No idea need help

Hi all, ok I am so new to 3D printing I haven't even started yet, for years I have made model buildings and the masters have all been hand made but it is time to move on as my hands are not as good as they once were and my eyes are going the same way...............I have been designing using sketchup for a few months now and with being able to convert them to STL would love to see if 3D printing the masters is my answer.......with that very limited information is there any recommendations as to what printer to buy with a maximum £2k budget.
I design highly detailed buildings for gaming dealing in millimeters as my primary measurement scale..............any help will be much appreciated :-)

What material do you wish to print with?

How large a build volume will you want?

What will your smallest feature size be: 1mm? 0.5mm? 0.25mm? 0.1mm?

Looks like you are UK based?

I would suggest you try an go along to a local store or 3D printing business and ask to be shown around, most are pretty helpful.

Explain what you want to do and they might be able to give you some advice.

I am Winchester based if that helps you!

GBR1

I would definitely look into an SLA format printer (versus FFF which most consumer 3D printers use). SLA uses light to "cure" liquid into the 3d model you specify... and it has extremely high quality. The downside to SLA is most of the lower end (read, $2k and below) tend to be smaller since SLA technology is still in its infancy. But since you say you primarily work in the milimeter scale, I think it may be a good fit for you. And you will definitely get higher resolution and detail on your prints.

your first problem will be producing manifold solid models from sketchup.
Tutorials around on the interweb for that.

other than that - what davos said:

Quote:

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What material do you wish to print with?

How large a build volume will you want?

What will your smallest feature size be: 1mm? 0.5mm? 0.25mm? 0.1mm?

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as far as:

Quote:

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I would suggest you try an go along to a local store or 3D printing business and ask to be shown around, most are pretty helpful.

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These are as rare as rocking horse crap where I live. So I doubt that's much of an option. Plus they'll pretty much just want to sell you what they use. which might not be the right machine.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by curious aardvark

your first problem will be producing manifold solid models from sketchup.
Tutorials around on the interweb for that.

other than that - what davos said:


as far as:
These are as rare as rocking horse crap where I live. So I doubt that's much of an option. Plus they'll pretty much just want to sell you what they use. which might not be the right machine.

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You just use the plugin, it checks, fixes and exports models from sketchup for printing.. there is a few now:
http://www.mastersketchup.com/best-3...-for-sketchup/

@Buildinguy
If this is your first printer and you want to spend 2K, buy an Ultimaker

If you want to buy something a little cheaper to cut your teeth on, try something like a flashforge for $1000, very low learning curve and little work to do to get it running out of the box.

Having never printed before, SLA or resin based printers might be a tad advanced if you're new to it, but I could be wrong, there is just more to do post-printing, curing, etc.