Recommendation for Printer/Material/Technology to print small cookie cutter

Hi Everyone,


I am trying to find the best printer/technology/material for small cookie cutters. It does not matter if the material is food safe as it will be used to cut clay and not actual cookies.
To do some research I have ordered some custom made cutters as samples to examine them:


https://3dprintboard.com/attachment....chmentid=15979


Most of these custom cutters online is similar to Cutter A on the left side of the picture. That one has about 0.8 mm blade part and some edge around it which is not really good for thicker clay as it will leave some parts on the final cut which is hard to remove.
On the other hand there is Cutter B which is made by a company called FMM Sugarcraft, and here is the product: https://www.fmmsugarcraft.com/produc...ric-cutter-set


What are your thoughts on Cutter B? What would be your advise to achieve a similar result? Like printer/technology and material? I believe it does not necessarily has to be 0.2 mm thin if it would be possible to create a similar wall thickness as Cutter A with some average 3D printer but without that edge, maybe using some different filament type to make it more strong? I believe that is the reason why everyone is printing these type of cutters with that edge, to add more strength to the blade.


I know that SLA/DLP printers have better accuracy I am not sure however if those resins would make a good cutter, At the moment I am looking after the most commonly available FDM printers so if it would be possible to do this with FDM printers that would be amazing, but please let me know if you have any other thoughts.


This may help:
My Location: Ireland / EU
Budget: 1000 EUR / 1200 USD
Experience with 3D printing: zero, just started reading articles, tests, etc, but I have 3D modeling experience.
Build volume: > 150 x 150 mm
What I want to do with the printer: 50% mainly printing those cutters for clay, and 50% printing other useful functional stuffs around the home
Note: As I am in an apartment, the printer should be enclosed. I don't really want to build it myself also :)


Thank you,
TZ

Almost any filament 3d printer will cover your requirements except the enclosure which is un-necessary for some materials like PLA. I bought a Ender 3 pro a year ago for professional use and though Creality get a lot of bad press I have used it to make plastic parts for 3 current projects for our small design team. We have logged more than 1100hrs of use so not bad for a machine costing less than 200 EURO !!! It is a very basic machine but on that basis less to go wrong -KISS = Keep it simple because I'm Stupid.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gambo

Almost any filament 3d printer will cover your requirements except the enclosure which is un-necessary for some materials like PLA. I bought a Ender 3 pro a year ago for professional use and though Creality get a lot of bad press I have used it to make plastic parts for 3 current projects for our small design team. We have logged more than 1100hrs of use so not bad for a machine costing less than 200 EURO !!! It is a very basic machine but on that basis less to go wrong -KISS = Keep it simple because I'm Stupid.

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Thanks for your comment!
Which one would be achievable with Ender 3 pro? Cutter A with longer blade part or Cutter B?
I still want some enclosure as if I buy something I would like to experiment/play with other materials too.

Either would be easy to make with an ender 3 but a little tweeking would help for instance 1 mm walls would help with a taper not a step. Creality do make an enclosure for the Ender 3 but it is a sort of mini Pop up tent.

yeah - basically any fdm printer can do either type.

Without changing the nozzle - the standard fdm bead width is 0.4mm.

So if you assume that the minimum edge width is around 0.5mm, you won't go far wrong.

You can use a smaller diameter nozzle for a finer edge, 0.25mm is about the most sensible small size to go down to.

But bear in mind an edge that thin would be quite fragile. I don' think you'd need to go finer than 0.5 mm.
Though I suppose that would depend on how intricate the designs you wanted to make into cutters are.

Personally I wouldn't touch an ender 3 with a barge pole taped to another barge pole held by a man with really long arms. But that's the result of spoending over three years trying to sort out the many hundreds of people who come to this forum with ender 3 issues.

So for an actual recommended machine - what is your maximum budget ?
And what's the largest cutter you are likely to want to make ?

And as gambo says - creating a cutting edge that tapers is pretty simple.

To make my view clear about the Ender 3 pro I bought 1 a year ago at the beginning of lock down incase there were issues with getting 3d printed parts made by the SLS bureau we were spending up to £100 per week with for prototype parts. In buying the Ender we knew it was a very basic machine and that was it attraction ie KISS (keep it simple stupid). The Ender was built down to a price and in at least 2 aspects has gone to far, In fact we have had no trouble with it until very recently when I jambed it and broke a belt after hundreds of small parts had been made on the machine. So many Chinese manufactures seems to suffer from quality control issues that in our design you often hear somebody exclaim "O Chinese quality again" and Creality from what I read on this forum is no different!

