Should I get a 3D printer...?

[Greebe]

You're not dealing with particles or creating them, well unless you finish treat it with sandpaper. Fumes varies with material used (as always). Enclosed you simply recirculate the air and add a activated carbon filter that can be made, get this, with your printer! A cardboard box enclosure would suffice. HA
Dont forget a heatgun comes in handy too for surface treatment smoothing.

[VJ]

You're not dealing with particles or creating them, well unless you finish treat it with sandpaper. Fumes varies with material used (as always). Enclosed you simply recirculate the air and add a activated carbon filter that can be made, get this, with your printer! A cardboard box enclosure would suffice. HA
Dont forget a heatgun comes in handy too for surface treatment smoothing.

Well... FDM printing releases ultra fine particles:

https://box3d.eu/3d-printing-safety-pollution-health/

https://3dprinterchat.com/2017/07/ultrafine-particles-from-3d-printers/

I'm looking at the Prusa mk3, which does not come in an enclosure. But as I would put it in a living apartment, I prefer to make an enclosure with filters for it. Still abroad for 3 more months so I won't buy the printer now, but it gives me ample time to look for DIY filter constructions and design something.

[Greebe]

Already see issue with the Unv of Texas study. I am aware of particles and VOC's, the latter is rarely mentioned between anyone on the subject. Think of it this way, if you are cooking a print that requires 100g of PLA it's the same as cooking 4oz of anything else. There are particles and VOC's and it has a smell. OK, I myself am not in the room and it is vented outside and do see reason to limit exposure to a minimum. Never have thought much of breathing in chemicals, that burnt aroma of anything manmade. Yesterday was reading a study that put the frightning global drop of IQ in the last 40 years down to one specific thing, AIR POLUTION. We don't drink tap water anymore because the water supply is poluted, stopped doing that over 20 years ago due to the MTBE fuel additive that leaked from most every underground fuel tank in the state of Indiana. You could taste it. Then some other a55 hat company in Anderson poluted the White river that flows right through the middle of the state (and the capitol) killing everything for 60 miles. We left the state before the state could get an answer from their attorneys due to legal maneuvering delay tactics. One friend lost his business over the fish kill
When I was in HS, we had a psychology class that was first semester Wright State Unv Psychology 101. In that class we took many tests and learned interesting things about ourselves, including IQ and what all that ment. At the time the average IQ was 100 on the Bell curve. Today it's 90. That is OMG alarming because we also learned that a score of 90 was borderline special education for the mentally challenged. If that has happened humanity is doomed to make stupid decisions that will destroy us all, like blind faith in a dictitorial bastard whom does NOT speak for the rest of us

[Greebe]

You won't be printing anything in ABS for awhile. It is one of the most difficult materials to print due to high extruder temp, high bed temp and high air temp required. I live in Florida, it's >30c for 8 months out of the year and dispite having a couple spools of ABS, have not used it, still vacuum sealed with a dessicant pack inside. Instead think about using PETG.

Have very good sucess with Hatchbox, Inland, Sainsmart and 3DXTECH brands

Have good use with PLA, but if you cant get this one right, pack it up, you're not worthy
PETG
TPU

[VJ]

There are particles and VOC's and it has a smell. OK, I myself am not in the room and it is vented outside and do see reason to limit exposure to a minimum.

Yes, I'm more erring on the side of caution, as I would be in the same room as the printer and don't have possibility to vent outside. So I feel it is better to play it safe, even for PLA printing.

At the time the average IQ was 100 on the Bell curve. Today it's 90. That is OMG alarming because we also learned that a score of 90 was borderline special education for the mentally challenged.

I have noticed differences with the current generation of students. I'm quoting part of my post from this thread.

