Got a 3D printer now, it's fun!

[Nacho]

[takai]

Looks like Aldi will have a $500 Prusa i3 clone on sale next week. Would be a great way to get into it if you dont already have one. Kind of wish i didnt have a 99% working one atm.

[Shonky]

How shitful will that Aldi thing be?

Some decent technical comments here about them
https://www.ozbargain.com.au/node/233946

[takai]

Got a 3D printer now, it's fun!

It's a Prusa i3 so quite decent.

The majority of that thread is pretty rubbish. I'm one of the people commenting.

[Benonymous]

So long as you're prepared to put a decent extruder on the Aldi one it'll probably be OK. Prusa i3's can be tricky to set up and the chassis is very flexible. For best results, they need to be fixed to a flat surface or a heavy MDF board, then aligned.

[Marty!]

I got a vellman k8200, put a .4 nozzle on it and a direct drive extruder and printed a bunch of upgrades for it. It goes good. Made my first thing from scratch over the last few days just learning sketchup and printing it in cura. Got a pi to go on it too but its not working properly yet

[6000SUX]

So long as you're prepared to put a decent extruder on the Aldi one it'll probably be OK. Prusa i3's can be tricky to set up and the chassis is very flexible. For best results, they need to be fixed to a flat surface or a heavy MDF board, then aligned.

I'm thinking of getting one of these next week. Thanks for the tip on the MDF board base.

Can you post a link to a decent extruder that you'd recommend for the Prusa i3?

[takai]

Best bit will be to print a Bowden adaptor for one, then you can mount the guts of it off board.

The Wanhao copy seems to be relatively decent in rigidity due to the sheet metal frame.

[Stix Zadinia]

printer choice is doing my head in, i was set on the wombot 3d, but after seeing that aldi one, and the velman k8200 i can't decide.

i want to make a heap of NLA fiddly black plastic parts like speaker grills, a couple of vents, and seat hinge covers

[Benonymous]

The Aldi one looks OK. It's got a direct drive extruder, probably the one with the PEEK plastic feed tube. These work well if you limit the amount of retract in the extrusion settings to around 2mm rather than the 4.5 that Cura defaults to (for the ultimaker.). For the money, I don't see a big difference between this and the Wombot but there will be zero after sales support with the Aldi one. The Aldi unit is probably worth a try, it's got a heated bed and the chassis looks decent. Good value at $499 versus $850 or so for the Wombot. I wouldn't convert it to Bowden as I really think bowden sucks, especially with flexible filaments. I'll give you a hand to get it tuned in if you get one. Leave the extruder swap 'till later but a good one is the E3D V6 Lite.

[takai]

Why dont you like Bowdens? Gets the majority of the print head off the gantry, at the slight expense of having to have a rigid feed tube.

[6000SUX]

No turning back now I guess....

[Shonky]

Good luck. Let us know when you've printed your first jet engine. Actually when you print something of use.

I'm trying to justify buying something like this myself. Would occasionally use it for work (although work should pay for it then) and the old little thing around home so probably can't justify it even for $500.

[takai]

Looks familiar:


Plan is to muck around with it and if i prefer my Prusa i3 then i have a couple of mates who are interested in it, or it goes back in 60 days.

[takai]

Up and running. Just tuning settings in Slic3r until i realised that Cura is available for Mac now.