Hey guys how are you?
I’ve been following the group for some time now, and I was wondering if you can point me in the right direction.
I want to start my own business designing and producing toys, and decoration stuff (Initially is something small, almost personalized products).
I hace experience creating simple clay sculptures to use as “templates” for casting, and also have experience in 3d modelling and scultping. Now my question is: from all the options available, ¿what could be a good printer, not to expensive but with enough quality print to create molds and create several copies from it?
Also, as I live in Colombia, I have to take into account the accesibility to the materials and parts, because there’s almost nothing related to 3D Printing here… Any ideas?
I do like my printrbot. most of its parts can be sources at a general store (sand paper, string, plywood, screws, rubber tubing) the parts in the kit that could be difficult to source are more lasting (steppers, threaded rods, smooth rods, linear bearings, hobbled gear, and hot end) I was able to repair my simple with literally things i had in my junk drawer when i broke a string. and was able to print while i waited for parts. If i were in a remote area i may consider ordering a few spare nozzles and maybe a hot end. As for print quality, i have done .1mm layer height, but it takes took long, so i print at .3mm. It is really cheap as well.
If you decide you want to you can reuse almost all of the parts to make a delta bot again most of the parts would be found at a local hardware store, but that would be a big project and time sink.
@Camerin_hahn Thank’s!
I guess I’ll just have to study a LOT of the technical side of 3d printing and how the printers work, because I wouldn’t know what to do if one piece gets screwed up… hehe.
One other thing though, with almost every printer I’ve seen each layer is too noticeable, that’s something I don’t want if I’m making molds and casting later… How can I avoid that?
@Julian_Perez If you do decide to do vapor smoothing, you will loose crispness on the model. Also there is a Heated bed upgrade for the simple, that could allow you to do ABS, but i have not tried.
There is a way to create a digital version of your sculptures using a 3D scanner/digitizer. The best one Zi have found for my needs is by a company called Matterform. They started financing their 3D scanner using a crowd funding service called indiegogo. I supported their campaign and should be receiving the Photon 3D scanner from them at the end of February. There are software based apps that might help but are buggy and seem expensive compared to the software + hardware solution provided by the Photon.
Good luck with creating the 3D printer you need. I can’t offer any advice for that.
