Honestly, I'm going to be partial to Creality machines because that's where I started. I'm unfamiliar with the model posted above, but I have heard of that brand and that particular model seems to have a great list of features for a good price. I run a CoreXY operated Voron v0 these days but that's not accessible for a beginner imo. My arguments for buying a Creality printer: They're affordable and easy to source There's a huge aftermarket for parts and modifications (almost everyone ends up down this rabbit hole) I don't know if this is still the case, but they've been dedicated to giving back to the maker community I'd rather not tell you what printer to buy outright, but give you some references to educate yourself to make a decision that you're happy with. Michael from Teaching Tech on YouTube has an awesome channel and I will point you to this video specifically: This is a totally valid point and I skipped over that. Those machines are still out of most of our price ranges' here. If you're dropping that much on a printer, you run a business and you're looking for an enterprise grade machine. As you alluded to, you probably have the capital/means/connections to have those parts milled anyways.
I have a Voron V0.2 kit sitting around, waiting for time to finish. Depending how it goes, I'll hopefully ditch my E5 and E5+ for a V2.4.
I decided to skip the printing entirely and bought a Langmuir MR-1 this year. For me the price was eye watering, but I think it should be good enough to turn out some aluminum bike parts with regularity.
A few tips: Read the manual over and over again until your eyes bleed. Early in the build, make sure that you have all of the nuts in place or you will hate yourself when you have to disassemble it. It literally happens to everyone that builds these. Print some captive nut carriers in advance and check clearances of the nut carriers in the extrusions If your kit includes the filament runout sensor in the leg, which I believe it will with the 0.2 kit, it's borderline useless and a flawed design. I would advise you to skip that entirely. Keep the hardware though. I've made an alternative with the leftover hardware that I am very happy with. All it took were a few changes in Klipper. Look into DIYing an air filtration system in your chamber, particularly the Nevermore. It will reduce the amount of ABS fumes by a substantial margin. Conventional wisdom says to skip the V2.4 and go for a Trident by the way. The V2.4 is apparently a pain to build but I cannot confirm as I've never printed one. I don't know a ton about mills, but I'm headed in that direction in the future. It looks like it's a well thought out machine, "affordable" given the price point, and that it comes in a refined package. Personally, I'd like to try my hand at a MPCNC before I go all in on something like this though.
Serious question, and I hope it hasn't been asked, but I'm not looking back: Can you print a 3D printer with a 3D printer, and sell the printed printer to whoever?
That’s really the whole ethos behind a 3D printer. A self replicating machine that you can use to repair it and make other printers. I wouldn’t say it’s a good endeavor economically speaking, but if you’re doing it for the lols then why not? Ironically enough, Prusa prints parts for every printer they sell.
Follow up to this, I finally have my mill running. Still needs some fine tuning but I figured why not figure it out on the fly
^^ very cool! What is your current all in cost for the MR-1 Setup? Looking at their website it looks like a budget of around $7500 would be needed.
Probably $9500 if you include the suggest mods, concrete, a few sets of tooling. Also, the time expense! They claim 100 hours to assemble which may be true but I have spent equally as much time getting everything as square as possible.
Gotcha, I have a couple 3d printers but I REALLY want to add a small cnc mill to my tool box. $10k is well out of reach though. I have been looking at the Makera stuff but its so small for $5k or whatever they want for it so I continue to want rather than have lol.
End results of this little project. Annoyingly I ran out of time and had to steal my original R6 stem. Anodizing sucks, would've been nice if even 1 of the local places would have let me pay them to do it.
One of the Broadway tours last season had one and set it up overnight to make some doohickey. We came in the next day it looked like a baitcast reel when the backlash isn't set properly. What a mess.
I started with 12x6” plates of varying thickness and did 90% of the facing, roughing, everything with just with a 10mm end mill. Not quick by any means and very messy but it meant I could go do something else in the mean time.
Alright... hear me out now. Someone said Fusion360 and if you're going to learn software, learn that one. You can make simple parts or complex assemblies. I started on Solidworks which is amazing (get a student license if possible) but if I had to do it over again now, Fusion360 for sure. Design what you want and find a buddy / friend's kid with a 3D printer and have them print it for you. Or send it you for a high-quality print to a local shop with a high-end printer (tons of them on Craigslist) who knows what material to recommend. Second thing is that used CNC equipment prices are in the toilet. Means you can buy a $10K Haas TM-1 or $20K VF-2. These are production quality machines and your local HFO will have parts. Tons of info online on how to run and maintain them. Is it spendy? Yup, but let's be serious though, nobody on this forum makes great decisions or we wouldn't be here in the first place. Plus, you can make pretty much anything you can think of. Just a thought.
30 year SW user, and Fusion breaks my brain. Don't get me wrong, I use it nearly every day, but on the design side I struggle. People who have no experience with CAD seem to have a way easier time with it. The breadth of it's capability is astounding though... I agree on a VF, but not everyone has either the power or the means to move one.
I am one of those people unfortunately. I have a couple of 3d printers and use them a fair bit. I would love to pick up a CNC but that is going to have to be a retirement kinda thing for me as my current home has nowhere to be able to house and power one.
I'm running a part time machining business and use a Fusion paid seat. It does everything I need but I am constantly learning new things about it. I would love if they sold a perpetual use seat at it's currently version, the SW engineers there keeping F'ing around with it and I wish they'd leave it alone sometimes. Love my TM1-P but really itching for a VF3YT
