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15 hours ago, CaptainA said:

 

I just loaded it into my program Cura and as is with no scaling it was at 410 grams with a 20% infill. With the filament I use it would cost me about 6.15 in filament. My experience with places like 3dhubs is that you would pay about $60 for it. A couple of those arms barely fit on my printer so it might have to be sliced further for another printer.

Thanks that helps a lot!

 

Now I'm considering a printer. Looking at these two, you mentioned above: 

  • Creality3D Ender3
  • Monoprice MP Select Mini v2

I'm really about keeping cost down to get 'decent' printed content. You saw the Pylon I'd print first, but then maybe terrain, bits, etc. Scott, you have both, which do you like better between those 2? Anyone else recommend a printer? The under $200 is nice, don't know if I'd go to $300. Seems like the ender 3 is a great machine and larger prints for the budget price.

 

What about the Anet A8?

 

Also being that the Ender is a kit and the MP Select is pre-built. Is there a resolution concern in calibration, etc?

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I just recently got the Anet A8 and as someone who is completely new to 3D printing I will say it was relatively easy to get going, save for a broken part needing replaced.

I am using Cura for slicing but I am wondering what other software people are using. In particular I wanting to cut stl models to be in smaller /easier to print pieces.

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1 hour ago, Dark Trainer said:

Thanks that helps a lot!

 

Now I'm considering a printer. Looking at these two, you mentioned above: 

  • Creality3D Ender3
  • Monoprice MP Select Mini v2

I'm really about keeping cost down to get 'decent' printed content. You saw the Pylon I'd print first, but then maybe terrain, bits, etc. Scott, you have both, which do you like better between those 2? Anyone else recommend a printer? The under $200 is nice, don't know if I'd go to $300. Seems like the ender 3 is a great machine and larger prints for the budget price.

 

What about the Anet A8?

 

Also being that the Ender is a kit and the MP Select is pre-built. Is there a resolution concern in calibration, etc?

If I had to suggest to someone I'd say look at the Prusa MK3 (not a clone, but rather from Prusa). They have great reviews and are pushing the envelope in 3d printing. I've also heard great things about the Ender, and building it could be a great way to learn it and fix it if there is issues.

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46 minutes ago, CaptainA said:

If I had to suggest to someone I'd say look at the Prusa MK3 (not a clone, but rather from Prusa). They have great reviews and are pushing the envelope in 3d printing. I've also heard great things about the Ender, and building it could be a great way to learn it and fix it if there is issues.

Sadly, i couldn't justify $750 especially since i doubt i'll be making enough to even justify the $200 price point.

 

Also can't find a good comparison of why, or resolution, etc. What makes the Prusa MK3 better. At that price point I'd have to 'sell' stuff to pay for itself, didn't plan on that.

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Build quality of an original vs cheap(er) knock offs.   People like the ender 3 because, relative to what has come before it, its build quality and potential performance are pretty great for ~200.  Having said that some people have to do a good amount of tweaking and calibration to get great prints out of the Ender 3.  Like I had to buy a glass plate because my build surface wasn't that level.  Or the filament will rub against the z-axis rod so you have to print something to prevent that.

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I started with an MP mini, mainly because of price and ease of use out of the box.  I started having issues with it failing prints, but I really think I overheated it attempting to print ABS.  I bought the ender mainly because I figured eff it, either repair or upgrade.  I will say the Mini is a nice entry level machine.  Being able to mostly eliminate the hardware when troubleshooting failed prints is a nice leaning step.  Going to the Ender I had a leg up in knowing what I should expect print a good print.

Since I've got the ender running, I'll go back and fix the Mini.  

Two printers? Why yes!

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  • 1 month later...
  • 6 months later...

Hi new to the forums, but I've been using my Ender 3 for 3-4 months now.   I've mostly printed terrain, some tank sized units, and I am still dialing in printing for smaller minis.

 

As to the Ender 3 vs Prusa mk3:   They both are capable of great prints, but the Ender 3 needs a little bit more love and tinkering.   The Prusa is very reliable, feature rich, and great out of the box.    You can certainly upgrade the Ender 3 to do most of what a Prusa can do, and probably at a lower cost, but you'll need to put in some elbow grease to get there.   That's not to say the Ender 3 garbage out of the box.   I was printing within 2 hours of opening mine.

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I picked up the Anycubic Photon S a couple months ago now.  I have still just learning - but it is a very capable resin printer.  I have had some good prints - and some weird / bad prints.  Still getting my head around it of course.

Here is a photo from my last blog post ... the Epic scale Necron pylon and monoliths came out pretty will - along with some imperial bastions. 

necton-print_comparison.jpg?w=1478

bastion_print-e1560137961250.jpg?w=1478

I'm still dialing in how to hollow out models, creating effective supports and fine tuning exposure times.  But for less than 500$ I thought it was well worth the investment in a new hobby lol.

I have my eye on an Ender down the road in a year perhaps...  for bigger prints, printing with different materials and less detail intensive prints. (terrain, parts for other projects).

 

-d

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Awesome!     What's dealing with resin like in practice?

 

I've been debating a Photon as well.   I promised myself I would get one if I learned modeling well enough to justify it.    You can push the Ender pretty hard, but to really reach it's limits for minis you need to swap nozzles around, and then it becomes a PITA to swap back for for terrain.   At that point a 2nd ender almost makes sense, but for a few hundred more....    Yeah the ender will never be good enough to replace a resin printer.

