I'm a new user / member; Hello everyone!

I'm new to 3D printing. I've been thinking about giving it a go for awhile now and I finally got myself to buy some gear. I just ordered two Monoprice Select Mini's, six 1k spools of black and white ABS, and some other little things. Can't to give this a try!

Originally I wanted to buy a more expensive 3D printer, something under 1000, but I swear... many in that range either didn't have a heated table, or something else it should have for that amount of money, or it had horrible reviews! I was so disappointed. If I was to spend more than a thousand, then things started looking better with the printers/ reviews, but I didn't want to do that. Then there was the little MP Select Mini, that seemed to be very popular and had great reviews, but was so cheap! I don't mind saving money, but you tend to get what you pay for, so I was a bit weary about it.

I am an electronics engineering student. I love building stuff. I was building awesome stuff from scratch before I went to school and now I'm getting back into it. The more I learn about electronics the more itchy I get to start building things. I mainly want to use this machine to build smart parts to be used to build larger stuff. I want to design and print brackets, clips, little boxes for circuit boards, little display panels, panels for buttons and switches, etc. I'm not super into printing artsy sculptures etc.

Any use these machines to print stuff to sell and make some money? If so hows that going for ya? I was thinking about printing small useful hardware to sell here and there for money.

Thanks.

well your first mistake is buying a lot of abs and openframe printers.
I did that as well - spent 6 months regretting it before discovering pla.

So first advice: send the abs back and either get pet-g or pla instead.
Everything you've read about abs versus pla, is wrong :-)
Pla isn't brittle or weaker than abs. It's stiffer and has a slightly lower glass point. that's it.
Abs stinks and shrinks like a bastard and you inevitaby end up breathing in more acetone fumes than are strictly good for you - if you don't have an enclosed heated build chamber then you will have serious problem printing abs - period. It can be done. But at no point does it stop being a huge pita.
That said if you can get an open framed printer to print abs - you learn an awful lot about how your machine behaves and when you inevitably move to pla & pet-g - you will be amazed just how easy they are to use :-)
At no point in the past 2 1/2 years have i been tempted to go back to abs. But it did teach me a lot about how to get the best from my machines.
Hell I can't even give the stuff away lol
Having convonced sebastian finke to start using pla when he moved to england - in south africa he exclusively used abs. He now won't even take abs from me for free.
Tells you a lot :-)

Pet-g prints almost as well as pla and is superior to abs in most aspects.
Actually unless you print abs in a heated chamber it's weak, delaminates easily and is just inferior to pla in every aspect. In my experience anyway.

The whole selling widgets thing. Doesn't really work. Given the time you invest in designing said widget and the time involved in actually printing the things means that nobody wants to pay a realistic price.

People are used to things made of plastic being mass produced and dirt cheap. Changing their minds is bloody difficult :-)

Not saying it can't be done - but don't expect to be making money any time soon :-)
What can happen is you produce a niche product that people are used to paying well over the odds for. In that case, you can produce better things cheaper. I would give you an example, but when makers find such a niche product they guard it with their lives ! And absolutely do not tell anyone else what it is - ever !

So don't bother asking round here lol

Where you start ahead of the game is in being aufait with electronics.
One area where money can be made is in producing cosplay, gaming and comicbook tie ins. If they actually function to a greater or lesser degree - you can almost write your own cheques. :-)

Thanks for the reply. I am aware of the open and enclosed printer thing... I wanted to get an enclosed printer, but just couldnt decide on which one to get. Like i said before, for XX more money spent, i didnt feel like i would be getting my moneys worth. So many had bad reviews, no heated bed etc. So what i did was buy these two open printers with the idea that i was going to build my own enclosures for them. Something with some kind of door or hatch, but also can be completely lifted up and off the machine. My very first attempt at printing is going to be L brackets to fasten some clear lexan together to build cases. I am aware of the pro's and cons related to strength with these plastics. Somethings i will make will need to be brittle hard and others need to have some give before they snap. It all depends on what the part is for and how its designed. Im going to keep the abs and make it work. I will just buy some petg as a substitute. Im not super familiar with PLA... I read that it does absorb water? Moisture? How much and how bad is it? This seriously turned me off from buying some. About the EE stuff... Yea im in school for it. Next semester is microprocessors and programming. Cant wait to start building some wicked cool stuff. My creativity is through the damn roof.

So ABS you want to keep warm through the whole print? Which materials do you want to cool off? How much to cool it off? I seen some people blowing a lot of air on some prints.

Like i said, every single thing I read about pla in the media has been wrong.
It's not brittle. Thin parts bend at least as well as with pet-g and abs.
Parts I made with abs and pla - it's the abs that breaks first and the pla that gives before breaking.
It is absolutly not brittle. The word is seriously being misused.

As far as absorbing water goes - I have a fair bit of pla in outside widgets of one kind or another - in england where damp is the norm.
No issues to date.

Apparently all filament absorbs water - if you live somewhere really humid. I keep a lot of filament just loose on shelves, sometimes I stick them back in the bag with the silicon, sometimes not. have yet to see any difference.
My workshop is between 40-55% humidity, depending on season and weather.
Temps usually vary between 15c in the winter and 26-28c on a hot summer day.

So it can depend on where you live.

A lot of it is how a part is designed and printed. Print orientation makes more difference that the type of plastic.

I made some simple clips for air gun magazines a while back. Initially i printed them standing up so that the horizontal layer was where it took the strain.
Pla ones just broke, the pet-g ones worked, but still weren't great.

Then I had a brain fart and printed them lying down so the strain was with the 'grain'. The pla ones are so much better than the pet-g standing ones it's hard to believe. Stiffer, more flexible and a much sharper print. The ends touch before it breaks.
Stiffness NOT brittleness.

Sounds like you know what you're doing anyway - but give pla a try :-)

Oh Im definitely going to give PLA a try for sure. I already ordered some petg. Next ill order some PLA. I have to try it all to see for myself.

As you said about it depending on the design and how you print it... I totally undertand that. Its the same when you working with wood. You have to pay attention to the grain in the wood. Im good with all that. I just need to familiarize myself with the plastics and the machines.

I ended up cancelling the order for the monoprice machines. They are on a serious backorder. I spent a little bit more and bought two updated Alunar M508's instead. Have everything i want, including a larger bed, but still no enlcosure so i still have to build some nice enclosures for them.

Thanks for your help:) Your very informative:)

Yep very similiar to wood. used to do wood turning, get the grain wrong and bits of tree go bouncing around your workshop spinning at over 1000 rpm.
Teaches you to duck :-)

Until I set up my machine with printbite - it wasn't that unusual for a part to also go flying round the room after the pressure of trying to leever it off the tape/glue sent it bouncing off the ceiling.

So my only other advice, get a sheet of printbite for at least one of the printers. http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.p...ntbite-surface
page 3 has list of things I've tested it with.
Takes an awful lot of the hassle out of print adhesion and release. And to be fair, that's the worst aspect of 3d printing.

Thanks. I'll do that now.