Hello everyone
I’m watching you guys building this F1 one car and it looks so good. I have been looking for a 3d printer for a long time and can’t decide which one i should get.
I want to print pla, abs, nylon and ninja flex. So maybe you guys can suggest me a good one.
Thanks in advance.
From what I read the prusa i3 models should be able to do this and at the same time deliver quality unseen I the price range with one source software and hardware so you can upgrade if you like at a later point.
Are you looking for a cheap Prusa i3 kit ($250), commercial 3D printer from Printrbot ($600), or a quality machine from Lulzbot or Utilmaker ($2000).
Your budget is the main factor in selecting a printer, followed by your experience / mechanical aptitude, desire to tinker vs. print objects, etc…
For filament like nylon, you will want to focus on an “all-metal” hotend capable of reaching 300 degrees Celsius. Most cheap kits come with J-head clones good to 250 or so due to the PEEK in the construction, but can be swapped out for an E3D hot end ($80ish). For ninjaflex and other flexible filament, you normally want to avoid bowden extruders and focus on a direct drive extruder.
Tail an nylons print at way below 300. The Printrbot play is $399 and supports all these materials
Biased
Brook
Printrbot
@Brook_Drumm sorry if I implied Printrbot couldn’t handle hotter filaments, wasn’t sure what kind of hot end you used, though I did want to mention it as a good starter printer. Also thanks for correcting my price.
Almost all printers will fit your requirements. It’s just based off of how much you want to spend and how much you want to tinker. Ninjaflex and other flexible filaments can be printed on a Bowden setup like the Bondtech extruder. There are videos on this forum posted last Saturday that show a Bowden extruder printing tires on an ultimachine equipped with a Bondtech extruder. My favorite type of printers are Delta Machines, but like I said: all printers equipped with the right hotend and a heat bed will produce great prints if calibrated correctly.
No worries! The Simply is $599. We (ok, Sam) happen to be printing an F1 now on a simple at .1mm - looks really good!
@Brook_Drumm ha! I just figured out who you are. I thought you were just a fellow rc fan who I was talking with about a carbon fiber airplane now you’re a fellow rc fan who like me would wants a carbon airplane, but is also the CEO of printerbot. Had to post this. It made me laugh.
Thanks guys. The more i spent the less i want to fiddling around.
I saw prusa kits on bangood and amazon, price is low but after reading a lot if reviews I’m struggling to buy one of those. Lack of informations and “this is longer then that”…“bent shaft…”.
I like the deltas by the look and the don’t require much room. I saw one on bangood and i found a kossel delta. But if i see the printed “spider” i don’t think it will last long. First because of the heat of the hotend and heated bed.
One more thing about the printers in general, how important is the position precision? Layerthickness of. 1 is ok but if there stands position precision of .1-.3 doesn’t sound good to my ears.
They called the thing that is hold by the 6arms (on a delta printer) and that holds the hotend.
I love deltas aswell and there are also incredible cheap ones on like aliexpress for 240€ incl. customs but keep in mind. Every common delta runs a bowden hotend with 1.75mm. Printing NinjaFlex or any other TPU with this can be extremly frustrating. If you want a real workhorse without the need to do anything yourself consider an Ultimaker 2 (3mm) or Craftbot, Witbox or something like this with an direct drive extruder. Personally i highly recommend a DIY kit since it is incredibly cheap and you learn how your machine works down to the smallest bit (also how to improve it).
@Klaus_Daume thanks for the input.
I found the Ultimaker 2 and the Up Box (Afinia H800) at my research. Makerbot are so expensive…
It should be able to print high quality because I’m considering to use it for fpv copters, cars, rc planes and cold casting. 2k is the absolute limit so my wife won’t kill me 
For drones and stuff like this (propably also for R/C cars) you may have a look at carbon composite filaments (colorfab XT-CF20 or CarbonFill or whatever the seller call it). But be aware that carbon strings may wear out your nozzle. Get an stainless steel nozzle or some extra ones (mostly cheap chinese nozzles do the job well too). If it comes down to money you may also consider this project: https://www.youmagine.com/designs/smartcore . I made one like this in just 5 hours and it is very reliable. However i know 2 ppl running UM2 and they produce great results!
