I get asked a lot what printer to buy and really there is no simple answer, it's like asking "whats the best car?" There are A LOT of options, and a lot of price points, and a lot of conflicting information online and people making suggestions who have no idea what they're taking about. it's enough to make your head spin. Selecting the right printer depends on what you're trying to do with it, how much you'd like to hack and tinker around with your printer, and of course, how much you're willing to spend.
There are many different print technologies. I'm only going to talk about FDM which is the most widely used among consumer printers and what most people think of when they think of a 3D printer. I'm not very familiar with the other technologies so you're better off researching those elsewhere if you're interested in something different.
The first step is to ask yourself some questions:
1. What materials do you want to print with? most printers will do PLA, which is the most common material on the market, it has good dimensional accuracy and temperature stability so it's easy to print with, but it has a low melting point and it's not as strong as other materials so it's not the best for applications where stress/abuse or high temperatures are involved. ABS is a really common alternative for higher temp/higher abuse prints, but there are a number of features that your 3D printer must have to support this material. Then there are more "exotic" materials such as Nylon, TPU, Wood-Fill, Metal-Fill, CarbonFiber-Fill and new material types and blends being developed all the time each having different demands of your printer.
2. How big or how detailed do you want your prints to be? Bigger is better right? well, the larger the printer the more rigid the frame and more accurate the stepper motors need to be to keep it accurate across a longer distance, so as size increases the cost tends to increase exponentially. Also consider how much space this will take up, big printers take up big desk space. People who print very large items (like cosplay weapons and armor) tend to print in sections and then epoxy the sections together, but the smaller the printer the more sections you'll have to print and glue together. In general you're going to want to leave some "margins" on your print platform too while a build area of 8inx8in can theoretically print an 8inx8in part sometimes you'll need to leave some space in the parameter in order to print a "brim" or extended supports to help with overhangs which means you'll have less print area to work with.
Nozzle size will determine the "resolution" in which you can print, the smaller the nozzle the higher the resolution options you'll have. But high resolution parts take exponentially longer to print and and will generally have thinner walls making the parts not as strong. Most printers have removable nozzles so you can swap to a smaller size when you want higher resolution or a larger size when speed and strength is more important than detail. filament size also determines the range of nozzles you'll be able to use. Some printers have more than 1 nozzle which opens up a lot of options but also shrinks your build area (since you can only print in the area that both nozzles can reach)
3. How much customization/hackability do you want in your printer? This is actually a fairly big question as there are many companies that are trying to make 3D printers just like paper printers. You feed it a 3D model and hit a button and out pops the part. It sounds good in theory but in practice you'll often run into limitations where things don't come out quite right, or you're limited in the kinds of things you can print or locked into buying vendor specific printer filament. So if you go this route make sure others who have bought these "locked down" printer are actually happy with the capabilities and reliability. On the other end of the spectrum are open source printers which take a lot more time to get up and running and require you to learn a lot about how things work but you'll be able to fine tune every aspect of the print and even upgrade your printer over time to accommodate new techniques and technologies.
Here's what I use for a printer and why I made the decision I did:
I have a RigidBot v1 (they're on V2 now) http://rigidbot.com/
I'm not saying this is the right printer for you, but this was the right printer for me and what I wanted out of a printer.
After Agonizing over all of the different printers available these are the things that led me to buy this particular printer:
1. it has a "big" print area 10"x10"x10", most consumer level printers are 6x6x6 or 8x8x8 so more build area means more options for what you can print... I actually wanted to get their "RigidBot Big" model which was 16x12x10 but by the time I decided to order it was discontinued
despite the big area it has a very rigid frame (hence the name) so it does well in terms of accuracy despite it's large size.
2. it was fairly "inexpensive" given the feature set...
3. the printer was designed to be "hackable" with mostly off-the-shelf parts being used, and many upgraded parts being sold by RigidBot and made by other owners (it has a fairly large community too). I liked this aspect of it and Even ordered the "disassembled" model which only saved me $20 because I wanted to know every detail of how this thing worked... what better way then to build it myself. (I took me 5 hours to assemble and I have zero regrets about going this route).
4. Rigidbot was made by Inventapart which had their hand in larger industrial 3D printers so I figured they'd be taking high-end designs and making them cheaper as opposed to other companies that would be designing a cheap products from scratch.
My Experience with the RididBot:
I've found that a lot of different people had a lot of different problems with their Rigidbot, I've been "lucky" with mine but I also research and take a moderate approach to trying new things and pushing the boundaries and the RigidBot has no safety net if you push it beyond it's limits; it will self-destruct if you tell it to. A good example is a lot of people having problems with the power cable for the heated platform catching fire... it's rated for 110 deg C I never put it above 100, most of the people who had problems were running it over 120. things like this are IMO GOOD because if I wanted to upgrade my heated platform I also don't want to have to hack the main board to allow higher temps. There are other printers out there that lock down the boundaries or don't even allow user control of these kinds of parameters. Depending on the type of person you are you may want something that allows for infinite tinkering or you may just want to hit a button and make it go...
it hasn't been complely problem free but most of the problems were of my own doing and the few areas where the printer was somewhat lacking I've been able to design my own parts or make parts that other people in the community have designed. The quality of the prints vary based on how well I have the software dialed in. the biggest hurdle was learning the software because it came with NONE. and not only did it not include any software but it didn't even come with any inkling of what software was needed; it was like building a PC having never owned or used a PC and then once I finished realizing that not only does it not include any software but it didn't even include an OS and I had no idea what OS to run or how to use it.... it was a learning experience.
after a year+ of ownership...
