Andy
I own two 3d printers, and have had mixed results. The second one
looked like a bargain but was made out of plywood and firmly etched in
my mind the advantage of metal. My first one was a single extruder
model made out of aluminum and plastic. Later revisions are replacing
even more parts with metal. Larger parts are more demanding on machine
and environment. The cooling process can make the parts curl away from
the platform. You may want to shield the part being made from
extraneous air currents, so that may make box shaped printers
attractive. To get experience you don't need dual head or large size
but for long term repeatable results you do need the rigidity of metal.
I did make an ar15 lower model with mine that lasted for 4 rounds.
Even then it was not a catastrophic failure it just showed a stress
point that modern polymer lowers now use an embedded metal part to solve
the problem. It can be used to give you 3d check of a model, just don't
expect long life, unless you design the model knowing the limitations of
the materials. The second machine didn't last though my wife's tree
ornament project. Unfortunately, I got ambitious and started to
upgrade the first machine, which had produced the better models. Life
got in the way and it is still unfinished and collecting dust.
On 3/28/17 12:46 PM, Chris Albertson wrote:
> On Tue, Mar 28, 2017 at 10:17 AM, andy pugh <bodge...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On 28 March 2017 at 17:18, Les Newell <les.new...@fastmail.co.uk> wrote:
>>> The prints also aren't that strong. If you
>>> put enough time into it you can get some good results but most of the
>>> stuff I want to make either needs to be strong or dimensionally accurate
>>> (or usually both together).
>
> The thing about 2D printing is that it does not work well if you are making
> replacement parts for an existing product. The original parts were likely
> of metal or a stronger kind of plastic but where 3D printing works well is
> for new designs where you design the part knowing the properties of the
> material. For example if printing a design that uses timing belts, you'd
> use a wider belt them if using aluminum pulleys.
>
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