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  1. #1

    Question First 3D Printer Advice - Bezels and Brackets - $300-$400

    I'm in the market for a 3D printer. I will not be making things to sell. Two things I'm pretty certain I'll be using it for:

    1) Small LCD bezels.
    I do a lot of Arduino prototypes using SSD1306 OLED displays (1"), and ILI9341 (2.2"). The ability to make a simple bezel that would be very helpful. This can be as simple as a flat rectangle with a relatively rectangle-ish cutout. Beveled edges would exceed expectations.

    2) Miscellaneous brackets for utility purposes like holding odd shaped tools to my tool wall. I'm thinking, fist size or smaller.

    Materials: PLA and ABS. I'm not familiar with the others, but I'd probably use ABS more often if the printer can do it well.

    Production/speed requirements: I plan on printing very few parts. But, when I prints I'd like to be reasonably quick. If I'm in the middle of prototyping something, I'd hate to have to wait until the following Thursday to have the part ready. So I'd probably favor speed over precision, but structural integrity would be more important than speed.

    Any advice would be greatly appreciated. The budget is not a hard limit - just an ideal.

  2. #2
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    stick to pla. There's no heated, enclosed machines worth having at that price point, so abs will just be a royal pita. Plus it smells bad, doesn't look as shiny as pla and has really weak layer bonding.
    Pla will do more that you want than abs.

    Machine wise.
    the ender 3 gets pretty decent reviews. Like most of the machines in this price bracket, it'll need a few mods to get the best from it:
    https://www.amazon.com/Comgrow-Creal...ice+3d+printer

    The tevo flash is also a decent machine.
    Mono price makerselect plus ios also a decent little machine: https://www.amazon.com/Monoprice-Tou...ice+3d+printer

    For decent size print volume you're mostly looking at i3 clones - either kits or part built.
    You can get some decent delta style kits as well. But not sure I'd recommend a delta for a first timer. Some of their 'quirks' can be bastards to trouble shoot.

  3. #3
    Thanks. This post was waiting in moderation for a few days, and in the meantime, I asked other groups that ultimately led me to the Ender 3 with mods as you said, as well as the Qidi x-one2. I'm definitely leaning towards the x-one2 for a starter machine.

  4. #4
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    bear in mind the qidi has a pretty small print volume: 140x140x140.
    One reason i didn't mention it :-)
    Other than that it's a decent bit of kit and qidi have a good reputation.
    For the price - good little machine - with the emphasis on 'little' :-)

    Have to say going by what I've made in the last 6 years, I would have struggled with such a small print area.
    It's surprising how much difference the standard rep clone's 220x150x150 makes.

    Think about paying extra and getting the qidi x-smart.
    Last edited by curious aardvark; 11-04-2018 at 05:49 AM.

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