Just look at the difference between the prices of E3D and E3D lite the second apparently being made because of all the E3D cheap clones
Don't have to be complex to be a big price diff
- Thread starter ukracer
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Don't have to be complex to be a big price diff
Be nice to see a photo of that..Complete, they don't sell the little bits as spares anymore.
Doing prototypes and visualization models of new designs.
Also buying prints when needed. Did a large one a while ago of an existing product that had to loose a couple of kg's to be handled at a trade fair.
A 100 kg casting printed in PA, then hand tapped a lot of holes, M6 to M32 ...
Painted and then assembled rest of the real components. You should have seen people's faces as I carried it from the lab shop to the office
AndersK
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Not yet mate.
No, the lite is PTFE lined so doesn't have temp range and capability to print all the materials of the more expensive oneSo essentially the original V6 was over priced even allowing for the fact that China are destroying our retail by subsidising the post from there.
Plus anyone can make a copy cheaper if not paying their own R&D
Dont you just change the throat??
I got mine printing tonight using an all steel throat. Turns out i was right all along but it took me a while to find out that i was and even longer to realise why i was right. Lol
Buying a prebuilt machine has its benefits but also pitfalls. Especially when the spares fit but not exactly.
I knew 0.4mm was small but when i managed to get a pack of micro drills i was amazed exactly how small.
Somehow the only nozzle i had that was the right length managed to get blocked with something other than PLA. but a gas ring burnt out what was actually in it....the drill reamed it round again. No way could i drill out what was blocking it with the tools i have at my disposal currently.
As for R and D its all relative. Inventors dont get paid till stuff sells........
PhillipM
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It's pretty easy, E3D is a small UK firm that did all the design and R&D and a lot of community support, and then 10,000 places in china knocked them off in 5 minutes and sell 'em at half the price because they had no costs, and even have the cheek to list and sell them as 'e3d' parts.
However, put an e3d block and nozzle at the side of a chinese one and you'll see the difference in quality straight away.
However, put an e3d block and nozzle at the side of a chinese one and you'll see the difference in quality straight away.
Given away free BUT was not free to do.Keeping in mind that the original reprap r&d was ‘open’, and out there for anyone to make for themselves. So you do have to be a teeny bit careful about complaining about r&d, when the original r&d was given away free.
University of Bath and Research Council funding.
Point being UK tax payers paid that R&D mostly which is cool but it wasn't free to come by and they didn't have the commercial constraints of having to be viable and could hence give it away
mrsbruce
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And giving it away free was the main principle, in fact the idealology behind it. All because they wanted everyone to build and develop their own machines, free of commercial profit, and most of the work was through donations (I know, because I donated). Lots of individuals developing the software and hardware, then the commercial stuff came in.
That is why I find it mildy amusing about China doing knock offs, because the basic premise of the reprap, was access for all, and you can’t deny that low cost Chinese machine has opened the door to 3D printing to the bloke on the street.
An example is a kickstarter machine I was interest in getting involved in, but they took so long developing it, China was already making a similar design that actually worked, way below the price the kickstarters wanted, and long before the UK chaps. They had it on the market way before the kickstarter crowd had got their act together (months of nothing happening, and lack of communication). And yet that machine was really just a dirivation of the existing open source machine.
As i said above i do get the annoyance China is causing, especially free of postage costs for medium size low value items to UK suppliers. I appreciate you do need a small fee for development etc but 50 quid an item is excessive.
Anyway..lol
I got my machine printing again. Went back to the old settings after i got it working and instantly transfomed quality.
Sadly i now have adhesion problems. I have not had these up to now.......but.....these issues have coincided with me running out of the hair spray given to me with the machine.
I have had to start using a new one. This new one is a different design can but from the same place lidl.
I am using a heated bed at 50 which worked before but not any more.
I am pretty certain the issue is with nozzle height being altered.....and that is what i am trying to print ironically (a micro z stop adjuster)
I got my machine printing again. Went back to the old settings after i got it working and instantly transfomed quality.
Sadly i now have adhesion problems. I have not had these up to now.......but.....these issues have coincided with me running out of the hair spray given to me with the machine.
I have had to start using a new one. This new one is a different design can but from the same place lidl.
I am using a heated bed at 50 which worked before but not any more.
