[Lab] Lab Digest, Vol 53, Issue 17
John Nicol
john_nicol at hotmail.com
Thu Jul 17 12:28:02 EDT 2014
Hi Justin,
I have purchased two crowd-funded 3D printers and been burnt by a third
shyster. A MakiBox www.makibox.com, a Pheonix 3D printer www.ez3d.org and
the infamous Bill Steele Ultibot and Pimaker
http://forums.reprap.org/read.php?1,289993 (who also showed his printers on
my booth at an airshow last year in the US BTW before I realized he was a
con-artist) . My experiences have been less than satisfactory to
nightmarish. The MakiBox is now dead and does not print. The company is
basically in receivership and it is doubtful they will survive. The Pheonix
arrived as a kit six months later than their promised delivery only about 10
days ago. The parts were wrapped in paper, thrown in a box that got almost
beaten to death in shipping. It arrived with no instructions and parts
missing. Their support has been very poor with days going between replies
to calls for help. I cannibalized the MakiBox to try to get the phoenix
working (I was missing a motor), and still struggling with my 3D puzzle of
pain. (Can you tell I am peed off yet?)
This is cowboy territory in the 3d printer space. I have not looked at
these specific sites you listed, however things to avoid that I have found
with my experiences to date:
1. a bunch of young guys at a hacker space that get together to create the
next great 3D printer with no business or supply chain management
experience. Guaranteed fail.
2. rely on an unproven idea to improve x or y that is apparently a problem
in current 3D printers that isn't
3. relying on 3D printed parts to make the 3D printer. Absolutely not
scalable. Taking 12-24 hours to print out parts for a single 3D printer is
an unsustainable business model.
4. you will wait months, or even over a year to get your printer, if they
are still in business at that time.
So for what it is worth, my advice is to spend the extra money on a printer
that is already on the market, ships as an assembled unit and has support.
Avoid crowd-funded printers like the plague. Or maybe it is me batting 3
for 3 with crowd-funded printers?
If I was to do a crowd-funded 3D printer from all the lessons learned so
far, it would not be cheap, it would be made out of metal and I would have
100 in stock before even starting the crowd-funding. :-P
John
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Sent: July-17-14 12:00 PM
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Subject: Lab Digest, Vol 53, Issue 17
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Today's Topics:
1. Crowd funded 3d printers (Justin Slootsky)
2. Re: Crowd funded 3d printers (Jason Arnold)
3. Re: Crowd funded 3d printers (Darcy Whyte)
4. Meet your maker thing (Darcy Whyte)
5. Re: Crowd funded 3d printers (aaron at ottawarobotics.org)
6. Another contender for the Ottawa Hacker Challenge (Darcy Whyte)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 08:19:31 -0400
From: Justin Slootsky <justin at slootsky.org>
To: <lab at artengine.ca>
Subject: [Lab] Crowd funded 3d printers
Message-ID:
<14744435850.2771.2e2f989244ce37d2f400f0f750647d04 at slootsky.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
There are two 3d printers on different crowd funding sites that look
interesting and I'm considering getting one of them.
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/craftbot-3d-printer
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cobblebot/cobblebot-3d-printer
If any of you 3d printer people have the time to look at and critique (or
praise) these printers, I'd appreciate it. Also if there are other low(ish)
priced commercially available printers (or kits) that I should be
considering.
One thing I'd like to do that neither of these talk about is use ninjaflex
filament. I understand that the feed system needs certain characteristics to
use ninjaflex, but I'm not clear on what the requirements are. (possibly the
feed needs to be near the extruder so it doesn't bend like an octranspo bus
in the snow)
If you think it is more appropriate to contact me offlist, feel free.
