New & Interested

Hi everyone!

i'm new to 3d printing but am interested to get/build one for personal interests & research/study purposes.

I was waiting for makibox to go into full scale production but sadly until now they aren't able to even fulfil their preorders..
does anyone have any advice on alternatives? some mentoring/guidance would be great as i'm pretty much a noob here >_<

please contact me at chanqiyu[at]Hotmail.com!


thanks for your time

Regards,
Ben

bad news about your order
i have recently posted the cost of building a Prusa Air 2 so you can check that thread

also just found RS components are stocking kits now !!

Please don't ask people to contact your email ...the whole point of a forum is to post to it so everybody shares info
private emails defeat the object of a forum !!

Good luck

CHeers

Look around the forums and online, there are many models of reprap 3d printers. For a start I guess you can start with Prusa i3 (or any model if you have any preference), it's one of the more popular model currently so it's easy to get help if you have some problems. From there you can learn more and tweak it to meet your needs or get another model that suits you better. Once you've decided on the model, you could either source for your own parts or get a kit depending on your experience, familiarity and how adventurous you are. Haha.

And yeah, post up all these info online so that somebody else can see them. Don't need to be shy.

Thanks Bigfilsing and Chngyian!

I'm currently thinking/considering the prusa i3, mendelmax 1.5 or the soliddoodle 2 (for both PLA and ABS printing) or maybe a portabee one, but don't know which is a good starter and which are more recommended and stuff for starters >_<

Any advice/recommendation?

Always tricky to say and if i do ill get all kinds of grief from people that disagree.

The ones you have listed there all seem ok so get the best you can afford is the simple advice. And as you say there's plenty of info and support on the forums for all the machines you listed
I would suggest you start with PLA. Simply because it doesn't smell/need ventilation like ABS does and prints at lower temps.
Buy a solid colour like red or blue to start with as its easier to see the print quality issues. Darker colors make it difficult to see issues ( so does white IMHO)

You should also get some tools / materials to start with
Quick list would be
1/ Allen keys metric ( some nice compact sets from RC hobby shops)
2/ Cross head and standard screw drivers
3/ Hobby knife
4/ Cutters
5/ Long nose tweezers ( for clearing the nozzel if it ooozes when hot)
6/ Some 200mm long cable ties ( useful for keeping cables tidy and out of the way)
7/ Rubbing alcohol ( for cleaning print bed / glass plate)

All of the above you can get from most hardware shops except the rubbing alcohol which you can get from a pharmacy

Good luck

wow Bigfilsing that's a really good/helpful list of items, thanks!

noted, I will start with PLA but I'd be interested to progress on to ABS and possibly other thermoplastics if I can get my hands on materials and extruders (it's kind of my interest heh)

I know this is kind of like a "wrong" question to ask, but among the 4 options I listed above, which one would you prefer & why? (I understand views differ, but would like to hear opinions from as many people as I can! )

I don't have any experience with any of the 4 so cant help you there.

You may be better off asking that question on the main international forum rather than the Singapore one.

I suppose i would go for the cheapest!! Simply because 3D hobby printing is much like RC models . Its not a 1 off purchase. You'll always be looking at upgrades > extruder . electronics etc.
The only way to find out what you want is to try it out and see.
I bought a standard prusa mendle and that worked fine and got me "into" 3D printing. Later i upgraded it to and Air2 ( same principle but with acrylic frame panels) then changed a few things around. Then went for a better design extruder ....and so on.
Most items in the hobby 3D world can be used for other printers For example i could buy a prusa i3 frame set then use a lot of the stuff from my current set up.

Which ever way you choose i would definitely recommend a kit so you learn as you build.

Good luck

I just got a kit a while ago and just had my first print today, so I probably don't have enough experience to say which is better for a starter. Lol.

For me, I chose Prusa i3 because there's a big community out there with lots of video tutorials and information available online. I figured that it would be easier for me to get help if I needed any. I looked up a bit on the other models and they look pretty neat as well, don't be afraid to try them out if they suit your needs better.

Like bigfilsing said, a kit would be better for a starter as you don't have to worry about the compatibility of the parts because some models have several variants may have slightly different assemblies. Once you have everything up you can start to print add-ons to your printer to "zhng" it.

where did you purchase your prusa i3, if I may ask?

I got it from 3dprinterczar for 500usd including shipping. It's pretty cheap for a kit but I wouldn't recommend it because the quality of the printer parts are quite bad and there were a couple of missing components. I managed to get everything working after a trip to the hardware store and lots of cable ties. Lol!

The kit from makerfarm seems to have pretty good reviews, although the shipping to Singapore is a killer.

I will actually be going to Europe for half a year in a few weeks, are there any shops/online shops based in Europe that have reasonable/affordable kits like the one you bought?

For exchange?

I am not too sure where to get good quality kits, but you can check out the for sale sub-forum and do a bit of googling. For a start it'll be good to get a better quality kit. Once you learn how things work, you can start to experiment with the cheaper stuff to see how you can save some money. Lol.

yup for exchange hmm from your experience how do you tell whether the kids sold by the webshop is a better quality kit?

e.g. comparing this:[shop.diytechshop.com]
to this:[norcalreprap.com]

which do you think is a better one? sorry for the many questions >_<

Hey,

I scanned thru both and thought the kit norcalreprap seems better. They are more thorough with the product specifications and the kit looks aesthetically better, although the price is higher than the other.

But don't just take my word for it, it really depends on what you want and need. i.e. some would prefer to get a cheap kit that barely works and then customize their upgrades from there.
The most important thing is to google and look thru the forum for review. The last thing you want is a kit that doesn't even work.