I am pretty certain the issue is with nozzle height being altered.....and that is what i am trying to print ironically (a micro z stop adjuster)
mrsbruce
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I have said it before, and I’ll say it again. Get yourself a ‘Printbyte’ board, it solved my filament adhesion problems. Only downside fir some machines is it only works with a heated bed, but I always use a heated bed, even with PLA.
Tried hairspray, masking tape, pritstick, and kaptan(?) tape, but they just didn’t do it for me.
Tried hairspray, masking tape, pritstick, and kaptan(?) tape, but they just didn’t do it for me.
Where from i cant see any on ebay..
mrsbruce
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That’s because I can’t spell. Well saying I’m not on commission. The product is PrintBite, and the website is www.flex3drive.com.
The adhesion step change is relatively normal
The anet A8 comes with a course masking not tape on the bed with awesome adhesion
Once you change it you have to relearn
Consider brim / raft or even just dropping a shape on the plate 0.2mm thick as your own large brim
Later Cura appear to allow brim size custom
Also some people like frog tape and a wipe withmeths
I occasionally roughen the tape with an emery board
My head is set a bit close but squashes the PLA down on it at the moment (needs sorting as a little bit of baconing ) so no probs
The anet A8 comes with a course masking not tape on the bed with awesome adhesion
Once you change it you have to relearn
Consider brim / raft or even just dropping a shape on the plate 0.2mm thick as your own large brim
Later Cura appear to allow brim size custom
Also some people like frog tape and a wipe withmeths
I occasionally roughen the tape with an emery board
My head is set a bit close but squashes the PLA down on it at the moment (needs sorting as a little bit of baconing ) so no probs
Big difference between replicating what you have permission to replicate and replicating what you don't have permission to replicate
AndersK
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I have learnt that too much adhesive gives the opposite effect.
I put on just a few strokes with glue stick and the smear it out with a wet paper.
If you are getting poor adhesion ( it will degradedwith time) wash all of the old off before applying anything new.
I put on just a few strokes with glue stick and the smear it out with a wet paper.
If you are getting poor adhesion ( it will degradedwith time) wash all of the old off before applying anything new.
PhillipM
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There's no excuse, they induced all the costs as a private firm and got their designs ripped off and even sold under their own businesses name.
It's even sillier when they've given the licencing away for simple attribution.
You'd be screaming blue murder if you'd spent a year of your life developing some welded/fabricated component that worked damned well and then they immediately got copied by a dozen companies and your market flooded. Especially if they all sold them as "Genuine MrsBruces Components"
Yes, buy the clones if you really can't stretch to the e3d ones, but don't pretend it's altruistic to be doing so, that's how all the actual development and progress gets killed in the industry because nobody else will bother trying to develop anything, we've already seen it with other parts firms, guys doing firmwire and boards that have just said enough, etc. In almost all of those cases they were people and firms that made the vast majority of their ideas/improvements open source to help push development.
It's even more of a slap in the face when the guys running e3d also put a lot of time making lots of improvements and upgrades open source as they went through developing nozzles, and then the sellers blatently ignore the simple crediting the licencing requires and add insult to injury by trying to pretend they're e3d's own nozzles.
Anyway, back to printers - if you are on a tight budget, the best thing is to buy the heater block/heatbreak/sensors/heaters from the chinese resellers, and then fit a genuine e3d nozzle in there. That's where most of the QC difference is.
It's even sillier when they've given the licencing away for simple attribution.
You'd be screaming blue murder if you'd spent a year of your life developing some welded/fabricated component that worked damned well and then they immediately got copied by a dozen companies and your market flooded. Especially if they all sold them as "Genuine MrsBruces Components"
Yes, buy the clones if you really can't stretch to the e3d ones, but don't pretend it's altruistic to be doing so, that's how all the actual development and progress gets killed in the industry because nobody else will bother trying to develop anything, we've already seen it with other parts firms, guys doing firmwire and boards that have just said enough, etc. In almost all of those cases they were people and firms that made the vast majority of their ideas/improvements open source to help push development.
It's even more of a slap in the face when the guys running e3d also put a lot of time making lots of improvements and upgrades open source as they went through developing nozzles, and then the sellers blatently ignore the simple crediting the licencing requires and add insult to injury by trying to pretend they're e3d's own nozzles.
Anyway, back to printers - if you are on a tight budget, the best thing is to buy the heater block/heatbreak/sensors/heaters from the chinese resellers, and then fit a genuine e3d nozzle in there. That's where most of the QC difference is.