@AvanSuti hmm. I never heard it called that before. We call that the effector.
When you do get your printer think about enclosing it in a case. Makes it much more pleasant to be around when you don’t smell any fumes.
@Klaus_Daume yesterday i found Taulman Alloy 910 (Nylon) and it is very promising! Thank you for the tip about smartcore, carbon filament and about the nozzles!
@brett_turnage i read it somewhere and i assumed it’s called like that.
I was thinking about to close it but wasn’t sure if it would get to hot in there. And why do some printers have a fan on it and some not (next to the hotend)?
That’s pretty easy. Depending on the material you print you will want some temperature effects to be applied. Most high temp materials (ABS, Nylon and alikes) are easy. They don’t stuck inside of hotend and also suffer from warp when you cool the printed object. But PLA is very difficult in this manner. If the area above the heatblock of your hotend gets too warm (50°C and above) and you use a fullmetal hotend the PLA may connect and glue to the inner wall of your hotend. Also you gain a much cleaner surface when you print PLA and cool the already deposed layers with an additional fan. Short conclusion, with PTFE inlay you don’t necessarly need a hotend fan (it still helps though) but you max temperature is limited to ~250°C due to PTFE (may melt too). The working horse solution is to use 2 coolers, one permanent at the hotend and one software driven to cool the print. Anyway there are also pressure air or water driven coolers for the hotend.
Yah. I use water cooled hotend on both of my delta printers because they are enclosed in heated chambers or an enclosure that I heat to 60C when doing large ABS pieces which prevents warping.
I’m a big fan of building things myself because you skip paying overhead, learn all the intricate details and inner workings of the machine (which is knowledge you will need in getting it calibrated and usual maintence). Also, if you build it yourself you get to specifically pick out parts instead of just taking what a kit gives you. On the last point for instance you can choose to use metal or plastic injection molded parts instead of 3D printer parts which will be better for keeping the calibration and also nice if you want to beat the printer up in a heated build chamber, or if you want a e3d hotend (pretty much the standard in all metal hotends) instead of the standard hotend that ships with kits, or better electronics (32 bit controller vs. 8 bit Ramps/Arduino controller), etc… If you build it your own you will learn all of these things.
The funny thing is that if you buy a kit online, let’s say one of the kossel kits from China you may get injected molded plastic which is a plus, but you will still have to learn how to assemble it and how to change settings in the firmware because it comes unassembled and has no instructions, so it is basically a kit of parts to make a printer. Still, if it is cheap enough and comes with enough of the raw materials it may be good to buy one and then upgrade some of the parts.
When I was getting into printing a year ago I had to think about what types of things I would be printing and how large of a build area I needed. I’m a car guy and I use my printer for prototyping parts so I wanted a large build area. I choose to build a Rostock 3D printer because it has a very large z-height and speed. Think about the size of the prints that you want and it may help narrow down your choices. Still, understand the if you have a part that you want to print which is larger than your bed you can cut the part or split it into pieces with a program like Netfabb basic. Also want to point out that Bowden type extruders usually have a hard time with flexible filament, but the Bondtech extruder which is shown on the main page printing on an Ultimachine obviously accomplishes that task well; however Bondtechs are a $120 extruder. For me that price was worth it as my 3D printer extruder was my only weak spot as it was unreliable–it had a tendency to skip or stop pushing filament and that lead to failed parts. I eliminated that problem by buying a Bondtech and now my printer is as reliable as night and day.
Another tip, when you do get your printer but some Buildtak. It’s a bed material which allows you to print without tape or glue adhesive. Makes your life a lot easier.
Printing is fun and in my opinion being able to build your own is a great experience. The knowledge you gain can lead you to build other printers of different varieties. Right now, I’m building two new printers a large delta printer with a 360mm bed diameter and an SLA/DLP printer which makes parts by curing epoxy resin. I could not have done any of this if I didn’t have the knowledge of building my first printer.
Best of luck in choosing your printer.