There is a fall in attention and quality of education which I see everywhere (I can speak for Belgium, Poland and Spain). The education system has evolved much more to "if you try, it will be ok". That is fine for kindergarten, but not so much at a university. But we see that people now are used to passing like that: they attended classes, tried the homework, ok so they failed the exam but why can't they pass? (my girlfriend recently had 2 students that argued like that, in addition they claim they don't need Java programming.... they were studying computer sciences ) It is quite frustrating.

At universities, we see that the students now are actually learning less detail and less skills in independent working than we did in our days. The system is much more guiding them, but in my opinion - and that of some colleagues - too much.

But I wonder: in our time, it seems we had more a sense of pride or feeling of accomplishment. Passing a test meant something. And at least we seemed to acknowledge that not passing an exam is not passing the course. Now it seems they just want the grade, and the don't mind getting it without effort (even if this undermines the value of the grade). So maybe they don't take the IQ test seriously? I read somewhere that "young people know have other skills that are not reflected in the old IQ tests", but I do not agree with that. While it is possible they have other skills, some basic skills should not suffer from that.

[Greebe]

I have noticed differences with the current generation of students. I'm quoting part of my post from this thread.


But I wonder: in our time, it seems we had more a sense of pride or feeling of accomplishment. Passing a test meant something. And at least we seemed to acknowledge that not passing an exam is not passing the course. Now it seems they just want the grade, and the don't mind getting it without effort (even if this undermines the value of the grade). So maybe they don't take the IQ test seriously? I read somewhere that "young people know have other skills that are not reflected in the old IQ tests", but I do not agree with that. While it is possible they have other skills, some basic skills should not suffer from that.

I was very guilty of not getting the best grade I could have because I mostly refused todo homework. After school activitives was MY time and did not buy the teachers arguement that they had homework so do you mentality. Well teach you should have taken up another profession then. After school was when I learned, the stupid moronic science teacher I had for my first two years in HS was wasted on a assistant football coach whom knew less about the subject than I did when I was in the 3rd grade! Math was the same, what is this symbol I asked, φ ? Not a clue, then my teacher asked to see this in the formula? His eyes bugged out and said he could not even do that. When I was in the USAF, our school had NO HOMEWORK whereas all the other peeps did. Everything we did was classified and there are no books available to the public on the subject. The list goes on and on, but I never put the books away and that is true to this day. Now I do know what these things areand how to use them, tho a bit rough around the math edges and have to triple check everything, but I muster through it for the most part. GOD knows I don't shy away from a challenge

[Dilitante1]

Yes, I'm more erring on the side of caution, as I would be in the same room as the printer and don't have possibility to vent outside. So I feel it is better to play it safe, even for PLA printing.

You could go with a diy or commercial activated charcoal filter where you have no ventilation options for your living space.

[VJ]

You could go with a diy or commercial activated charcoal filter where you have no ventilation options for your living space.

Yes, I've found plenty of diy solutions that include both an active carbon filter and a hepa filter. Thingiverse has several. Doesn't seem like too much effort to make something like that.

[VJ]

Just to come back to this...

The more I read up on it, the more I feel I want to go the DIY route for the printer. Partly as it seems the cheapest option with most expansion possibilities, but also partly as it just looks fascinating and fun. I have a feeling many new things will be round the corner soon (multi-extrusion among others), and the Openbuild DIY route seems to be the most future proof.

The thing that scared me most about the DIY route is how do you know which components you need to put it together and how many shops do you have to frequent before you find all those parts, but then I came across this openbuild kit:

http://www.ratrig.com/3d-printing-cnc/3d-printer-kits/vcoremechanical.html

It seems like a very solid frame, no fuss in getting the parts, and offers plenty of possibilities for hot-ends and control boards (there I already have a good idea what I want). Standard fits an e3d v6 hotend and has a simple extruder, but many changes are possible.