Thanks
------------------------------
Message: 2
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 09:06:17 -0400
From: Jason Arnold <arnold.jason at gmail.com>
To: Justin Slootsky <justin at slootsky.org>
Cc: lab <lab at artengine.ca>
Subject: Re: [Lab] Crowd funded 3d printers
Message-ID:
<CA+5xPfZrBeg5fmL+bkjuhbNd_Gj0s5gQ85m7jm-0ibDm8CjvnQ at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
I'm not qualified to comment on your links, but I've been researching the
current budget champ: the Printrbot Simple for few weeks now. It starts at
$349 US ($309 if you cut your own wood!) for a kit and has gotten lots of
love - excellent bang for the buck. The $599 (assembled, $539 in kit form)
Simple Metal is a step up quality-wise from what I've read - owing to it's
improved stoutness at the expense of increased weight (in case you planned
on travelling with it). They both use the same print head and have recently
received an Adafruit-engineered upgrade that makes them Ninjaflex-compatible
(which was also big consideration for me since I want to get into printing
flexy stuff too...maybe a model of an OC Transpo bus haha).
On a side note, I started a Ninjaflex thread here about a month ago if you
wanna read up on what goes in to making a printer compatible. As I
understand it:
- A "direct drive" print head is needed to hold the filament directly over
the work rather than a "Bowden-tube" type that feeds the filament from a
distance through a tube.
- The tradeoff is that a direct drive head is heavier, meaning slower print
times.
Anyone more knowledgeable is welcome to chime in here.
*Jason*
2014-07-17 8:19 GMT-04:00 Justin Slootsky <justin at slootsky.org>:
> There are two 3d printers on different crowd funding sites that look
> interesting and I'm considering getting one of them.
>
> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/craftbot-3d-printer
>
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cobblebot/cobblebot-3d-printer
>
> If any of you 3d printer people have the time to look at and critique
> (or
> praise) these printers, I'd appreciate it. Also if there are other
> low(ish) priced commercially available printers (or kits) that I
> should be considering.
>
> One thing I'd like to do that neither of these talk about is use
> ninjaflex filament. I understand that the feed system needs certain
> characteristics to use ninjaflex, but I'm not clear on what the
> requirements are. (possibly the feed needs to be near the extruder so
> it doesn't bend like an octranspo bus in the snow)
>
> If you think it is more appropriate to contact me offlist, feel free.
>
> Thanks
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lab mailing list
> 1. subscribe http://artengine.ca/mailman/listinfo/lab
> 2. then email Lab at artengine.ca to send your message to the list
>
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Message: 3
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 09:27:34 -0400
From: Darcy Whyte <darcy at siteware.com>
To: Justin Slootsky <justin at slootsky.org>
Cc: lab <lab at artengine.ca>
Subject: Re: [Lab] Crowd funded 3d printers
Message-ID:
<CAGTEw4xQ-BNC8UjmdmJJYdR1CSJg=8do01+9O-wh_gnfmJW6EA at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
I think it's better to get an existing machine since it may take a while to
get one of these.
--
Darcy Whyte
Software Since '88 siteware.com | Contact: darcy at siteware.com |
613-563-3634 by appointment
Canada N 45? 25'03.1" W 75? 42'21.4"
Art+ inventorArtist.com <http://inventorartist.com/> | Aviation
rubber-power.com
On Thu, Jul 17, 2014 at 8:19 AM, Justin Slootsky <justin at slootsky.org>
wrote:
> There are two 3d printers on different crowd funding sites that look
> interesting and I'm considering getting one of them.
>
> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/craftbot-3d-printer
>
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cobblebot/cobblebot-3d-printer
>
> If any of you 3d printer people have the time to look at and critique
> (or
> praise) these printers, I'd appreciate it. Also if there are other
> low(ish) priced commercially available printers (or kits) that I
> should be considering.
>
> One thing I'd like to do that neither of these talk about is use
> ninjaflex filament. I understand that the feed system needs certain
> characteristics to use ninjaflex, but I'm not clear on what the
> requirements are. (possibly the feed needs to be near the extruder so
> it doesn't bend like an octranspo bus in the snow)
>
> If you think it is more appropriate to contact me offlist, feel free.
