I’m sure a question relative to this has been asked but information on 3D printers probably goes out of date fairly quickly. Anyway, I am looking at buying a 3d printer soon. I’m looking at a price range between $400-$600. Could anyone suggest a printer that works good with blender? Also does anyone know of a cheap metal printing 3d printer?
I have been looking at the M3D Printer (http://printm3d.com/themicro/). If anyone could give me some good advice on 3D Printers I would greatly appreciate it! I would like to be as knowledgeable as possible on them before spending the big bucks.
Could anyone suggest a printer that works good with blender?
Blender will work just as well with all printers, just export file as a .stl which any printer will be able to use.
I have been looking at the M3D Printer (http://printm3d.com/themicro/).
It is ok for small cheap maintenance free printer. Takes standard 1.75mm filament that you can get from any 3d printer supplier which will be cheaper than their own filaments. If you use OSX note that the software that comes with it is a buggy crapfest, ok on windows.
Here’s an example of a print from one (6cm high) before any cleanup. There are occasions where the print is ruined when it comes away from the base during printing but you could try adding blue tape to the bed to get better adhesion
Speaking of 3D printers, has everyone seen the printer developed by Carbon3D? Not only is it 25 to 100 times faster than other printers, it does away with the annoying layers. Can’t wait for companies like Shapeways and i.Materialize to get them.
The printer software is more important to how a printer responds to a model than what the model was created in. Pretty much any program will work but software suites like Repetier Host with Slic3r or Cura tend to get a bit screwy with high poly models.
I’d happily suggest a delta style printer over a Cartesian printer. I’m currently building a Kossel 2020 from Folger, but I can’t really comment on its quality yet.
One thing I can say is that getting a kit and building it yourself, despite being a steep learning curve, will leave you in a better place to fix problems that will crop up over time.
When you get the printer I suggest checking out Build Tak for bed adhesion. Also grabbing some non-conductive tools for tuning the motherboard vref pots etc.
Source: Owner of a solidoodle 2, OrdBot Hadron and the Kossel also a prop maker with said printers.
Yes, there is no 3D Printer that works best with Blender, 3dsmax or Maya because you need a separate piece of software to prepare the model for printing (the slicer). They are usually free, you can try Cura and Slic3r.
For 400-600$ you can get aPrintrbot Play. I’d personally stay away from all those Kickstarter printers because they promise crazy-cheap prices to attract backers and end up under-delivering. The Play has a very similar build volume to the M3D, except it’s consistent with no “upper half is this big but below it’s this big” shenanigans… Here’s a review:
Also does anyone know of a cheap metal printing 3d printer?
There is no such thing as a cheap metal printer. A selective laser sintering (SLS) printer requires powerful lasers and a furnace to bake the finished parts. If you want to make metal objects, you are better off casting regular plastic printed parts using moulding sand and then pouring the molten metal into the moulds.