[VJ]

One thing I can say: going the diy route learns you a lot of stuff, already at the stage when selecting the components. So just a heads-up for those want to go that route someday. Things I've learned so far:

1. mainboard (determines many of the other things)

• Huge range of prices and possibilities, from expansion boards on a Arduino Mega to full blown boards with network connectivity and touchscreen connection. There even are kits that contain everything you need (mainboard, drivers and motors) for ridiculously low prices.
• Important are the stepper-drivers as the impact quality and noise level, but of course also how many there are (you need at least four: one for each axis and one for the extruder; but there can be various reasons to have more).
• Most firmware is open source and community driven, it is interesting to make sure your mainboard is known in the community.
• Cheap/simple ones require you to modify the firmware to adjust the settings (and they are programmed like an Arduino); more advanced ones work with config files. A user interface (depending on the mainboard: small screen, touchscreen or web-based) can be possible for some things but does not always allow full configuration.

2. heatbed

• AC heated or DC heated
• Controlled directly from mainboard (e.g. Duet supports up to 15A) or controlled through a SSR (solid state relay)
• SSR: Fotek seems recommended, but many sell fakes (also on Amazon). Creates a bit of a difficulty if you want to be sure to have a good component. In addition: depending on the ampere-spec of the SSR compared to that of the heatbed it may need a heatsink.
• When controlled by SSR: if an SSR fails, it will fail in the closed position, setting the heatbed to full heat and basically putting it out of the control of the mainboard. So either you have to be sure that that is not a problem, or include a thermal fuse or wire in a bimetallic switch that passively switches off above some temperature (a bimetallic switch will switch back on when temperature is below some level, so not a fuse but at least prevents overheating). Keenovo silicon beds comes highly recommended, and apparently they make custom versions at little or no extra costs: according to people on forums you can ask them to embed a bimetallic switch to e.g. prevent it from going above 150 degrees C - or an other temperature you select).

3. power supply (capacity depends on how the heatbed is powered)

• 12V or 24V system? Both have advantages and disadvantages; will depend on mainboard and what you drive. On a 12V system, you can use PC cooling fans; while not much cheaper than 24V cooling fans, they may be easier to find.
• Industrial style powersupplies: they come without a switch, many people recommend putting an additional fuse and even RCD protection. In the 12V world, there are modifications to ATX PSUs, but you need to really know what you are doing then.

4. electronics mess: you have to mount it all

• There is a bunch of loose components: mainboard, power supply, power switch, likely an ssr; possibly also a fuse and an RCD which all are of the more industrial type so it requires some planning on how to mount it all safely and nicely. You can find 3D printed mounts for some of them, but it seems messy (and I don't have a printer). So I'm thinking of going with a din-rail system, which I've also noticed other people do: there are 24V din rail powersupplies (same brand and spec, just different packaging), holders for various printboards, an SSR heatsink can be rail-mounted, and even fuses and rcd's are no issue). Added benefit is that the industrial 24V din rail supplies are fanless.

5. motors

• check amperage to be sure it matches with the drivers that you connect them to (on the mainboard or external ones) or you lose torque
• 1.8 degrees or 0.9 degrees (finally something that potentially relates directly to print quality!)

6. z-probe

• has to work with mainboard, printbed (e.g. thick glass is an issue for some sensors) and you have to be able to mount it (easier if you have access to a 3D printer, more of an issue if you don't ).

7. hot-end, extruder, ...

• Surprisingly, this is the easiest. The kit I'm looking at comes with printed parts to mount an E3D V6, it has its own extruder (bowden) and as everything seems to fit with an E3D (z-probe, ...), there seems little point in starting with something else. And those parts are very easily upgraded! More easily than any of the other parts, so I'm just going with the defaults here.

8. print bed surface

• And this is again difficult: it depends on what material you print; the material ranges from glass to specialized materials. The print should on one hand stick to the surface, but still be easily removable. A more recent feature to facilitate that last part is a removable and flexible printbed: take it out of the printer, bend it and removing the print becomes easier. Flexible solutions for DIY are quite expensive.
• Common brands for print beds are Lokbuild (glues to your printbed - said to be removable without leaving much glue traces), Buildtak and even replacement beds of known printers such as Anycubic or so. Buildtak has a full removable system (magnetic base, different surfaces possible), but it is expensive.

