Marcwolf has 3D Printer
David Boccabella
Moderator
in Fabrication
After seeing my good friend @Chris Ellerby upgrade to getting a 3D printer I decided (plus with a bonus from work) to get one.
Took a couple of weeks of pouring over adverts, manuals etc.. however I finally found a local place that was selling these. I'm posting the Robotshop advert as they have better pictures and descriptions.
the good thing about my supplier ZX3D.Com.Au is that they have all of their printers set up.. running.. and you can compare the different outputs between them. They claim that they only stock machines that have passed their own checks which I believe.
So setting a maximum of 1400AUD I got the Afinibot A9.
http://www.robotshop.com/en/afinibot-a9-3d-printer-laser-engraver-kit.html
It's a kit - but only needs 4 parts to be bolted together so I was up and running in about 2 hours. It's a VERY quiet printer and is also portable (Yes that IS a carry handle).
It comes with CURA and Replicator so I was able to quickly get it going with some test jobs.
I took a STL of a gear set and printed it in PLA at 0.1mm layers. The results were very clean and meshed perfectly. I then told CURA to divide the scale by 3 and print again. Likewise all the teeth details came out beautifully and the tiny gears meshed and ran.
Here is a picture of the output.
The unit also has a Laser Engraver but I have not yet played with that. Maybe in time
Now to start cutting my teeth on CAD programs.
Take Care
Took a couple of weeks of pouring over adverts, manuals etc.. however I finally found a local place that was selling these. I'm posting the Robotshop advert as they have better pictures and descriptions.
the good thing about my supplier ZX3D.Com.Au is that they have all of their printers set up.. running.. and you can compare the different outputs between them. They claim that they only stock machines that have passed their own checks which I believe.
So setting a maximum of 1400AUD I got the Afinibot A9.
http://www.robotshop.com/en/afinibot-a9-3d-printer-laser-engraver-kit.html
It's a kit - but only needs 4 parts to be bolted together so I was up and running in about 2 hours. It's a VERY quiet printer and is also portable (Yes that IS a carry handle).
It comes with CURA and Replicator so I was able to quickly get it going with some test jobs.
I took a STL of a gear set and printed it in PLA at 0.1mm layers. The results were very clean and meshed perfectly. I then told CURA to divide the scale by 3 and print again. Likewise all the teeth details came out beautifully and the tiny gears meshed and ran.
Here is a picture of the output.
The unit also has a Laser Engraver but I have not yet played with that. Maybe in time
Now to start cutting my teeth on CAD programs.
Take Care
1
Comments
The design of that printer looks a lot like a printer designed by one of the guys at my hacker space a few years back called the "Bukito" which was the first portable 3d printer with a handle: http://bukito3d.com/
Those gears look great!
/Chris
No clean up at all. The larger gears fitted and meshed perfectly. The smaller gears needed one gap between the teeth cleaned a little (Thumbnail worked) to get rid of a small piece of debris.
The edges of the print are nice and sharp with no scurf or tendrils.
All in all Very happy.
Yes it does look Very similar.. complete with the extruded aluminum block structure and the toothed belts for movement.
My build area is larger thou
I can agree with the accuracy - there is no slop what so ever when I try and move the extruder by hand.. I have to turn off the steppers for that.
Currently I am printing test servo arms and pulleys
Dave