3D Printers

[Ariel]

Anyone have experience of the Ender-5 S1 3D Printer? Some rather good deals on at the moment and I'm very tempted.

I'm Mac based using Fusion 360 Personal Licence if that is relevant. Thinking about printing Wheels and scale parts. Maybe as a base for plugs for cowls etc.

Also what filament is most useful to get with it and what else will I need?

What do we all think, good idea? 

[RedBaron]

3D printing is something that you just have to get started in and evolve your requirements as you gain experience

You can learn stuff from books but you really need a mentor in this area as everyone has different ideas.

Don't waste a lot of time printing stuff from Thingiverse. It is OK but you need to develop your own work flow from Want to Finished Object.

You need a slicer like Simplify3D this converts your design to codes that your printer can use.

Fusion360 is an OK design program - but you will be trapped as there is no way to export complete designs in any meaningful way. Yes you can export drawings and solids but all the connections get lost. Personally I hate being "trapped" by software so when I discovered this drawback of Fusion360 I stopped using it and cut my losses and started using another design program.

Filament - start with PLA. Avoid cheap filament, buy from long established sources. If filament colour is important to you, colours with the same name do not look the same when buying from multiple sources.

So yes an excellent idea!

 

It is not just for model stuff, a printer is very helpful for replacing broken stuff around the house with parts no longer available!

 

[Ariel]

Thanks for the speedy reply! Interesting to hear your thoughts on Fusion. Is the export issue a 'Feature" of the personal licence? 

Which design software did you settle on?

I'm pretty much sold on the idea of getting a printer but getting the design front end is going to be important too.

 Also thanks for the last comment. I will use that when a new lump appears on the bench.  'I've had that for ages' is beginning to sound a bit implausible.

[Peter Christy]

I started 3D printing a year or two back with a small "toy" printer my son and his family bought for me. It got me started, using FreeCAD for design and Cura as the slicer. FreeCAD isn't the most intuitive or user friendly, but it is free, and I didn't want to invest a lot of money unless i was sure I could find a use for it.

 

In the event, I made quite a few small useful parts - including replacement dampers for an old Morley rotor-head! At that point, I splashed out and bought an Ender-3 V2, a much more capable device. I have now successfully produced a number of replacement parts for old Lark helicopters, which are otherwise unobtainable! I've also produced a number of parts to convert them to electric power, under which they fly much better than the original IC power!

 

Once you get started, its amazing what useful stuff you can create! However, it is a steep learning curve, and even now I occasionally run into printing issues.

 

So, be prepared for initial frustration while you get to grips with both the software and the hardware. Also don't necessarily believe the youtube videos offering to solve all your printing issues! After downloading so-called "improved" setups for the Ender in Cura, I've found that the original setup that came with Cura was actually the best!

 

I'm still using FreeCAD and Cura because they are the systems I now know reasonably well. I had enough trouble getting my head around some aspects of FreeCAD and have no inclination to go through all that again with another design package - even if I could find one that runs on Linux!

 

It has been a very satisfying adventure, and I wish you luck with your endeavours!

 

--

Pete

 

[Simon Chaddock]

Arial

I can only endorse what Peter has said.

My son bought me an Anet A8 printer 4 years back. It was on offer at a ridiculously low price. Considered a starter machine but even so it was all new to me.

I to use Free Cad and CURA. I did not even know what 3D printing was let alone how to programme it. No easy solutions just get on an try however it does pay to have a logical & patient approach. You will find the actual 3D printing process has as many pitfalls as actually using CAD. 

It will take some time to understand and remember even fundamentals. You will keep learning.

.  

 

 

 

[Ariel]

Thanks for the advice chaps. I'm moving into the realms of which one and file types. I absolutely agree that doing is leaning whilst trying to avoid painting myself into a corner. More complicated than it looks on the surface. Thanks for reining me in.

