rolls of filament, in the 4 years I had the Ender I went through maybe 3-4 (because every time I wanted to print something I knew I'd have to spend an hour fiddling with…

Ha, another Ender survivor here. I had the Ender 5 Pro for a few years, recently bought a Bambu H2D and it's like going from a bicycle to a car with heated steering wheel. It "just works" (it still has the classic 3D printing problems of edges of the print lifting up etc, but that's not the printer's fault). Vast majority of the time it just works.

Which problems did you have with the Ender apart from the mentioned classic 3D printing problems? As I mentioned in an earlier comment I'm using one of these machines without too much trouble after fixing the mistakes made by a previous owner. I did put more capable firmware on the thing which improved printing speed - especially in the preparation phase - and to a lesser extent quality but even with the stock firmware it performed well enough with PETG and some complex models after dialing in the temperatures, distances and speeds to the somewhat odd filaments I use. I can send code directly to the printer, no SD card needed, I can follow printing progress in a browser and I don't send a single bit of information to the Creality mothership while doing so. The same is probably harder - but maybe not impossible, I haven't looked into this yet - with Bambu printers?

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#58

Post by gambiting »

hagbard_c wrote: post #57
gambiting wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha, another Ender survivor here. I had the Ender 5 Pro for a few years, recently bought a Bambu H2D and it's like going from a bicycle to a car with heated steering wheel. It "just works" (it still has the classic 3D printing problems of edges of the print lifting up etc, but that's not the printer's fault). Vast majority of the time it just works.

Which problems did you have with the Ender apart from the mentioned classic 3D printing problems ? As I mentioned in an earlier comment I'm using one of these machines without too much trouble after fixing the mistakes made by a previous owner. I did put more capable firmware on the thing which improved printing speed - especially in the preparation phase - and to a lesser extent quality but even with the stock firmw…

>>Which problems did you have with the Ender apart from the mentioned classic 3D printing problems?

The kind of problems that could only be solved with a rather embarrasing amount of tuning every time I switched filament types or speeds or the temperature in my garage changed etc etc etc. Things that basically meant that every time I wanted to introduce any change I needed to print a new flow tower, new bridging tower, new temperature tower, the bed levelling took a huge amount of effort to install BL touch on it but it still worked....when it wanted to, with parts of the first layer being too close scraping the bed and others being far enough to not stick.

Don't get me wrong - the Ender 5 could print as well as the H2D can, absolutely. But it would need 10 test prints and me pulling my hair out first to get to the same level of quality - which I have done, repeatedly, but I just lost the appetite for the tinkering. With the H2D I click print and the machine calibrates itself so well I actually feel bad for anyone who only ever experienced this and never had to sit down calibrating extruder steps or flow rates manually. (yes, old man yelling at clouds).

>>and I don't send a single bit of information to the Creality mothership while doing so. The same is probably harder - but maybe not impossible, I haven't looked into this yet - with Bambu printers?

Bambu printers, even with the most recent firmware allow Home Assist integration where you can monitor all print parameters remotely. But to be completely honest with you - I did go through a phase where I cared about stuff like this, now I just want it to work and be more like my dishwasher than like my bike, I want to tinker with the bike but my 3D printer should "just" work.

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#59

Post by noo_u »

jacquesm wrote: post #50
noo_u wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Calling PETG "utterly problem free" is quite a stretch lol. PLA is pretty objectively much easier to print than PETG, and perhaps than all the popular filament types out there, especially if you are trying to print anything where precision/detail matters. . PETG is just oozier and stickier by default, so stringiness is almost guaranteed to happen, bridging at a greater risk of failure, etc. It is tougher, so unless y…

When you print objects with 10's of printers 'tuning your 3D printer' is no longer an option other than to tune it to be 'in spec' You can only tune your designs and the profile for your filament and for a particular model of printer but then all of those have to be close to identical. As soon as you start tweaking your design or filament profile to offset possible issues with the printer you've lost reproducibility.…

The real question is - did you buy 10s of printers because you needed them for the business, or did you start the business to buy 10s of printers :P

Re: A Year of 3D Printing

#60

Post by vablings »

proee wrote: post #41
VladVladikoff wrote: post #14

I still have mixed emotions about 3D printing. I do love the idea of being able to print a part when I need it for something. But I do hate myself at the same time for creating more plastic junk. PLA is not really getting recycled, when it fails someone throws it in the trash and it goes to a landfill. Maybe some really diehard enthusiasts are ensuring all their failed prints and broken parts get properly chemically…

Seems there is a market for a truly biodegradable print material, if even for doing a prototype before committing to a full plastic print. Or a real recyclable method to take old prints and reuse the material again.

The issue with biodegradable is that it is in direct contrast to something that is durable and long lasting.
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