3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

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Reala
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3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by Reala »

Having never used (or even seen!) a 3D Printer before, I'm really curious about this technology.

I've seen cheap printers for about £300, but I'm wondering how good these machines would be and what you could actually do with them. I'm also curious how much they would cost to run, i.e. how much the materials to print 3D cost.

As I'm probably not going to buy one any time soon, I was wondering whether people with 3D Printers 'hire' theirs out (i.e. take your plans / designs and print them for you). I'm guessing someone, somewhere does, but haven't been able to find anywhere local with a Google search. If anyone has done this before, could you let me know roughly how much you have paid for a robot's body?

Thanks all =)
Occashokka
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by Occashokka »

I haven't got a 3D printing done before however I know that shakey on this forum will 3D print things for people and if you wanted it done by a full company / if Alex was too busy, they are probably a bit more expensive but shapeways is the company you are after.
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Rhys
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by Rhys »

I'm very pleased with my cheap 3d printer. I have the hephestos i3, which was just over £300 I think. I know a few other people on here use the same one and have got some decent results.

Printing costs are pretty negligible. You'd be looking at a few pence per robot. I'm going to be hopefully doing a lot of printing for my own robots over the coming weeks & months, so if you want anything done just let me know.
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shangalaing
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by shangalaing »

Yeh, filament ranges from £10 to £30 per kilo. For an antweight you don't need a big sized printer, something like a printrbot simple metal would be perfect and reliable. Even a davinci would be OK ( you can hack the filament to accept none proprietary rolls)
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Shakey
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by Shakey »

The monoprice maker select mini is a popular small printer that I actually looked into getting myself to print alongside my Prusa I3. Good print size with a heated bed. There's a little trouble finding a UK supplier though.

Cheap printers can achieve the same quality of expensive ones, the trick is the expensive ones generally do it with less effort and more reliably.
Nuts And Bots - For all your components and ready built antweights!

Alex Shakespeare - Team Shakey / Nuts And Bots / Team Nuts:
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UserFriendly
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by UserFriendly »

I bought this one in Feb:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B01 ... UTF8&psc=1

It's the one in the bottom picture.

I came as a kit with no instructions (had to download instructions from 2 similar models and 'read between the lines' to build it)

Took me nearly a month from purchase to print (building 1 hour a day)

But I love it. Quality is better than I expected. Accuracy is down sub-millimeter, allowing me to make gears, linkages etc. I'd say my average Antweight would cost about 50p in filament, though that's an 'experiential' guess.

I use Autodesk's free 123D Design on the iPad.

As mentioned, Shakey on this forum does 3D printing for people too.
Andy B - Team UserFriendly
Reading Cybernetics Graduate 1996
Trying not to take Antweights too seriously. I think I'm failing.
First AWS was 46.
Reala
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by Reala »

Thanks all, this is really helpful and will be a great resource as I find myself more in need of this tech!

Where do you purchase 3D Printers from in the UK? I've tried looking up the one Alex mentioned, the 'monoprice maker select mini', for example, and can't find it anywhere!
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peterwaller
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by peterwaller »

I just popped down to the corner shop for my Prusa i3.
http://www.3dprintworld-aylesbury.co.uk/
If you are not fortunate enough to have one locally they do mail order.
Also the main 3D printer show is on at the NEC on the 28th - 29th of this month where you can see all the machines and filaments up close and personal.
http://www.tctshow.com/
Reala
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by Reala »

peterwaller wrote:I just popped down to the corner shop for my Prusa i3.
http://www.3dprintworld-aylesbury.co.uk/
If you are not fortunate enough to have one locally they do mail order.
Also the main 3D printer show is on at the NEC on the 28th - 29th of this month where you can see all the machines and filaments up close and personal.
http://www.tctshow.com/
How is the Prusa i3, Peter? Is that what you print your robots' casing on?

Also, thanks for the link. I see they also sell AWS contenders! :D

http://www.3dprintworld-aylesbury.co.uk ... yellow-pla
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peterwaller
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Re: 3D Printing - machine costs and 'hiring' enquiry

Post by peterwaller »

Yes the Prusa i3 is probably the most widely used printer in Antweights.
Me, Alex, Rhys, Scott, Will and team Oink all use them and most got them from my corner shop.
As standard they don't have a heated tray so you need to upgrade or get the supplier to do it for you.
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