For terrain, tanks, and functional prints, the Ender is amazing for the cost.   Here is a Dunecrawler I printed with minimal effort:

Duncrawler.thumb.jpg.296a9f1c04b061495e592087694ebd09.jpg

Sure, it could use some cleanup, and there are some flaws, but for the time invested it turned out pretty solid.   Most of the larger pieces are printed at 0.20mm layer height as well.

 

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awesome crawler... where did you get that STL? (link?) (thingiverse?) 🙂  I have been working (slowly collecting) a Mechanicus force.

Resin - well its kinda messy - you need lots of support materials (latex gloves, alcohol wash, tanks for IPA wash and water wash... UV lights for curing, along with other items for cleaning up the plate and vat after printing lol.  But the payoff is very fine details for minis.  I specifically choose the Photon S because I wanted something for small items with fine details like miniatures for Epic and random miniatures for other games or just painting.  

Operation isn't to bad - the software provided is clunky.  But there are options for free on the net - so not too bad in that arena.  Learning that your print is printing upside down on the build plate dipping into the vat - is a bit of an adjustment when building supports.  Because things can't start in the middle of space (like hanging fangs in a mouth of a dragon)  You have to think about all that a lot.  I know that dialing in things will take time.  I switched resins and it was almost like starting over.  lol  But their are several good support groups (Reddit and Facebook) specifically for Photon users.

Other than the basics of making sure the build plate is perfectly level (near perfect) and fine tuning the resin times - its fairly painless.  Prints take a long time (8-9hours is common for me).  but since everything happens at once in the layers - more things on the build plate doesn't slow things down.  The layers...(height of the build) in total make up the time.  And of course 0.05mm vs 0.02mm layer heights will be huge factors as well.

I held off on the first Photon because of the z-axis wobble issues... but then the Photon S came out with dual tracks for the Z axis support and I decided to jump in.  I had my hopes for a long time on the Prusa i3 Mk3... with finer nozzles.  But for half the price I picked up the Photon S... figuring later I could take a serious look at the Ender - and still be under the total cost of the Prusa.

-d

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Here is the STL for the Dunecrawler:

https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2882646

Many of the AdMech models on thingiverse are TTS rips, and wont really work for printing.   I've started remeshing/modeling a few and am currently working on Kastelans:https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3629027

 

Thanks for the feedback on the Photon.   And you are absolutely right that a Photon + Ender is cheaper than a Prusa...

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more prints - trying to find a good head size for my Bright Stallion conversion for my Eldar OFCC army.

Unknown.jpeg.859731aa74b9fd88e68cb092c0e29616.jpeg

I wasn't sure what size would work best - so I scaled it up and printed choices...  Not sure what I will do with the extras yet.

Unknown-1.jpeg.094cf13f8f58f7fb17971a8f1f8da925.jpeg

Unknown-3.jpeg.542d413b4951878b6a231f9d01c712e4.jpeg

I think this one works best...  I love the detail on this resin print .05mm.  I may try it at .02, although I probably don't need it that high after I primer this one.

 

-d

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On 6/20/2019 at 10:43 PM, Brick Bungalow said:

 

I don't yet own one but we've been 3d printing electronics components at work over the past year including some custom bits. Its reached the phase where it merits its own work space. 

Are there units that print multiple pieces simultaneously or would you just get multiple printers?

Most printers can print multiple parts simultaneously.    

FDM printers, like the Ender 3, will take ~2x longer to print 2 parts than a single part.  But it is still useful as you can start of batch of a few items before bed, or before work etc and have them all done at once.    You also save on setup, warm up, and cool down time.  Printing parts that take 30 minutes each one at a time is just annoying and has some overhead.  

 

DLP printers, like the Photon, can print multiple parts at the same time without slowing down.   They print an entire layer at once, so it's much more efficient to put as many parts as you can in one print.    They also have much smaller print beds, however.

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On 6/22/2019 at 10:25 AM, Kelbesq said:

Most printers can print multiple parts simultaneously.    

FDM printers, like the Ender 3, will take ~2x longer to print 2 parts than a single part.  But it is still useful as you can start of batch of a few items before bed, or before work etc and have them all done at once.    You also save on setup, warm up, and cool down time.  Printing parts that take 30 minutes each one at a time is just annoying and has some overhead.  

 

DLP printers, like the Photon, can print multiple parts at the same time without slowing down.   They print an entire layer at once, so it's much more efficient to put as many parts as you can in one print.    They also have much smaller print beds, however.

Thanks! 

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  • 3 weeks later...
2 hours ago, BigFred said:

New to the group.   Got an Anycubic Photon about a month ago, loving it so far.  The detail is crazy.

So far just making a few extra cyclic ion guns for my Tau battlesuits.  Well that and D&D minis.

Very cool, what stl are you using for the CIBs?

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1 hour ago, andy said:

Very cool, what stl are you using for the CIBs? 

I found the file on Thingiverse, after searching for a good bit.  I'll see if I can find the actual link a little later. 
Had a few options depending on the printer, different parts to glue together and stuff.  but I found the full gun printed just fine for me.

Printed in green resin:

IMG_20190622_205730.thumb.jpg.1ef93a89e0c01b64702506050f44935e.jpg

 

After priming in black:

963272071_IMG_20190624_180306(2).thumb.jpg.a6ede0c99195216ef7485dec08cd351f.jpg

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Really was getting things going well with my photon - but it crapped out about 2 weeks ago with a weird error.  After support emails I am waiting for a new motherboard.  The process was painless - but I have no idea when to expect the part lol.  Can't wait to get back into it.

-d

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