[leccyflyer]

I bought my first 3D printer with the sole intention of using it to print pilots and dummy exhausts for my stand off scale models. It has ultimately provided much more than that, but that sort of scale detail for conventionally built models is still it's prime function. My first was a very cheap Hobbyking sourced Malyan 150, which was okay for learning the basic operation, but wore quite quickly, resulting in a number of print quality issues. I then switched to a Creality 5 Pro, which has been superb, much more stable with the cubic frame, easier to use with the magnetic build plate  with repeatable results and much fewer failed prints.

 

I'm using Creality's badged version of Cura as a slicer and use a combination of Meshmixer, Tinker Cad and am just dipping my toes into Fusion 360, which I find much more complex, but I do need to get to grips with it for laser cutting as well. I find Thingiverse is a marvellous resource for off the shelf prints, or to form the basis of objects that can be modified and manipulated in Meshmixer. There are other good sites with valuable stls available for download, many are free, some are available at a modest cost and some require more investoment. AS one of my main interest is accurate pilot figures, I've bought a few files which the printer than allows you to produce at any scale - just did some realy nice little Messerschmitt and Spitfire pilots for the new v2 Volantex warbirds, which now come with a clear canopy. The number of designs of parts from scratch which I have printed is very small and they are very simple objects. If you have no CAD background it's quite a steep learning curve.

[FlyinFlynn]

As far as slicers go I have used Simplyfy3D in the past but have now migrated somewhat into Prusaslicer which is, IMHO, better than Simplyfy3D, with the added bonus of it being free. You can use it with any printer, not just Prusa's models.

I currently have 3 printers because they just seem to replicate themselves while you are not looking :-).  I can't really recommend any particular model, I built my first printer from an aluminium frame kit I bought off ebay and built the printer from that thinking it would be more resilient in aluminium but the two other printers (wood and plastic) I have built since don't seem to be lacking in durability either.  Best advice I could give you is decide on what size build platform you need and find something in your price range.  

Everyone will have a different view on workflow, I still use the now defunct but still obtainable 123DDesign for 3D design and LibreCad for 2D design (both free and at the 'easier to get into' end of the scale). Others seem to just bite the bullet and go straight to Fusion 360, there is no doubt it is a much more competent piece of software but I find it isn't intuitive for me and thus I can never get to grips with it. Horses for courses!

 

Can't say I have had any issues with using the cheapest filament I can lay my hands on, including the stuff from Hobbyking when they have it on sale.

[Ariel]

That's all very useful food for thought. I think deciding on what the workflow will be and what I want it to do is very sound advice. Fusion 360 will definitely want to bite your toes off when you first dip them in but I'm starting to get to grips with it now and it's becoming more intuitive. There's a Fusion way of doing things which seems to be different from other CAD packages especially when you started out with French curves and a drawing board in your youth.

What is important to me in a printer is Reliability and Resolution. (not looking like a ploughed field).

I think I will do a dry run starting with something in Fusion and then using some of the other software to get to a point where it would be ready to print. That should throw up any potential gotchas.

 

As always thanks for the advice. The great thing about this forum is that there are always people who have experience and are willing to share it.

Appreciated.

[Ariel]

So... the bullet is bitten and the die is cast. I went for  Ender 5 S1. Should be here some time next week.

Thanks again for taking an interest.

[FlyinFlynn]

A new rabbit burrow has opened!  Enjoy the journey.

[Ariel]

Thanks. Should be interesting. If it's enjoyable too , I'll call that a win

[Ariel]

Not an enjoyable experience so far. All assembled and stands up by itself but that's about it.

As part of the Black Friday Deal it came with the Sonic Pad.

Switched on followed the instructions and after manually levelling the bed etc. I pressed next and it promptly drove the Hot End nozzle into the front left corner of the Hot Bed because the touch probe is missing the bed by 10mm.

The sonic pad downloaded and flashed it's firmware when I connected it to my network and the Printer profile is definitely the right one. Even the picture on the icon is the same. Ender 5 S1 with CR Probe. 

I have emailed Creality but they are not falling over themselves to reply.

Any one come across this before or have any ideas? Doesn't appear to be a phone number for Creality UK?

