3D printers: Difference between revisions
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I got pretty into 3D printing in 2022. Here are some things I've learned. Be aware that the industry moves very quickly, and this information is likely to go out of data within a few years. You'll see the word "fusion" a lot, but despite my earnest prayers it never means nuclear fusion. | I got pretty into 3D printing in 2022. Here are some things I've learned. Be aware that the industry moves very quickly, and this information is likely to go out of data within a few years. You'll see the word "fusion" a lot, but despite my earnest prayers it never means nuclear fusion. | ||
3D printing is incredible technology capable of shifting one's personal paradigm. When it all works out, you feel like a god, willing material and matter into configurations of your own desire. Other times, you go to sleep with a fourteen hour print queued up. Fifteen minutes later, the nascent print is uprooted from the print bed, and begins to move along with the extruder. Twenty minutes after that, the growing nest of crap rotating around the print bed reaches up to the nozzle like so much thermoplastic diarrhea, and the nozzle jams. Yet the print must go on, and the extruder continues to unspool your filament. Perhaps a Roomba will catch it, and they'll clash for the title of Most Infuriating Product. | 3D printing is incredible technology capable of shifting one's personal paradigm. When it all works out, you feel like a god, willing material and matter into configurations of your own desire. Other times, you go to sleep with a fourteen hour print queued up. Fifteen minutes later, the nascent print is uprooted from the print bed, and begins to move along with the extruder. Twenty minutes after that, the growing nest of crap rotating around the print bed reaches up to the nozzle like so much thermoplastic diarrhea, and the nozzle jams. Yet the print must go on, and the extruder continues to unspool your [[Filaments|filament]]. Perhaps a Roomba will catch it, and they'll clash for the title of Most Infuriating Product. | ||
==3D printing methodologies== | ==3D printing methodologies== | ||
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===Which one is right for me?=== | ===Which one is right for me?=== | ||
Honestly? None. No matter which type of printer you use, it's likely to be semi-regularly fucked. Accept that going in. | Honestly? None. No matter which type of printer you use, it's likely to be semi-regularly fucked, and anyone telling you otherwise is a goddamned liar. Accept that going in. | ||
Your choices are primarily FDM or MSLA. Well-known FDM options include Prusa, Ultimaker, Creality, Anycubic, and about four thousand other operations, including the ultra-hip Voron (a kit-only design for which you spend a few weeks sourcing parts, then more-or-less assemble over the course of several increasingly unhappy days). MSLA has only more recently arrived on the mass market, with Elegoo, Phrozen, Formlabs, and some of the FDM folks leading the way. You can acquire an entry-level FDM or MSLA printer for a few hundred dollars (FDM printers are now sometimes available at the $100 mark), with significant improvements available near $1000. At the professional level, choices begin at several thousand dollars, and go up pretty much without bound. I don't know anything about that world. | Your choices are primarily FDM or MSLA. Well-known FDM options include Prusa, Ultimaker, Creality, Anycubic, and about four thousand other operations, including the ultra-hip Voron (a kit-only design for which you spend a few weeks sourcing parts, then more-or-less assemble over the course of several increasingly unhappy days). MSLA has only more recently arrived on the mass market, with Elegoo, Phrozen, Formlabs, and some of the FDM folks leading the way. You can acquire an entry-level FDM or MSLA printer for a few hundred dollars (FDM printers are now sometimes available at the $100 mark), with significant improvements available near $1000. At the professional level, choices begin at several thousand dollars, and go up pretty much without bound. I don't know anything about that world. | ||
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===Selecting an FDM=== | ===Selecting an FDM=== | ||
