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I selected the Anet A8 based on no tech knowledge whatsoever, except a mate bought one and he is a)clever b) did the research and c) it's not a lot if you get it wrong as opposed to going deep and spending more.
My point is there are some twin head ones out there for the same-ish money of unknown quality to me. The point with these is you can have one print head loaded with print material and one loaded with dissolvable support material so you can print way more complex and dissolvable supports, including internal supports for structures. With mine I have to think about and potentially even build in supports but for the most part the rendering software takes care of this but it does have limitations.
Mine also prints PLA, you can make it print ABS plastic and some will print nylon and other materials. A 5 mm square piece of PLA 2" long I can't hold well enough to snap.
However, my mate is printing hose brackets for a kit car so he has tooled his Anet up for ABS with some minor mods and messing. Difference being drop two parts, one ABS and one PLA dropped into cup of boiled water the PLA one will soften and bend - we are talking relatively thin things here. ABS is stable. There are also articles on baking PLA to make it tougher (allegedly) than ABS.
Basically I have had mine a year, it's cheap, good but time has moved on. It suits my needs so no need to re-visit the market review for me.
My point is there are some twin head ones out there for the same-ish money of unknown quality to me. The point with these is you can have one print head loaded with print material and one loaded with dissolvable support material so you can print way more complex and dissolvable supports, including internal supports for structures. With mine I have to think about and potentially even build in supports but for the most part the rendering software takes care of this but it does have limitations.
Mine also prints PLA, you can make it print ABS plastic and some will print nylon and other materials. A 5 mm square piece of PLA 2" long I can't hold well enough to snap.
However, my mate is printing hose brackets for a kit car so he has tooled his Anet up for ABS with some minor mods and messing. Difference being drop two parts, one ABS and one PLA dropped into cup of boiled water the PLA one will soften and bend - we are talking relatively thin things here. ABS is stable. There are also articles on baking PLA to make it tougher (allegedly) than ABS.
Basically I have had mine a year, it's cheap, good but time has moved on. It suits my needs so no need to re-visit the market review for me.
Ahh on mine in "normal use" on a drill it drops them out on top of the work sheet to get bounced everywhere, which is cool if cutting a car so you don't fill the box sections up with rust traps, so when used in the "nibbler table" either way up they exit below the work piece as essentially upside down
Olderisbetter
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………….or scaled down spanner with short handle for keyring
(Mine has a max 220 x 220 x 240 volume so that spanner in link would not fit)
Olderisbetter
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decca
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One of these. Anet A8. Been looking for a while but your post swayed it for me and there are good reviews on YouTube for it.
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/152979333965
https://rover.ebay.com/rover/0/0/0?mpre=https://www.ebay.co.uk/ulk/itm/152979333965
Cool, a word about filaments.
My mate started off with Rigid Ink - gets good reviews
When I bought mine it was out of stock I bought a few rolls of "premium PLA" for £20
Mate then switched to £9.99 a roll PLA off ebay and said not much, if any (my words) difference. Although he is now playing with PLA plus.
All these are 1KG approx. 330 metre 1.75mm
Point being there are good, bad, expensive and cheap materials in PLA before you even get to ABS and others.
Mate has upgraded print heads and various bits in pursuit of quality, I run mine out of the box. 0.1 layer slow, 0.2 layer, slightly coarser finish, half the time. Nibbler holder is 0.2. Currently use 0.3 for non fine parts and speed.
He has added MOSFETS which offload stress from the board, as he is running hotter and longer for ABS that is probably wise, for both the heat bed and the nozzle.
The heat bed connectors go. Both think outside connections have failed in turn on mine so are now hard soldered. I have not gone as far as printed cable chains.
First things most print is a circular cooling duct. Mine was a V2 of someones, but just seen this...……..
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2025400
Then frame braces - one of the "T" corners (or a pair)
Extruder button for comfort.
There are various Y axis upgrades, not done it yet but this makes most sense to me, because it decouples stress from the fram rather than trying to shore up the frame ends
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2045010
Again just my musings, no warranty implied or given.
My mate started off with Rigid Ink - gets good reviews
When I bought mine it was out of stock I bought a few rolls of "premium PLA" for £20
Mate then switched to £9.99 a roll PLA off ebay and said not much, if any (my words) difference. Although he is now playing with PLA plus.
All these are 1KG approx. 330 metre 1.75mm
Point being there are good, bad, expensive and cheap materials in PLA before you even get to ABS and others.
Mate has upgraded print heads and various bits in pursuit of quality, I run mine out of the box. 0.1 layer slow, 0.2 layer, slightly coarser finish, half the time. Nibbler holder is 0.2. Currently use 0.3 for non fine parts and speed.
He has added MOSFETS which offload stress from the board, as he is running hotter and longer for ABS that is probably wise, for both the heat bed and the nozzle.
The heat bed connectors go. Both think outside connections have failed in turn on mine so are now hard soldered. I have not gone as far as printed cable chains.
First things most print is a circular cooling duct. Mine was a V2 of someones, but just seen this...……..
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2025400
Then frame braces - one of the "T" corners (or a pair)
Extruder button for comfort.
There are various Y axis upgrades, not done it yet but this makes most sense to me, because it decouples stress from the fram rather than trying to shore up the frame ends
https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:2045010
Again just my musings, no warranty implied or given.
Thread may have gone off track but is probably usefulI think we need a section for plastic welding..
I'm surprised no one is surprised by printing bolts with threads on to ISO standards
You can get involved in the CAD right now for free, try FreeCad 2.0 it has may tutorials and videos online and forum.
Search the FreeCad 2.0 lofting tool on youtube - a great thing for making ducts / manifolds adapters as you just do two flat sketches minimum and it links them.
Once you have done your cad you export the object to an STL file. Open the STL file with say CURA (comes with Anet A8, others are available) tweak a few options and it makes a file you put on a memory stick and then put in the printer to print. You can print from your pc or laptop but this saves leaving it on for hours if a big print.
That's the basics.
You can, of course, download STL files from many websites and print stuff others have drawn
Search the FreeCad 2.0 lofting tool on youtube - a great thing for making ducts / manifolds adapters as you just do two flat sketches minimum and it links them.
Once you have done your cad you export the object to an STL file. Open the STL file with say CURA (comes with Anet A8, others are available) tweak a few options and it makes a file you put on a memory stick and then put in the printer to print. You can print from your pc or laptop but this saves leaving it on for hours if a big print.
That's the basics.
You can, of course, download STL files from many websites and print stuff others have drawn
Have you got it yet?
Cheapest for me was gearbest.com (you get points that you can spend on it as soon as you add it to basket so cheaper than the price)
Do it, you'll find all sorts of things to make that you never knew you needed before...I might even buy one to play with...
I've done a bit with FreeCad but I'm currently finding it easier to design stuff in OpenSCAD, rather than drawing the item you describe it as a series of shapes so for engineering stuff I find it much easier, also because it's rendered from scratch each time you change the description it's easy to modify any part of it to be bigger/smaller/change angle etc
