Advice on buying a new 3d printer

Hi all

Still fairly new to 3d printing but getting there.

I started with a Prusa i3 kit which was a great learning curve

I then bought a da vinci unit before going for an enclosed pro unit which was a great little printer out of the box. Never had any issues with it and prints were excellent

I want to buy a new and better printer as I printed a piece which has very small details in the surface but it couldn't print them well

The original designer printed it with a ultimaker 2 but unfortunately I cannot to buy one as much as I am tempted.

Can anyone suggest a printer like this or one that prints small details well but not going to break the bank massively

Thanks so much for your help

you already have aprinter that prints small detials - 2 in fact.
All you need to do is change the nozzle size :-)

A 0.2mm nozzle has 4x the resolution of a 0.4mm nozzle.
Change nozzles, Adjust accordingly in your slicer and you've got almost resin grade print detail :-)

picture illustrates size difference beyween 0.4 mm - the big cylinder and 0.2mm, the small cylinder
Attachment 13357

It's all down to flow rate and viscosity. So for smaller nozzles you need to print slower and hotter, with smaller nozzles you get a lot more back pressure, so don't need to push quite as fast.
But you'll be surprised just how much difference using a smaller nozzle diameter can make.

Ok thanks for that. I've looked online but I'm not sure what size thread the nozzles are

all pretty standard. Your i3 will definitely be standard thread.

it's a few bucks/quid - buy some and see if they fit :-)
https://www.amazon.co.uk/SIQUK-Print...gateway&sr=8-5

I don't have an i3 anymore, but it looks like you cannot change the nozzle size on da vinci jr you have to buy the entire extruder assembly

in that case - either get a cheap resin printer if it#sa fairly small part. or get a cheapo kit and use a small nozzle.

I've thought about getting a resin printer but no nothing about them. Can you recommend a good one that doesn't break the bank

watch the reviuew thread I posted, https://3dprintboard.com/showthread....ut-getting-one

there seem to be a few around now that are almost identical to the one in the review.

around the $2-300 mark.
The resin is still pretty expensive, and the post processing and apprently, the smell, is an issue.
But you can't argue with the eventual results. :-)

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Trippy86

I've thought about getting a resin printer but no nothing about them. Can you recommend a good one that doesn't break the bank

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Anycubic photon, $300, is pretty popular.... all the inexpensive resin printers are the same in operation, but it's best to get one that has a following so replacement parts remain available.

FDM printers are all limted in detail, you'll be amazed at the detail you'll get out of a resin printer. Build size is the only limitation, it's very small.

So to not start another thread I will just post it here.

I would like to know what is the difference between a 300$ 3d printer on ebay and this one Felix 3.1 http://www.secondoption.si/izdelek/f...ik-opa92fel001

I mean the difference in price is huge. Is there any reason for that? Are the materials used to build this printer so much better or what?

Thank you for your insight

Wow that's an expensive fdm printer. Well FWIW if you are gonna pay a high price for the FDM machine today it needs to handle changing it's own colors or mixing colors. This is the big thing of the day for FDM and for you to spend that much on a FDM machine that doesn't even have these bells and whistles might leave your butt a little sore in the end. The cheap ebay printer is open source and you can change parts at will. Aside from a smaller nozzle diameter you can also chase resolution with finer precision stepper motors that double the step count per RPM. Most printers come with 1.8 degree or 200 step/rev motors. It is a cheap thing to upgrade to 0.9 degree or 400 step/rev motors. Unlike adding steps with driver boards this is a physical resolution increase. And aside from all of that there are new controllers out that will help you. Like the SKR 1.3. This board brings 32 bit processing to our cartesian robots. Like the smoothie boards. Something else to consider is usually when you find the high priced printers they want to run the higher priced filaments. It is open source that allows us to so easily and comprehensively adjust for different filament grades and qualities.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by AutoWiz

Wow that's an expensive fdm printer. Well FWIW if you are gonna pay a high price for the FDM machine today it needs to handle changing it's own colors or mixing colors. This is the big thing of the day for FDM and for you to spend that much on a FDM machine that doesn't even have these bells and whistles might leave your butt a little sore in the end. The cheap ebay printer is open source and you can change parts at will. Aside from a smaller nozzle diameter you can also chase resolution with finer precision stepper motors that double the step count per RPM. Most printers come with 1.8 degree or 200 step/rev motors. It is a cheap thing to upgrade to 0.9 degree or 400 step/rev motors. Unlike adding steps with driver boards this is a physical resolution increase. And aside from all of that there are new controllers out that will help you. Like the SKR 1.3. This board brings 32 bit processing to our cartesian robots. Like the smoothie boards. Something else to consider is usually when you find the high priced printers they want to run the higher priced filaments. It is open source that allows us to so easily and comprehensively adjust for different filament grades and qualities.

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Thank you for the info! :o
I will look into it and try to find a printer with multicolour option for this money...

well lookingat it - english version here: https://www.felixprinters.com/shop/3...-3-1-assembled

It's an odd design. But would appear to be quite expensive for what it is.
As fara s I cna tell from the specification, it isn't using any special technology or partocularly expensive mainboard (running bog standard repetier, probably my favourite 3dprinter firmware, but capable of running on most low end boards).
Given the machines you can buy within that price range - you are not getting value for money.

The whole build plate attached at one end only, when there's an aluminium strut available to anchor the far side, is pretty weird.
It looks like it's designed to be easily portable - so that's probably why they've ramped the price up.

Would it be better than a $300 printer ? Probably - though that does largely depend on what $300 you've bought :-)
Would it be better than a $500 printer - doubtful, though the same: 'depends what printer' still applies.