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  1. #11
    Student
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    So right now I am using a 2012 macbook pro with a 2.5ghz processor and 16gigs of ram. What else do I need to look into to "upgrade" the laptop? My brother in law will build me a desktop or a laptop if I need him to. He does it all the time. And he is working with me to get me the right computer and also in building my website. I just need to know what to tell him I need as far as the conputer specs as he has never worked with 3D software or 3D printing. What specs would I need for a desktop vs a laptop? I can also have him build me a PC laptop if you are not familiar with macs. I have read all the threads here and I really appreciate all your input and help! All of you!

  2. #12
    Super Moderator curious aardvark's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by -willy- View Post
    Sorry I dont have the money to build new. I am a Intel fan for one reason only. All the AMD's I have ever had always crashed (frequently) when the room got hotter than 80 degrees F. If you like an AMD that is nice, but please dont try to cram it down our throats. I respect anyone for having the right to chose their prefference, yet remember it is YOUR preffeerence. If Dad's tower has a AMD I will stick with it, yet I think he is a intel man as well. I will however have to update the operating system as he only had XP. I will probably get 8.1 that is supposed to have printer support. This tower will probably be down in the basement. I plan to get a PrintRbot Metal Plus from Amazon. The only other item will be that the printer will sit in a open faced box with a fusible link for the lid. That link will fail if there is any fire and seal the box containing any fire. I pray it never comes to that and feel that the user whom had a fire had done so because he let the chamber get too warm with out proper ventination. No I wont try to see what it takes to make a printer catch fire. I welcome all the advice here as it is very useful.
    2 things. 20 years of professional experience is not 'cramming things down your throat'. Take it or leave it - it's your loss :-)

    secondly - windows xp is better at running most of the 3d printer software out there than windows 8.1.
    Which isn't much good at running anything that wasn't written specifically for it.

    Your os of choice should be either xp or - if you fancy something more recent - windows 7, 32 bit. But hey, you seem to know better, so carry on :-)

  3. #13
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    Ok, so everyone says to stay away from a Mac. So I have decided to go with the desktop. Thank OME and aardvark for your help. So i have the motherboard taken care of. I like the way OME has his set up in his corner. I went with the AMD A series chipset. I will keep my mac to print the invoices and scheck emails and search the web. What else besides the chipset would I need. What are good graphics cards? And is a 2 gig card good enough or should I go to the 3 gig? Like OME i will most likely be running Mach3 or Pronerface. Should I continue to slice form my laptop or get the desktop set up to do so? Do you do it all from your desk top OME?

  4. #14
    Technician -willy-'s Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by curious aardvark View Post
    2 things. 20 years of professional experience is not 'cramming things down your throat'. Take it or leave it - it's your loss :-)

    secondly - windows xp is better at running most of the 3d printer software out there than windows 8.1.
    Which isn't much good at running anything that wasn't written specifically for it.

    Your os of choice should be either xp or - if you fancy something more recent - windows 7, 32 bit. But hey, you seem to know better, so carry on :-)
    Ah but I dont know better which is why I am here to learn. Just that all my AMD's as well as a few friends that game have had catastrophic issues when it got warm, never had that problem with an Intel. Its great that you have knowledge. I thankyou on the heads up on XP and may install it on the tower, as this would save money I dont have to spend. I just thought that there were no updates for xp anymore and Windows had released some modeling software that only worked on the 8.1? I was told I could not use it on win 7. So your help is appreciated even tho some of us prefer (in your eyes) inferior products that work flawlessly in the heat.

    The laptop I inherited from the Father came with XP and I thought if I were to use it on the net should get 8.1, hearing your views I will give it 7. I had hopes of using the laptop for the mobility yet that is fine if I must sell it instead.

  5. #15
    Super Moderator Roxy's Avatar
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    I have an ancient dinosaur laptop running my printer. I use PronterFace to talk to my RepRap printer over a USB cable. That computer is very low on memory and not very fast. But it works fine to run the printer. The whole reason I have it is with a long print, I don't want anything goofy happening like my main computer going to sleep or maybe crashing. It helps keep the printer isolated from what ever else I'm doing on my real machine. The only thing that laptop does is run the 3D Printer, and it does that just fine.

    For slicing... A fast machine is very helpful. But my dinosaur 3D Printer laptop doesn't do that. It just pulls the GCode file from my real machine. Also... opinions are going to vary, but I don't see any benefit to a LCD Panel on the printer when I have a dedicated laptop display displaying things on my printer. I'm all for fast machines, but the truth is the printer doesn't need much to control it. (But as soon as you start doing design work, and even some bigger slicing operations... You won't want to have a slow machine in the picture.)

  6. #16
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    So would you recommend a desktop dedicated to the printer and a laptop for the design and slicing?

  7. #17
    Super Moderator Roxy's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shieldse View Post
    So would you recommend a desktop dedicated to the printer and a laptop for the design and slicing?
    Who? Me? For me, I want a laptop that can sit close to the printer and not take up much space but still provide a nice display to see what is going on. And to run the user interface to get GCode files to my printer.

    For the design and slicing I want a very fast machine with a very large and high resolution display. Probably it should be a laptop because I move around a lot during the day. But if I did all my work at one location a desktop would be fine. Unless you are doing a lot of design work and/or constantly slicing large objects, it might not make sense to go over board. If it is just an occasional thing to do the computationally expensive stuff, it might be best to wait until you start getting annoyed at how long the process takes.

  8. #18
    I print with a laptop on both my Taz4 and Solidoodle 4. They range from a MacBook Pro, MacBook Air and HP Envy. I just set them all up to never go to power save / sleep and they run all the time without issues. Not sure about the i5 as all three of the computers are i7s. The HP is the weakest out of all three laptops and it has zero problems.

  9. #19
    Staff Engineer old man emu's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Shieldse View Post
    Do you do it all from your desk top OME?
    Like Roxy, I have a steam-driven computer running my printer. It has a 1300MHz Intel Celeron chip and 448Mb RAM at 1.29GHz. Its operating system is XP Professional SP3. You have to remember that CNC/3D Printers are pretty dumb machines, so it doesn't take a lot of memory or computing power to have them do their job. That's why you can get away with buying an old computer from a Charity shop. If I remember correctly, there was a flurry of problems running some programs when the later versions of Windows arrived. I know theat XP is no longer supported by Microsoft, but by the time they stopped supporting it, it was a pretty stable O/S if you had installed the service packs.

    Beware of IT wizards who tell you that they will build you a computer. They sometimes engage in overkill. My office computer was built by my son. It's running an AMD FX 8120 Eight Core processor, has 8 Gb RAM and is running Win 8.1 in 64 bit format. All I know is that it runs Rhino 5 OK and slicing with Slic3r is sufficiently quickly. It doesn't lag when I am working with OpenScad. It's also my Internet connection because the printer computer is not connected to our LAN, and I don't see the need to go on the Net while printing, I'm Facebook-less.

    Old Man Emu

    My office computer is a desktop. I've never been keen on laptops. I suppose it's because I don't like their in-built mice. I'd rather use a wireless mouse. I have more control over it.

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