"So You pays yer money and yer takes your pick"

There are millions - possibly - hundreds of thousands certainly, of the ender 3 design around.
Some work and if it's your only 3d printer and it works - you think it's a miracle machine and get annoyed - all the way up to offensively abusive - when someone like me (okay there is nobody else like me) so just me. Says it's a piece of crap that is badly designed and that an awful lot of people have problems with it.
Both of those are true facts (as opposed to the other kind).
I am taking the wider view.
I am also recommending very complex machines to people who I want to enjoy using them and have as little trouble as possible.

So when one manufacturer designs a range of machines that have generated more: 'my printer isn't working properly' threads than ALL the other manufacturrs and machines ever mentiond or featured on this forum COMBINED.
There is no way I can recommend those machines to anyone.

Gambo has had a positive experience, as have many other people. But taking the long view, there is still an awfully large percentage of creality and ender owners having a lot of problems.

ON that basis alone, I can not recommend anyone buy one, ever.

Hi CA I understand your point of view !

here is an example this was made of PET-G and is 75mm overall and 12mm high wall thickness 2mm at base tapering to 0.8mm at cutting edge used 5.5grm and about 30min build time.
Attachment 15981

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

yeah - basically any fdm printer can do either type. Without changing the nozzle - the standard fdm bead width is 0.4mm. So if you assume that the minimum edge width is around 0.5mm, you won't go far wrong. You can use a smaller diameter nozzle for a finer edge, 0.25mm is about the most sensible small size to go down to.But bear in mind an edge that thin would be quite fragile. I don' think you'd need to go finer than 0.5 mm. Though I suppose that would depend on how intricate the designs you wanted to make into cutters are. Personally I wouldn't touch an ender 3 with a barge pole taped to another barge pole held by a man with really long arms. But that's the result of spoending over three years trying to sort out the many hundreds of people who come to this forum with ender 3 issues.So for an actual recommended machine - what is your maximum budget ? And what's the largest cutter you are likely to want to make ?And as gambo says - creating a cutting edge that tapers is pretty simple.

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Many thanks for your comment. I have checked couple of machines and as I want something enclosed due to the fact it will be in a living room (and have the possibility to experiment with other material types) and these are starting from 400-500 EUR, my budget is somewhere between 500-1000 EUR. I was looking at these machine as a first look: Monoprice MP Voxel, Da Vinci Jr WiFi Pro, Da Vinci 1.0 Pro, Up mini 2 (ES?) (this looks awesome but the build volume is a bit small 120 x 120 mm but would be OK for cutters and limited for larger experiments), Flashforge Creator Pro (2?), Up Box+ (and this is a bit out of budget). The maximum cutter size I would print is very small, about 4 x 4 cm so even the UP mini 2 would be OK for that.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Gambo

here is an example this was made of PET-G and is 75mm overall and 12mm high wall thickness 2mm at base tapering to 0.8mm at cutting edge used 5.5grm and about 30min build time.Attachment 15981

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This looks absolutely awesome! I believe that your success with your printer is also because you know what you are doing and probably you did a lot of experiments so far to be able to figure out all the settings.

well if it's going in your living room - you might want silent stepper drivers.

I used my delta for the first time in a while yesterday - wow, once you've got used to a machine running with the tmc 2200 silent steppers, the noise a machine without then makes is quite impressive.

Davinci don't have that good a reputation, so I'd personally avoid them.

the up boxes - don't know a lot about them, but going by my usual criteria. I can't recall a single negative thread here either. So that's a definite plus.

The monoprice voxel is actually a rebadged flashforge adventurer 3.
Decent machines.

The up is expensive for what it is. The es seems identical apart from am ethernet port, which you probably won't use.
And at over £200 less I'd - personally - be inclined to go for the voxel.
It actually gets better reviews than the up on amazon.

The up is pretty reticent on the finer details of the specifications.
It claims you can print polycarbonate - but nowhere can I find anything that says it has a 300c hotend. which is pretty necessary.

Also the minimum layer height of 0.15 mm is a bit odd. I don't own a machine that can't do 0.1mm
So that suggets that the mechanics are lacking somewhere.