>
> Thanks
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lab mailing list
> 1. subscribe http://artengine.ca/mailman/listinfo/lab
> 2. then email Lab at artengine.ca to send your message to the list
>
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Message: 4
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 10:21:11 -0400
From: Darcy Whyte <darcy at inventorArtist.com>
To: lab <lab at artengine.ca>
Subject: [Lab] Meet your maker thing
Message-ID:
<CAGTEw4wanXT8S-TBTUpiLevRuX8n62Ce_z8cg9hti8Jecps11A at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
Is this just some of the makers? Is the general public coming? Where's the
event posted?
--
Darcy Whyte
Art+ inventorArtist.com <http://inventorartist.com/> | Aviation
rubber-power.com
Contact: darcy at inventorArtist.com | 613-563-3634 by appointment (no text)
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Message: 5
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 10:46:35 -0400
From: aaron at ottawarobotics.org
To: lab at artengine.ca
Subject: Re: [Lab] Crowd funded 3d printers
Message-ID: <96e5379fa64a8fdeba79005dcc1bfb57 at ottawarobotics.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
The craftbot seems to be a bit of fluff. They are talking like they are
fixing problems, but really they are targeting "issues" from a year or two
ago and aren't really coming up with much new. The custom software and
hardware makes me think that you'll end up regretting not having a standard
solution later on when these guys go out of business and you are left
holding the bag.
The Cobblebot looks like it will end up being a wobblebot. Bigger printers
need better mechanical structure and it looks like they've just increased
the dimensions without much thought. Also the price is really aggressive...
There isn't any margin for mistakes or problems along the way. That leads to
failed kickstarters normally.
I'm with Darcy... buy an existing printer which is proven rather than
promises of greatness 6 months to a year out. A lot can change between now
and when these things maybe deliver... why not print in the meantime.
Personally I like the Printrbot Simple as a good starter printer.
Decently priced, good community support and robust. Once you have that,
build the next one from scratch using the Printrbot to print parts and
upgrades.
Aaron
On 2014-07-17 08:19, Justin Slootsky wrote:
> There are two 3d printers on different crowd funding sites that look
> interesting and I'm considering getting one of them.
>
> https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/craftbot-3d-printer
>
> https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/cobblebot/cobblebot-3d-printer
>
> If any of you 3d printer people have the time to look at and critique
> (or praise) these printers, I'd appreciate it. Also if there are other
> low(ish) priced commercially available printers (or kits) that I
> should be considering.
>
> One thing I'd like to do that neither of these talk about is use
> ninjaflex filament. I understand that the feed system needs certain
> characteristics to use ninjaflex, but I'm not clear on what the
> requirements are. (possibly the feed needs to be near the extruder so
> it doesn't bend like an octranspo bus in the snow)
>
> If you think it is more appropriate to contact me offlist, feel free.
>
> Thanks
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Lab mailing list
> 1. subscribe http://artengine.ca/mailman/listinfo/lab
> 2. then email Lab at artengine.ca to send your message to the list
------------------------------
Message: 6
Date: Thu, 17 Jul 2014 11:37:24 -0400
From: Darcy Whyte <darcy at inventorArtist.com>
To: lab <lab at artengine.ca>
Subject: [Lab] Another contender for the Ottawa Hacker Challenge
Message-ID:
<CAGTEw4x2iqzsypdt+NvEv_=120keMDt0wQqart==UAxUx=VyhA at mail.gmail.com>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
http://inventorartist.com/ohc/
Peter was in 2nd on the first challenge with his lance...
Voting is open by the way...
--
Darcy Whyte
Art+ inventorArtist.com <http://inventorartist.com/> | Aviation
rubber-power.com
Contact: darcy at inventorArtist.com | 613-563-3634 by appointment (no text)
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