 

( This should probably be in the 3D printers Thread. Sorry! )

Edited December 14, 2023 by Ariel
missed some text out

[Ariel]

ok, scrub that. Senior moment. Turns out it doesn't have a Z axis limit switch. My fault entirely. It's always what you think you know rather than what you don't know that trips you up.

Now, where's that Rabbit Hole?!

[PDB]

It’s a steep learning curve initially, but it does get easier if you are methodical and patient. If you stick with it you’ll find 3d printing very satisfying.

[Erfolg]

Ariel

 

I use Fusion 360 for design and the Cura slicer, why because both were recommended by persons on this site. Are there better packages,  i do not know, I do know that they both seem to work, even for me.

 

I am a long way from being competent, there are things I want to do, as yet do not know how. I would benefit from some formal training in using Fusion. An example are exhaust stacks for a Dornier 355, where the stacks go from one plane to a plane at 90 degrees, whist translating from one shape into another. I have worked through one Autodesk Fusion worked example book, I found it hard work, not completing all the examples successfully. I recently discovered a way of achieving a functionality, from a chance discussion with a competent user. There are many ways of skinning a cat with Fusion, I am happy when I know one. Much of what I can do has been by discovery, I bet in some instances there are better ways. Also there are things which can be done, that I am still ignorant of. In short Fusion can do so much, it is not all that obvious, unless you know how to do something, then you think, why did I have a problem. 

 

I also am pretty ignorant on which filament to by, for me it is not obvious what is better. Plus how do you recognise better? They all seem to print. 

 

As for printing wheels, I do not necessarily see an issue, it is the tyres, obviously not PLA, but what?

 

I have managed to fill two SD cards, which may not seem a lot, although I would guess at least 30 designs.

[PDB]

10 hours ago, Erfolg said:

I also am pretty ignorant on which filament to by, for me it is not obvious what is better. Plus how do you recognise better? They all seem to print. 

 

Each filament has a different use case, there are many guides online covering this such as https://reprapworld.co.uk/filament/information/

 

10 hours ago, Erfolg said:

As for printing wheels, I do not necessarily see an issue, it is the tyres, obviously not PLA, but what?

 

TPU would be the filament for printing tyres.

 

10 hours ago, Erfolg said:

I have managed to fill two SD cards, which may not seem a lot, although I would guess at least 30 designs.

 

You do not need to save 3D models from Fusion onto your SD Card, save them to your hard drive. When you want to print the model export it from Fusion to your SD Card, the resulting Gcode file (which is a file containing instructions read by your printer) is tiny and you won't be filling SD Cards up.

Edited December 15, 2023 by PDB

[Ariel]

Thanks for the encouragement PDB. I made the mistake of trying to do the setup while I was doing something else at the same time. Should have known better!

Hopefully I will get it to print something this weekend.

 

Erflog, I'm no expert on Fusion 360 but I am beginning to get a grip on it. It is counter intuitive in some ways especially coming from older 2D software.

I usually start with a simple version of what I want to do until I figure out how the tools work. For your exhaust stack you could try sweeping between profiles along a path. If you haven't seen it already this might help.

https://help.autodesk.com/view/fusion360/ENU/?guid=SLD-SWEEP-SOLID

 If you do it as a New Component you can delete the sketches and try again until you get it right without messing up the Timeline. 

I found that getting my head around the 'Project' and 'Project Intersect' commands made a huge difference. Timeline still catches me out occasionally but No retreat, No surrender as Bruce Springsteen once said. Good luck.

[PDB]

There's no right or wrong regarding the 3D cad software to use, they all have their pros and cons.

 

I've ended up using FreeCAD, mainly because of a YouTube channel run by MangoJelly https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUWhaOxsRk_5oPPq00_Y7Dw who has some excellent tutorials.

 

Following the videos in this playlist has got me on my way with FreeCAD https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLWuyJLVUNtc0UszswD0oD5q4VeWTrK7JC

 

I've only scratched the surface of FreeCAD and I'm still breaking models and the initial learning curve has been so steep I think I'll stick with it as I don't want to have to learn another application.