The gold standard consumer FDM printer is the [https://www.prusa3d.com/category/original-prusa-i3-mk3s/ Prusa i3 MK3S+], currently available in a kit at $800 or assembled for $1100. When properly assembled, it's said to be pretty robust. Whether your dumb ass can properly assemble it is another question entirely. Newer printers such as the [https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/x1-carbon-3d-printer Bambu X1] are bringing more advanced software solutions to bear, though their efficacy is not yet generally proven. The open source Voron design spares no expense in achieving the finest possible consumer FDM hardware solution...but millions of people print with cheap Creality Enders and Anycubic Cobras and are pleased with the results. Spending a few hundred dollars more can improve some quality-of-life issues, but it will not free you of the obligation of understanding how your printer works. You <i>will</i> have to perform some configuration and maintenance, you <i>will</i> have to diagnose some print failures, and you <i>will</i> suffer some printer downtime due to jams and upgrades. | The gold standard consumer FDM printer is the [https://www.prusa3d.com/category/original-prusa-i3-mk3s/ Prusa i3 MK3S+], currently available in a kit at $800 or assembled for $1100. When properly assembled, it's said to be pretty robust. Whether your dumb ass can properly assemble it is another question entirely. Newer printers such as the [https://us.store.bambulab.com/products/x1-carbon-3d-printer Bambu X1] are bringing more advanced software solutions to bear, though their efficacy is not yet generally proven (I can state with personal experience that the motherfucking extruder still jams). The open source Voron design spares no expense in achieving the finest possible consumer FDM hardware solution...but millions of people print with cheap Creality Enders and Anycubic Cobras and are pleased with the results. Spending a few hundred dollars more can improve some quality-of-life issues, but it will not free you of the obligation of understanding how your printer works. You <i>will</i> have to perform some configuration and maintenance, you <i>will</i> have to diagnose some print failures, and you <i>will</i> suffer some printer downtime due to jams and upgrades. | ||
Placing the extruded material in three dimensions requires [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basis_(linear_algebra) moving along three axes]. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-code G-code] is sent to the printer to specify this movement. Polar printers spin either the printbed or the extruder in a circle, using polar coordinates <i>r</i>, <i>θ</i>, and <i>z</i>. Cartesian printers use <i>x</i>, <i>y</i>, and <i>z</i>. In CoreXY, and Cartesian-XY printers the bed itself moves along the z axis. Cartesian-XZ printers ("bedslingers") are common, moving the print bed along the y axis. Delta printers use arms, but most rectilinear printers employ [https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printer-gantry-simply-explained/ gantries] to move the nozzle. Gantry implementations include v-slot extrusion, sliding rods, and linear rails. In a great simplification, linear rails moving a nozzle in the x and y dimensions while the print bed moves in the z dimension is pretty much optimal <i>when done correctly</i>, but e.g. gantry misalignment will ruin any system. | Placing the extruded material in three dimensions requires [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basis_(linear_algebra) moving along three axes]. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/G-code G-code] is sent to the printer to specify this movement. Polar printers spin either the printbed or the extruder in a circle, using polar coordinates <i>r</i>, <i>θ</i>, and <i>z</i>. Cartesian printers use <i>x</i>, <i>y</i>, and <i>z</i>. In CoreXY, and Cartesian-XY printers the bed itself moves along the z axis. Cartesian-XZ printers ("bedslingers") are common, moving the print bed along the y axis. Delta printers use arms, but most rectilinear printers employ [https://all3dp.com/2/3d-printer-gantry-simply-explained/ gantries] to move the nozzle. Gantry implementations include v-slot extrusion, sliding rods, and linear rails. In a great simplification, linear rails moving a nozzle in the x and y dimensions while the print bed moves in the z dimension is pretty much optimal <i>when done correctly</i>, but e.g. gantry misalignment will ruin any system. | ||
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===Selecting an MSLA=== | ===Selecting an MSLA=== | ||
MSLA printers are great gifts for enemies | MSLA printers are great gifts for enemies: they fail almost as often as FDM printers, but can also poison you. They're a lot like cigarettes in that the worst part is the cancer. Just lifting the top off an SLA printer fills the room with the baleful stink of modern technical death, materials not known at Creation diffusing through your body, binding to various activation sites, inviting proteins into strange and exotic configurations, heralding a mephitic end that leaves your corpse too toxic to be burnt. Hah, just kidding, they're fine! | ||
====Resins==== | ====Resins==== | ||
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==MSLA operation== | ==MSLA operation== | ||
[[CATEGORY: 3D | [[CATEGORY: 3D Printing]] | ||