Looking for guidance on purchasing a 3D printer for Acrylic or similar

I apologize in advance, I'm very new to 3D printing. I'm looking for a 3D printer that can print a clear plastic/acrylic part. I attached a drawing of the part I'm looking for. Square tubing will fit over the smaller ends and it will act as a connector. The piece will be highly visible and decorative, so it needs to look like good. I don't mind flame polishing or acetone polishing the final pieces.

1) What machine do you recommend that could accomplish this?
2) What filament is closest to what I'm looking for? PMMA?

Do you need transparent parts, or would translucent be good enough? It's hard to get truly transparent parts by 3D printing. It's easier with a resin printer than a filament printer. There are many web pages on polishing 3D printed resin.

If you only need a few parts, you might want to consider a 3D printing service that prints transparent materials. Here's one (I haven't tried them, so I don't know if they are any good.)
https://forerunner3d.com/3d-printed-...printed-parts/

Yeah basically you need a resin printer.
I've seen crystal clear lenses made on a form2 printer.

A cheap resin machine can be had for under $200.
There are a bunch of odour and safety issues associated with resin printing - not to mention the post processing in isopropyl alcohol and a UV illuminator.

But you can get a crystal clear print.

As far as size goes - what measurements are the units in ?
For 3d printintg you really need to be working in millimetres NOT inches.
basically it makes more sense and all the software assumes millimetres.

If you need fdm - then don't think transparent - think decorative.
There are some stunning filaments around at the moment that look a lot better than just transparent.
Silk and metallic finishes all look better.

So I own a metalworking company, we manufacture metal furniture products. I've seen some cool pieces made from a mix of metal and acrylic, and I'm trying to offer my own spin on some of these. I attached a picture of an example. The print that I supplied previously would be to do the reverse of the table in the picture, clear corner pieces, and metal cross pieces. Hope that makes sense. But there would be a wide variety of different configurations. And the units in that print were inches.

I'm less concerned about the price of the machine, more so concerned about getting a crystal clear print. I looked up some videos of resin printers, and while the print is clear, it still looks like they require a lot of sanding and polishing to get them to look like glass, and even then, a lot of the examples I saw did not look as clear as I would need them to be.

I guess a better question would be is this even possible with 3D printing? I have been having a very hard time finding a source for these parts.

Attachment 15330

It does take some work to get resin prints to look as clear as glass. That might be worth it if you are making small quantities. If you want to make larger quantities, injection molding would be a better choice. Injection molding can produce transparent pieces in medium to large quantities.

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Originally Posted by jamcultur

It does take some work to get resin prints to look as clear as glass. That might be worth it if you are making small quantities. If you want to make larger quantities, injection molding would be a better choice. Injection molding can produce transparent pieces in medium to large quantities.

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We're talking maybe a couple thousand pieces per year, and there would be several different shapes and sizes. I would think tooling costs would make this option cost prohibitive.

Anyone have a decent SLA printer that would be interested in selling me a clear sample or two?