9. end stops

• The system needs to know its home position: this can be done by using microswitches of various types (mechanical, optical) or even from the stall-info from the motors. Another thing to choose, and of course your choice has to work with the mainboard and the printer construction (you have to be able to mount it).

Interestingly, after writing the list, I realized it does not even contain the most important information: which type of printer are you building? There are various architectures, with the most common

• Mendel/Prusa: printhead moves in XZ direction, printbed moves in Y direction
• H-bot/CoreXY: printhead moves in XY direction, printbed moves in Z direction
• Delta: printhead is connected to 3 vertical axes, which allow it to move in all directions
• ...

And then even in each type you have different constructions to achieve it (in CoreXY you have D-Bot, C-Bot, ...). Of course your mainboard has to support your printer layout.
Also, many of the things are open source designs, so you may have to distinguish between manufacturers and designs: an E3D hotend can refer to the brand, but also to a clone of it. Prusa is a brand of printers, but also used to describe a design.

I've decided on a CoreXY D-Bot, extruder supplied by the kit, most likely with E3D V6 hotend, and 0.9 degree steppers driven by most likely a Duet3D mainboard, which drives a Keenovo AC powered hotbed through an SSR. A precision-piezo Z-probe can complete it.
Most of the choices seem quite high end, but at the same time they are the easiest to buy. Cheap clones exist for most of them, but added import taxes and shipping costs hugely decrease the benefit. I also don't want to cheap out on potentially dangerous components (electrical stuff, hot-ends get HOT). My choice was also driven by the fact that I have to order it online, and I prefer to minimize the number of orders (and thus shipping). I can get most of this kit from 2 shops, it would just miss the power supply and the z-probe.

It would cost more than I initially thought of spending, but I changed my idea: initially I wanted a printer just to print stuff, after reading I feel that it is so interesting that I want a printer to work on and optimize; printing stuff is the side-effect benefit.

[VJ]

First parts ordered: the heatbed (Keenovo, directly ordered from manufacturer - the Chinese brand comes highly recommended and my questions to pre-sales support were answered very swiftly and to the point) and the print-surface (Anycubic Ultrabase, ordered from their official shop on Aliexpress). I ordered those as shipping them to Spain was more convenient, and it is not an issue to take them with me. I also bought some small stuff (drive gear, ...) that I feel may be more difficult to find back in Poland. All the other stuff, such as the frame, electronics and whatnot I will order after mid-November, so they would delivered when I'll be back.

One reason that made me jump on it now is Brexit: many of the components I plan to get from a UK company. As ordering with the manufacturer is the only way to be sure you have the original parts, it means I feel it better to order there. Not sure how Brexit will impact it, but for sure it won't make things cheaper.

[UtwigMU]

I too order stuff from UK from time to time. Brexit won't help with that.

[Greebe]

Bought into the WHAM BAM SYSTEMS magnetic build plate setup early access (before campaign started) on Kickstarter today. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...d-printers-ava

[VJ]

Bought into the WHAM BAM SYSTEMS magnetic build plate setup early access (before campaign started) on Kickstarter today. https://www.kickstarter.com/projects...d-printers-ava

Looks interesting!
I was looking at the BuildTak Flexplate system, but figured it is quite expensive to start with.

As a start, I decided to go with a Anycubic Ultrabase, as it gets quite good comments and is not too expensive. In addition, it does not require me to stick anything to the printbed (I would prefer to hold off doing that until I have a better feeling of what I want/need).

[VJ]

I've ordered the frame... They have some delivery issues, so I ordered it a bit earlier just be sure to have it early December. I've more or less settled on all the electronics and even located a place where I could buy almost all of it. But perhaps I'll wait till black friday... you never know... :-)