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what are the problems with printers today? for hobbyist extrusion printers? - they are slow (fixed). but even 10x leaves something to be desired. - they cant

what are the problems with printers today? for hobbyist extrusion printers? - they are slow (fixed). but even 10x leaves something to be desired. - they cant print all shapes elegantly. for many shapes you need scaffolding. its a nuisance. - they are course. print layers, even at the thinnest settings, are still rather thick. also, there is a lot of inconsistency, stringing and surface imperfections. find a way to solve these problems in a relatively cheap printer and we might actually see the revolution that was talked about when 3d printing first arrived.

bunderbunder 9y ago
Two others: They are big, and they are expensive. That makes owning a 3D printer something that still doesn't make a lot of economic sense for me. I'm not certain it ever will. I'm waiting for the equivalent of a Kinko's for 3D printing. That will make 3D printing much more accessible to me, and I assume it would also get me access to 3D printers that can do much higher quality work than the at-home models are capable of.
- gh02t 9y ago
  > I'm waiting for the equivalent of a Kinko's for 3D printing A lot of universities offer this to their students already. Commercially, off the top of my head, Staples and the UPS store have some 3D printing services available at a limited number of stores but I don't think it has been terribly successful. Problem is, 3D printing is IMO not much more than a novelty unless you are designing your own parts, but then iterating on a custom design is painful and expensive with a commercial service. I use my 3D printer a ton, both for work and for hobby stuff, and it usually takes a few tries to get a design right. That's hard to do sitting in a store or by mail and typical markup for those services is like 10-20x actual cost. It quickly gets expensive enough that buying your own printer starts to make sense, especially when quality printers can be had for <$500 nowadays and quite serviceable printers for <$200. There's really not a huge difference in quality between the higher end printers and the good examples of the affordable ones (at least, comparing FDM printers to their kin, SLA/DLP is a different beast entirely). Most of the difference is in convenience and secondary features like dual extrusion or self-leveling.
- jcl 9y ago
  FWIW, some UPS store locations offer 3D printing (although it seemed pretty expensive): https://www.theupsstore.com/print/3d-printing https://www.theupsstore.com/print/3d-printing
- kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
  The Monoprice delta is neither big nor expensive.
- jstanley 9y ago
  They're not that expensive. I bought one for £150 earlier this year, just to see what all the fuss was about. It is a fantastic machine and I use it for something new almost every week. It took quite a lot of assembly, and there is an ongoing maintenance burden (there's nearly always something that isn't quite working as well as it could) but I couldn't imagine living without one. I'd like to upgrade to a higher-quality machine but I'm putting it off as long as I can tolerate because they just keep getting better and cheaper the longer I wait. But if you're at all interested, I highly recommend getting a cheap one, learning how to use it, and learning some basic CAD. It's a great hobby all of its own, and is a great addition to almost any other hobbies you might have.
hinkley 9y ago
They might end up with a higher resolution process that is only a a few times faster. If they reduce the diameter of the filament by 30%, the layers would take longer to lay down (more passes) and have less heat to shed. But building an object would take twice as long. If they doubled the resolution their system would still build objects over twice as fast. Twice the resolution in half the time could probably work as a sales pitch.

bunderbunder 9y ago

Two others: They are big, and they are expensive. That makes owning a 3D printer something that still doesn't make a lot of economic sense for me. I'm not certain it ever will. I'm waiting for the equivalent of a Kinko's for 3D printing. That will make 3D printing much more accessible to me, and I assume it would also get me access to 3D printers that can do much higher quality work than the at-home models are capable of.

gh02t 9y ago
> I'm waiting for the equivalent of a Kinko's for 3D printing A lot of universities offer this to their students already. Commercially, off the top of my head, Staples and the UPS store have some 3D printing services available at a limited number of stores but I don't think it has been terribly successful. Problem is, 3D printing is IMO not much more than a novelty unless you are designing your own parts, but then iterating on a custom design is painful and expensive with a commercial service. I use my 3D printer a ton, both for work and for hobby stuff, and it usually takes a few tries to get a design right. That's hard to do sitting in a store or by mail and typical markup for those services is like 10-20x actual cost. It quickly gets expensive enough that buying your own printer starts to make sense, especially when quality printers can be had for <$500 nowadays and quite serviceable printers for <$200. There's really not a huge difference in quality between the higher end printers and the good examples of the affordable ones (at least, comparing FDM printers to their kin, SLA/DLP is a different beast entirely). Most of the difference is in convenience and secondary features like dual extrusion or self-leveling.
jcl 9y ago
FWIW, some UPS store locations offer 3D printing (although it seemed pretty expensive): https://www.theupsstore.com/print/3d-printing https://www.theupsstore.com/print/3d-printing
kevin_thibedeau 9y ago
The Monoprice delta is neither big nor expensive.
jstanley 9y ago
They're not that expensive. I bought one for £150 earlier this year, just to see what all the fuss was about. It is a fantastic machine and I use it for something new almost every week. It took quite a lot of assembly, and there is an ongoing maintenance burden (there's nearly always something that isn't quite working as well as it could) but I couldn't imagine living without one. I'd like to upgrade to a higher-quality machine but I'm putting it off as long as I can tolerate because they just keep getting better and cheaper the longer I wait. But if you're at all interested, I highly recommend getting a cheap one, learning how to use it, and learning some basic CAD. It's a great hobby all of its own, and is a great addition to almost any other hobbies you might have.

hinkley 9y ago

They might end up with a higher resolution process that is only a a few times faster. If they reduce the diameter of the filament by 30%, the layers would take longer to lay down (more passes) and have less heat to shed. But building an object would take twice as long. If they doubled the resolution their system would still build objects over twice as fast. Twice the resolution in half the time could probably work as a sales pitch.