DIY 3D printer choices 2015

[nutnspecial]

I'm looking at doing a diy printer. Initially this is just for prototyping a potentially dlms printed, or milled part. I do plan on a small mill and lathe eventually, but a dlms printer is probably out of the question?

Anyway, it seems to me a good diy kit is dependant on:

price
achievable bed and extruder temps
software
print size
material capability

I started with amazon and came across a Hictop made prusa i3 kit
http://www.amazon.com/HICTOP-Technology-Accuracy-Self-assembly-Tridimensional/dp/B00N7I1ZVU/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1436543076&sr=8-1&keywords=prusa+i3&pebp=1436543071426&perid=106VBHGVRFZ93SJCTN5S
Then tried ebay to find other prusa kits. ( I understand prusa is verry good for the price generally)
I'm coming across these reprap prusa kits for a similar price. http://www.ebay.com/itm/Print-5-materials-Geeetech-Acrylic-Reprap-Prusa-I3-DIY-KIT-Pro-B-3D-Printer-/231472986888?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item35e4dd7b08
This one geeetech reprap prusa i3 has a good area, price, bed temp 110, and it says it can print 5 materials ? ! ? looks like the most popular and versitile entry printer on the site?

Any input from printer owners (specically with 'lower end' diy setups) is certainly welcome.

 

[amberwolf]

Did you see Nechaus's "world domination" thread?
http://www.endless-sphere.com/forums/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=42259&hilit=world+domination

 

[swbluto]

I would not trust any 3d printer whose frame consists of acrylic or flimsy metal rods. The momentum of the extruder during direction changes requires a solid body to ensure accuracy, otherwise, you're going to get some shoddy parts. The only way to ensure quality in the case of these "flimsy" printers is to get extremely slow - from 10-20mm/s (I usually run 40mm/s for quality; all my printers have a fairly solid metal frame.).

However, if you're not totally concerned about quality and just want to get "the general shape", it's probably fine. I've heard that one, however, requires constant tweaking and adjustment and it appears to have reliability issues, so I personally wouldn't touch it with a ten foot pole. Honestly, you're probably looking at $500, minimum, to get a decent quality 3d printer (And more like $750-900 for one a little bit bigger than 6"x6").

 

[nutnspecial]

Thanks guys, and for the link to that thread. I've perused it before, but it really is a great big print thread.

The 'search topic' (on AW's link) turned up 8 results for prusa. But I don't think anyone had one.
Also searched nylon, and I found advice on diy- kinda what I was expecting from a diy, although I'm aware of the potential issues swbluto mentioned above as well.

Is there an opensource software printer you would recommend swbluto that comes setup? Maybe there isn't one for around $500? 100x100 would be fine for a nice product in that price level, that has a suitable hotbed and extruder temp/setup for nylon/abs/etc

Questions,

Do you want to build one yourself ?
pros- you understand how it works, easy to troubleshoot yourself, and you can easily replicate it. Cheaper option as well, print a wide range of materals including trimmer line for your brushhcutter, needs to be nylon, you can get one running for about $500 and it will perform the same as a $2000-$3000 price range machine that runs out of the box, If your good at building things, I would say do it because you can make an incredible machine that you could never buy in a regular consumer market.
cons- takes time to build, you really need the time to do all the research and understand how it all works, dont let this put you off, i believe anyone can do it, some may do it faster than others, but its an investment of knowledge that can assist you with other things in life maybe
Buy one that works out of the box?
Pros works right away in most cases, but i found alot of the out of box solution need a fair few adjustments to get it right....
con's something breaks can be a pain to troubleshoot it, you maybe stuck into buying a particular style of filament, some companies may lock you into using PLA or ABS only and maybe their own brand , A company called Cube does this, and it sucks, also costs alot more for the same results at the end of the day

utube has quite a bit of info. I've been collecting some links to post.

 

[swbluto]

Is there an opensource software printer you would recommend swbluto that comes setup? Maybe there isn't one for around $500? 100x100 would be fine for a nice product in that price level, that has a suitable hotbed and extruder temp/setup for nylon/abs/etc

There's tons of free options out there. If you want to slice your own models with Slic3r (Or get g-code from somewhere else), there's Pronterface - Works a treat with the right settings. If you want something does the slicing and printing all in one combo (And isn't a pain in the ass to reposition and rotate the object on the print bed and all that), there's Cura which I currently use (Not sure if it's OS, but it's definitely free).

Printrbot has a 6x6 area and it's around $530. Mine works fairly well, though I'm getting a heated bed and glass pane for printing ABS parts for it.

If you look into printers coming from China (Off ebay), there's a lot of no-name brands with a larger build area you can get around $500-$600 but caveat emptor. I don't see why the sturdier ones wouldn't work, but then again, there's a lot of printers that look good on the surface but have horrible reliability such as the Robo 3d printer. (But, then again, the top of the supporting rods aren't fixed in the Robo 3d, which is known to cause quality issues but isn't obvious from its pictures.)

There's a RepRap Prusa I3 with a solid aluminum body for $750, which seemed fairly rigid and has pretty good reviews as far as reliability goes. It seems to be the cheapest 'american' 3d printer with a rigid body with a build area bigger than 6x6 (7.5"x7.5").

 

[nutnspecial]

Thanks man, those sound perfect, and 500-900 sounds reasonable. Hey, I actually have cura, good to know it's a favorite!

I am leaning more towards a mill and lathe now, because I haven't found any reasonable cnc or dmls prices for the metal part.
For a prototype I found a small company to do it in abs for 20$ incl ship, so I will probably wait on a printer for now. I just don't think I'll use one as much as a 'hobby sized' mill and/or lathe, as my final product will be metal, and those tools are just generally more versatile for fabrication imo.

Thanks for the input, I think that's also a great point to watch for flimsyness of the frame. I guess even with a moving bed, that all 3 axis have to be considered dependant on frame sturdiness.
If you're thinking of a heated bed for abs, from what I hear the stationary beds are best for that plastic. Supposedly it's difficult to print even with a heated bed when the ambient temp can't be controlled by enclosure.
Two channels that I learned a bit from: barnaculese https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mG3OZUoMiA
And also tom's guide https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=In93vVd1WDQ
But obviously utube is pretty full of good info.

For now, from what I've seen I'd probably give the above geeetech a try. Frame looks nice, as does the rest of the features. Biggest gripe with people seems to be the need to do a little minor tweaking of fasteners etc. Not a big deal for me probably.
Maybe as a cold weather project.

I haven't noticed a thread or directions to our own ebike part drawing repository. Is there such a thing?