Also it's a closed system - so looks like you have to buy their own brand filament - no doubt the reels are chipped.
That's why you have the fancy spool box.

So on balance I'd go for the voxel or adventurer 3. Sometimes the adventuere is cheaper than the voxel and they are the same machine.

ps. further digging around the net reveals that the up mini 2 is now over 5 years old.
The price was justified at the time of release - but now ? way to expensive.
That also account for the poor layer height, it's obviously using outdated electronics.

Thanks for the very useful and great comments and suggestions!

I went ahead and also checked some other machines but the FlashForge portfolio definitely looks interesting.

The FlashForge Creator Pro 2 looks very promising. Especially the IDEX system is very interesting. Just could not find many topics about it, especially if I can change the nozzle to have a smaller one.

I also come across some other printers like the AnyCubic 4Max Pro 2.0 and the Qidi Tech X-Pro which is also very promising. Need to check all of these. It is a bit hard to tell which one has good print quality.

They will ALL have good print quality.
these days that's pretty much a given.

Some will produce results at a slower print speed, but generally quality isn't really a major issue with a decent machine.

qidi have an excellent reputation and are quality machines.
As - on the whole - are flashforge.

Okay so what should you be looking for ?

If you are planning on printing with polycarbonate at any point then a 300c hotend is essential. Yes - technically - you can print it with a standard 260c hotend. But it's not ideal and it will burn your ptfe tube out really quickly.

IDEX - idex is the best way to do dual extrusion.
It means two printheads, each moving independently.

Huh, had no idea flashforge had launched another idex machine.

Good price too.
It doesn't have high temp hotends - so you're still 'limited' to a max 240c print temp.
However that would include the right kind of nylon with carbon fibre stiffening.
So realistically, it's not a huge loss.
If you can stand the stink and calculate the shrinkage properly, it should even do abs well.

The flashforge creator series are mosty based on the original makerbot replicator design (as are most of the qidi machines).
It's the most copied design in 3d printing history for a reason.
The printers are not fast. But they are solid and unflinching workhorses.
And there's always a chance that flashforge will release a hi-tenp set of extruders.
They have for most of their other mid to top end machines.

So on balance, yeah the creator pro 2 would be an excellent machine for you.

Looking at the extruder, changing the nozzle is a standard: heat nozzle, unload filament, unscrew old nozzle, screw in new nozzle, reload filament - operation.
They look like standard brass nozzles that can be had for very little money indeed.

The print volume might not look very big, but you'd be surprised at just what you can fit on there. The 9 inch width really makes a difference.

Alas i don't currently have an idex machine. Just standard dual extruders.
Pretty sure if i did have idex, I'd do a LOT more dual material prints. But with standard dual extrusion, it's more of a hassle than it's worth.

So thanks for giving me the heads up on the machine, and go for it :-)

I believe experimenting with ABS or other materials would be nice. I am wondering how well these enclosures can protect the outside world from all the VOCs. As I would not happily sit next to a printer doing ABS if enclosure can't offer too much protection.

As I can see the nozzle is kind of a standard - just learned that - it seems an MK10 type would be good for this machine.

I believe there are so many other printers I have not even checked, but will definitely look around a bit more but this FlashForge looks the best option so far:)

hi tzn
Just to say he samples I sent you were made on a completely unmodified Ender 3 pro !

Yes the samples are really great. I believe the Ender 3 would be a great machine. I am looking at the best option if it is possible to have some enclosures for that. I have seen those tent kind of things so that would be an option:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Fireproof-D.../dp/B0827Y9YTH

The Ender is about the cheapest printer around, and it has to be said that from threads on the forum Enders Quality assurance system is rubbish.The design also has a few places where the designers have cheapened the design and resulted in problems!! Having said that I have used one for a year for making prototype parts for our commercial scientific consultancy and have clocked up over 1000hours of printing. The Ender is a very very basic machine which encourages some people to modify it ( upgades!!!). I made an enclosure from 3mm Perspex which I had laser cut by a local firm and bolted together with brackets printed on the Ender. In brief not wonder full but serves it purpose.

Just look around the forum. pretty much every single day there are new: 'wjy won't my ender 3 work' posts.

I know some people like banging their heads against a brick wall. so I'll leave you to it.

as long as you do not choose Anycubic, you are pretty safe.Purchased a 4Pro 2.0, they took the money but never shipped the product.... see trustpilot before you waste your money !