wow 65 hours! that insane amount of time, how much filament used in totals for the frame?

Every day print 1-2 parts, used almost the entire spool, i'm guessing 600-700g since the AUW is 800++g, the screws are quite heavy, there are 6 bolts holding the joins behind the item.

I would do the same just to cover my filament cost if I didn't have any plans to work on any projects. That's why I have to charge for the printing time so I can use the money to purchase parts for my projects and keep my service running for the long run.

You should consider stocking up on some hotends in case anyone one of them decided to just give up. Luckily I have a few of those China J-heads in hand and one of the heads actually melted and fell off from the PEEK insulation. Its hilarious but still, what a waste.

As you can see from my tradelist, you can actually make a lot of money out of 3D printing, just have to find the right group to sell to.

Although business is slow due to almost little demand, but it will pick up in no time. Besides, in Singapore their printing service demand is forcefully generated by the institutions especially from students projects. Their rates is way much higher than what I am charging in Malaysia, and it in SGD by the way.

Also, why is everyone so eager to build their own 3D printer when the service is available?

This post has been edited by altan: Dec 12 2014, 02:21 PM

If anyone ask me to print that frame for them, Its going to cost them around RM 400 for 0.2 mm layer height.

Printing the frame is not a viable choice, just buy some plywood and cut it with a saw... Can get it done in less than RM 150 and grow muscle too.

This post has been edited by altan: Dec 12 2014, 02:26 PM

@altan

I planning to make my own hotend at the moment , nothing fancy just buy those cheap heat break from ebay and get few alu block for heater, I get my friend to mill me a heatshink or re-use what ever I have in my hand,

I'm not a fan of PEEK jhead, going full metal all the way , but yes having spare in hand really help when the time you need it

Yup, good way to go with fabricating your own hotend. If you can, you should make your own Alu heatbreak without teflon sleeving so you can work with much higher temp material like Polycarbonate or Nylon. I know a guy who built a monster of a machine and he is printing PC parts for his projects.

0.2 is abit overkill, i printed with 0.3 and wow 400 is alot...

alu heat break sound fun , btw have you guys see the new E3D cyclops hotend? dam nice 2 filament 1 nozzle! tempted to pre-order one

http://e3d-online.com/Cyclops

This post has been edited by DarkTenno: Dec 12 2014, 02:48 PM

0.2 is overkill for general reprappers but for a company that specializes in 3D printing service and is guaranteed to deliver quality prints and service then that is the international market standard for "Low grade" quality. Now the best quality is when you can print down to 0.05mm or 50 microns. There is this person I spoke to before and he says he is starting a company making toys using 3D printing so he intends to print all the toys at 0.05 mm. Its crazy s*** but that's how they survive in Singapore.

I have not come across this website before but check out their pricing and their description for "PLA plastic". http://3dmatters.com.sg/services/

0.05mm dam crazy I still having trouble printing 0.1mm lol

Looks, good. I always thought of developing a single nozzle dual feeder hotend but don't have the budget and tools for it.

Apparently its all bowden fed and does not include the stepper motor end. There will also be some color mixing issues since it looks like it will be sharing the same melt chamber.

I wonder how the firmware and slicer decide which filament to choose and feed?

I am at 0.06 mm and have a few clients who printed really small parts with me before.

I think the concept is still the same as dual extrusion as it still using 2 extruder just 1 hotend, even in slic3r it see extruder not hotend , what nozzle size you use for the 0.06 print? and with your UP? average printing speed?

I have try to calibrate my kossel to print as low as 0.06 consider it as a challenge for myself

How much are u budgeting the hotend to cost?

Because building is fun,just like Lego.

This post has been edited by feiming: Dec 12 2014, 03:08 PM

well hotend depend, you can usually get below RM200 hotend from ebay

Yes but there the hotend temp 0 and 1 which needs some setup... Anyway lets just wait till the reviews come out.

I am not using an UP printer, its a Printrbot and that's the only printer I have. I can print with a 0.4mm or 0.3 mm nozzle at 60 mm/sec.

Prototype wise, about RM 200 at first but for production, say RM50 each? I can design the hotend using a CAD software myself but someone has to be able to make the mold and cast it out in aluminium, hence why I started learning metal casting.

Yup, building is fun and about lego, you could try building a reprap printer out of a lego mindstorm set... Just saying

oh ok so you printing 0.06mm at 60m/s with 0.4 nozzle? that quite fast , most of the alu heatsink usually made with lathe machine not sure if they used metal casting for it

Yes, typically a small drill press, tap and die set, hack saw, and a dremel is the most basic stuff for making the most simplest hotends out there. Just get alu rods and steel threaded rods and start hacking away.

Metal casting is good for complex geometries that lathes can't do but production wise is slow and expensive because of the mold making process.

Lathes are great but the cheapest I found was RM 1.5k and its at my neighborhood hardware shop. It doesn't come with a motor too.

I have used a lathe before and its not easy to learn to make clean clear cuts, because of the alignment issues and the type of cutting bit to use.

On a side note, surprisingly there is an instructable page on building a lego 3dprinter http://www.instructables.com/id/LEGO-bot-3d-printer/

This post has been edited by altan: Dec 12 2014, 03:38 PM

wow at 60mm/sec? My newly built prusa is maxing at 35. If the print is large i can go 45, but any small strutctures i need to go slow. like say a 5mm x 5mm cube structure.

Yup, that what I always set for my slicer settings and from ball park calculation, I seem to be extruding at 12 grams per hour at 0.2mm which to me is consider decent enough. At first I thought 60 mm/s was considered slow because other printers like the Ultimaker or Makerbot are running close to 100 mm/s. One way to make your print go faster is to first reduce the carriage weight, say using smaller hotends and motor and then later go for a bowden extruder. I have tried printing with a make shift bowden extruder setup at 100 mm/s on an experimental printer. 100 mm/s prints are really fascinating to watch.



Also if you are using CURA, you can set the minimum layer time which will automatically slow down the print for small areas. Its the backlashing on the carriage that causes the frames to shake about when its is printing at fast and short strokes. Slic3r has a setting for this case where you can auto slow down the small area prints. Besides, the printer I am am using is designed and made entirely from steel and aluminium so the frame is really sturdy and doesn't sag or warp in anyway during prints.

Regarding bowden extruder, in case anyone wants to tryout the upgrade, I can provide some parts for the bowden kit.

This post has been edited by altan: Dec 12 2014, 08:42 PM

really? my prusa i3 is print much faster than that for on 0.2mm layer height, non print move I maxed 150m/s



altan can you share your normal cura setting, interested to try cura


This post has been edited by DarkTenno: Dec 12 2014, 08:45 PM