Introduction to 3D printing, help?

Hello everyone,

My group just started on designing 3D printer for a school project, but we am fairly new it actually. We are hoping some of you guys could help us lay out a foundation for what we should know. Presently, we aare trying to come up with a general list of important aspects to consider if one were to buy a 3D printer.

So far, we have considered,

Safety
Cost
Quality and speed of printing
Durability
Size
User friendly

Is there any more that you guys would consider? General or specific answers are welcomed.
It would also be great if you could share your inputs on what you would consider the most important.
We are not expecting a whole book, but a comment or two would be really helpful, or even a link to a website you think we should check out.

Update: we are thinking of going forward with a Polar FDM 3D Printer because of how unintuitive and different it is from the others types, which might offer us a better learning opportunity. Think this is a good idea? and any thoughts of a Polar 3D Printer's advantage/disadvantage to other types like Cartesian and Delta?

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2017 02:33AM by zar.

Two things i would add - self assembled or turnkey (ready built to go). Self assembled means the kit suppliers do not have to offer warranties.

Also running costs, a lot of the turnkey systems are not very cheap to run.

Those are maybe the biggest factors for people new to the subject. There are others, like maximum volume of print, that can decide why one system is more suitable than another, for a particular end user.

You need to decide how flexible you want to be regarding materials, ABS has different needs than PLA and elastic material as well. Nylon and PC are a different story again.
Also check your software pipeline beforehand.
What design software do you want to use?
Does it have a high quality triangulation engine that produces meshes you don't have to clean up every time?
What slicing software?
Do you want to control the printer via a web interface?
Do you need a camera in it to check live on prints?

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Quote
DragonFire
Two things i would add - self assembled or turnkey (ready built to go). Self assembled means the kit suppliers do not have to offer warranties.

Also running costs, a lot of the turnkey systems are not very cheap to run.

Those are maybe the biggest factors for people new to the subject. There are others, like maximum volume of print, that can decide why one system is more suitable than another, for a particular end user.

Interesting... I appreciate the input. I'll have to research more on what specification people look for like the maximum volume of print you mentioned. Thanks again

Quote
Srek
You need to decide how flexible you want to be regarding materials, ABS has different needs than PLA and elastic material as well. Nylon and PC are a different story again.
Also check your software pipeline beforehand.
What design software do you want to use?
Does it have a high quality triangulation engine that produces meshes you don't have to clean up every time?
What slicing software?
Do you want to control the printer via a web interface?
Do you need a camera in it to check live on prints?

We're just trying to make a 3D Printer for general purpose, so I guess therefore for the most commonly used filament. Am I correct to assume that would be ABS and PLA?
As for software, we are only in the early stages of programming and currently learning as we go. So far, we are planning to use LabView and planning to use a myRIO controller.

Also, what do you mean by a high quality triangulation engine? Would that be part of the programming part too?

Thank you for all these questions, all the more to think about.

ABS will need a heated printbed and a closed environment that can reach at least 50°, if you want to print parts that are bigger than a very few centimeters. PLA works fine without either.
The trinagulation is usually a part of the export function of the CAD software. Only if you were to create your own 3D design software would you need to take care of this yourself.
Sadly many CAD applications have very poor triangulation. This is not of much importance if parts are exported only for visualisation, but for printing you need a higher quality (non manifold, watertight, no coplanar faces).

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[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]

Like I said, we are still on the early stages of our design and thinking of actually designing a Polar 3D Printer. We appreciate your time on providing us with your insight since we didn't know about that requirement for ABS. That might raise a few complications to our design then. Our school is providing us with some components, such as motors, drive and any manufacturing materials that they have available. We will most likely have ABS or PLA I believe, but we will have to research more about each to reach a final decision.

As for the triangulation, it sounds like it's difficult to explain thoroughly by just writing. We will be taking note of it however since we are most likely going to optimize our print quality later on. Thanks, now we have more of an idea on what to expect for when we will be programming.

Hi what lies behind the choice of going for a polar printer? I have no experience of them and they look interesting, but they are not a common design and therefore the amount of information and support available on-line for this design might be limited. Is it just that they are not run-of-the-mill and therefore more project-worthy?

I think Srek is giving you sound advice but perhaps its a comes under "advanced 3D printing tips". Basically you'll get familiar with handling 3d model files, and processing them to make them easier and better to print. But thats something you learn organically unless you have done CAD courses and have formal training.

Its interesting you mention safety in that its one of the least talked about areas, yet its very important. Most of the machines you can make yourself have little or no safety built it except a smoke alarm nearby and a CO2 fire extinguisher!

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/07/2017 09:00AM by DjDemonD.

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Simon Khoury

Co-founder of [www.precisionpiezo.co.uk] Accurate, repeatable, versatile Z-Probes
Published:Inventions

Thanks for coming back to safety DjDemonD.
The basic rules are realy simple and anyone familiar with electrical engineering can help with this.
Things like proper grounding, correct wire diameters, fuse size and speed etc. don't require any special 3D printing knowledge.
It gets a bit more specific when it comes to moving cables. Many people are comfortabel with just having whatever wires there are moving back and forth for years.
However these can be seriously dangerous traps. Only cables that are specifically designed for it will withstand the constant movement and the smaller the radius of a moving cable loop the higher the risk. Weakend cables can heat up and ignite things around them.
Often enough just using cables rated for chains is enough, but the connection points have to be taken into account as well.
The moment you start to include 110/230V components into your design it realy get's serious. Any mistake here can cost lifes!

Just one note on the triangulation. I did not propse that you take care of this yourself, itr was just a hint for the evaluation of possible software packages. If it has good triangulation it is less work to make 3D designs printable. Personaly i much prefer a short pipeline without having to meshcheck any output.

Regarding polar printers. They have an own fascination, just like Deltas. However, they come with a few of the same drawbacks as deltas. Calculation precision is a factor that has a much higher impact than for cartesic printers, as does CPU power. The IK algorithms you need to implement (if you want to develop your own solution) are seriously tricky.

Personaly i would start with a simple cartesic design, finish it at lowest possible cost, learn from it and then go forward with a second machine that is more "fancy". Depending on what all you want to develop and build yourself even a simple cartesic printer can be a huge, and rewarding, challenge and learning experience.

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[www.bonkers.de]
[merlin-hotend.de]
[www.hackerspace-ffm.de]