My only regret was not buying sooner so I could have bought the BIG model. the only other printer on the market that has made me say "I wish I had that" is the Lulzbot line. but they're 3 to 5 times the price of the RigidBot so...
There are many different print technologies. I'm only going to talk about FDM which is the most widely used among consumer printers and what most people think of when they think of a 3D printer. I'm not very familiar with the other technologies so you're better off researching those elsewhere if you're interested in something different.
The first step is to ask yourself some questions:
1. What materials do you want to print with? most printers will do PLA, which is the most common material on the market, it has good dimensional accuracy and temperature stability so it's easy to print with, but it has a low melting point and it's not as strong as other materials so it's not the best for applications where stress/abuse or high temperatures are involved. ABS is a really common alternative for higher temp/higher abuse prints, but there are a number of features that your 3D printer must have to support this material. Then there are more "exotic" materials such as Nylon, TPU, Wood-Fill, Metal-Fill, CarbonFiber-Fill and new material types and blends being developed all the time each having different demands of your printer.
2. How big or how detailed do you want your prints to be? Bigger is better right? well, the larger the printer the more rigid the frame and more accurate the stepper motors need to be to keep it accurate across a longer distance, so as size increases the cost tends to increase exponentially. Also consider how much space this will take up, big printers take up big desk space. People who print very large items (like cosplay weapons and armor) tend to print in sections and then epoxy the sections together, but the smaller the printer the more sections you'll have to print and glue together. In general you're going to want to leave some "margins" on your print platform too while a build area of 8inx8in can theoretically print an 8inx8in part sometimes you'll need to leave some space in the parameter in order to print a "brim" or extended supports to help with overhangs which means you'll have less print area to work with.
Nozzle size will determine the "resolution" in which you can print, the smaller the nozzle the higher the resolution options you'll have. But high resolution parts take exponentially longer to print and and will generally have thinner walls making the parts not as strong. Most printers have removable nozzles so you can swap to a smaller size when you want higher resolution or a larger size when speed and strength is more important than detail. filament size also determines the range of nozzles you'll be able to use. Some printers have more than 1 nozzle which opens up a lot of options but also shrinks your build area (since you can only print in the area that both nozzles can reach)
3. How much customization/hackability do you want in your printer? This is actually a fairly big question as there are many companies that are trying to make 3D printers just like paper printers. You feed it a 3D model and hit a button and out pops the part. It sounds good in theory but in practice you'll often run into limitations where things don't come out quite right, or you're limited in the kinds of things you can print or locked into buying vendor specific printer filament. So if you go this route make sure others who have bought these "locked down" printer are actually happy with the capabilities and reliability. On the other end of the spectrum are open source printers which take a lot more time to get up and running and require you to learn a lot about how things work but you'll be able to fine tune every aspect of the print and even upgrade your printer over time to accommodate new techniques and technologies.
Here's what I use for a printer and why I made the decision I did:
I have a RigidBot v1 (they're on V2 now) http://rigidbot.com/
I'm not saying this is the right printer for you, but this was the right printer for me and what I wanted out of a printer.
After Agonizing over all of the different printers available these are the things that led me to buy this particular printer:
1. it has a "big" print area 10"x10"x10", most consumer level printers are 6x6x6 or 8x8x8 so more build area means more options for what you can print... I actually wanted to get their "RigidBot Big" model which was 16x12x10 but by the time I decided to order it was discontinued
despite the big area it has a very rigid frame (hence the name) so it does well in terms of accuracy despite it's large size.2. it was fairly "inexpensive" given the feature set...
3. the printer was designed to be "hackable" with mostly off-the-shelf parts being used, and many upgraded parts being sold by RigidBot and made by other owners (it has a fairly large community too). I liked this aspect of it and Even ordered the "disassembled" model which only saved me $20 because I wanted to know every detail of how this thing worked... what better way then to build it myself. (I took me 5 hours to assemble and I have zero regrets about going this route).
4. Rigidbot was made by Inventapart which had their hand in larger industrial 3D printers so I figured they'd be taking high-end designs and making them cheaper as opposed to other companies that would be designing a cheap products from scratch.
My Experience with the RididBot:
I've found that a lot of different people had a lot of different problems with their Rigidbot, I've been "lucky" with mine but I also research and take a moderate approach to trying new things and pushing the boundaries and the RigidBot has no safety net if you push it beyond it's limits; it will self-destruct if you tell it to. A good example is a lot of people having problems with the power cable for the heated platform catching fire... it's rated for 110 deg C I never put it above 100, most of the people who had problems were running it over 120. things like this are IMO GOOD because if I wanted to upgrade my heated platform I also don't want to have to hack the main board to allow higher temps. There are other printers out there that lock down the boundaries or don't even allow user control of these kinds of parameters. Depending on the type of person you are you may want something that allows for infinite tinkering or you may just want to hit a button and make it go...
it hasn't been complely problem free but most of the problems were of my own doing and the few areas where the printer was somewhat lacking I've been able to design my own parts or make parts that other people in the community have designed. The quality of the prints vary based on how well I have the software dialed in. the biggest hurdle was learning the software because it came with NONE. and not only did it not include any software but it didn't even come with any inkling of what software was needed; it was like building a PC having never owned or used a PC and then once I finished realizing that not only does it not include any software but it didn't even include an OS and I had no idea what OS to run or how to use it.... it was a learning experience.
after a year+ of ownership...
My only regret was not buying sooner so I could have bought the BIG model. the only other printer on the market that has made me say "I wish I had that" is the Lulzbot line. but they're 3 to 5 times the price of the RigidBot so...
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