Questions before purchasing...

I am on the fence. I have been using Shapeways S&F for a year now and am a click away from ordering the kit. Can anyone provide more information on;

How effective is the material sifting and recycling into new prints? Are you able to use the majority of the material? Is there a lot of wasted material?

After calibrating and set up are the prints all usable, or are failed prints possible always?

How do the parts compare to Shapeways S&F as far as surface detail? I.e. will I be able to achieve part quality as nice as the attached image? These are 1" diameter parts that have had two coats of gray primer applied.

Attachment 8828

From the images I have seen It does not look like the Sintratec printer can do this quality. I hope I am wrong.

i bought my printer from Laliberte. He was aktive on this Forum.
In general it is a good printer. You are able to print very detailed things in comparison to an FDM Printer.
1. It is very hard work sifting the material. It is possible to reuse most material depending on experience not to loose the material at the sifting process or to get the material you want to sift. I need about 4-5 hours to sift 1l. I hope to optimize my process. It is very easy to create a cloud of dust :-)
2. The most importend thing at the beginning is the warm up phase. I use 2-3 hours warming up the printer. If i have no problem at the first 10 layer everything is working fine depending on you model.
This matematical Model is only 5cm high. It is not printable with an FDM Printer because inside the model you have the same structure (it is like snake house)
Attachment 8849

Hey Fungi

This is roman from sintratec =)

Im glad you are interested in buying a sintartec kit. I hope I can answer all your questions about the printer:

1: The sifting is really easy when you have the right tools. I recommend a lab test sieve with 100 meshes (150 micro hole diameter). You can also reuse about 90% of the powder.

2: After correctly calibrating the printer its really easy to use and print failure is reduced to a minimum. We also provide a in depth printing guide for newcomers to sls printing. Also we provide personal support if something is not working out how it should.

3: The print quality is comparable to pictures you attached. The one big advantage over FDM printers is the absolute freedom of design.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask =)

Hi Roman,

you say that sifting is easy if you have the right tools. You recommend a lab test sieve with 100 meshes. I see my problem. I use a sieve with 180 meshes and no machine. So it takes long time ;-(

Hi Roman,

I am no newcomer to 3D printing. I purchased a 3D systems Projet3500hdmax for a small business I started. I was lied to by 3D systems concerning cost of parts. I was told part cost without taking support into consideration, and was told material costs would come down. lol Owned it for 3 years. Sold it for 1/3rd what I paid for it when I simply gave up on trying to make any money with it. I began using shapeways strong and flexible a year or so ago and it has been a nightmare with inconsistency in print orientation and basic quality control. One concern I have is throughput. With printing taking hours and warm up taking hours I can maybe print 2 sets of wheels per day. I can maybe sell them for $25 a set. I don't want to start this with unrealistic expectations. I need to make parts, lot's of them, and not have failed parts, and not spend hours removing parts from a brick. I'm not the guy who will be ecstatic to just be able to make a part. I'm way past that stage. I was very excited to here of this printer, and I'm not afraid at all about building it. I just don't know if I'm buying a huge disappointment with my goals in mind.

Hi Fungi,
i use the printer only private but it is my second printer. My first printer is the Ultimaker. I bought the Ultimaker 2 years before. I think i have some experence with 3d printing. I think FDM printing and SLS printing are complete different. With the Ultimaker the printing depends on mostly on the modell. If it is a complex modell it take a long time each layer. Switching to the next layer is very fast. With the Sintratec it is different. Printing one layer is very fast (1-3s), but switching the layer takes a long time. (round about 20s). The temperature and warm up is the next thing. For this thing you need long time. But you have to think in an other way. If you use an FDM Printer you are thinking about to fill the printng plattform with models you want to print. If you want to use an SLS printer you should think how to fill your print volume. If you use the volume you are able to reduce a lot of time.
But keep aware. If you want to use the SLS printer in a professional way you will have to invest in some more tools.
First i think to care for your health. You will need a kind of air extraction system.
Second you will need a labority sieving system.
Whitout these things you will not happy to use the printer professional.
The software of the printer is right now realy basic. But on the other side this is the different between investing 20.000 Euro or 5.000 Euro.
I think Sintratec is on a good way :-)

Hey Fungi

As rudschul said the Sintratec KIT is whole other world. SLS has a huge advantage over FDM. You can place your parts freely in the printer and not worry about support structures. With the KIT you have a build volume of 11cm X 11cm X 10cm and you can basically fill it up with your parts.
Removing and cleaning parts is also really easy. The powder is not sticking to the printer, so you can just remove the whole "cake", refill the printer and start to heat up again. While its heating up you just have to remove the powder from the print. With a toothbrush it takes about 5-10 min to clean everything. Complex parts can also be cleaned with pressured air.

Hi guys, yes I understand completely the benefits of SLS. My projet was a polyjet printer printing wax as a support and acrylic as the build material. It was also not limited by part geometry. I've never owned a glue gun on a gantry. lol I did make an error in my rant. The rims are only 27mm diameter x 15mm tall, so a build area of 110 x 110 x 100mm would allow me to print 4x4x6=96 rims... At $5 each is starting to make more sense.

I saw a sandblaster mentioned and was thrown because I couldn't figure out how to separate the silica sand and the build material. Now I think they only meant the enclosure to trap all material and any dust.

I think I'm going to have to get on board... :)

Hey Fungi

To be honest with you, i dont think it will be possible to print 4x4, because you have to calculate a bit space between the parts. My suggestion would be printing 3 X 3 X 6 which means only 54. But if you align the parts clever, maybe more will fit in.

About the Sandblaster, its just a very easy way to clean the parts. It works really well when using the powder itself to sandblast, as it doesn't damage the prints but its absolutely not necessary to sandblast the parts as the surface finish is good from the beginning.

If you have any more questions feel free to ask