It’s getting close to needing a separate category for 3D printing (or, as I tend to type it £D printing).
Seeing all the grief you lot are having is steadily steering me away from 3D printing - thank you
Not at all. 3D printing is the same as drone flying
Eagerly await your first printer
High expectations of how you will perform
Reality strikes.
Look for help
Find a friendly forum
Practice, Practice, Practice
Gain experience
Enjoy the journey!
Just to add a little distraction -
as 3d printing is tending toward metals, CNC routing is now performing 3d “prints”. Obviously it cant do everything but many prints dont need the unique benefits of 3d print. Relatively recently the slicing software was adapted for traditional CNC and now many parts are being made that way. Ie cutting away rather than adding to.
Remember, 3d print is CNC in reverse.
I enjoy using my printer but I have to concede that it is an expensive waste of time. It is much much cheaper to have my prints produced commercially on “proper” printers.
If you want to recreate the “mad scientist” approach to 3d printer I recommend the Anycubic Photon. Uses a UV light to cure resin. Good for smallish objects but level of detail is amazing. But you need lots of containers to clean parts in IPA (not the beer!).
You may have more luck with Carbon Fibre ABS or Polycarbonate\Nylon Carbon Fibre, the discussions I’ve read show that it warps and cracks much less than normal ABS but it’s much much more expensive per roll which is why I don’t use it.
Been looking at a resin printer myself if only for the small parts and near crystal clear printing capabilities.
I’m trying ABS because I don’t believe that PLA is ideal for drone parts in terms of flexibility and crash resistance. Happy to be proved wrong!
Actually PLA is usually stronger (it just doesn’t cope with heat or environment as well as ABS) but it does depend on the compound\vendor. If you want max strength with some give then Nylon is best but hardest to print and keep dry, PC is good if you can do the temps needed (290c+ min and 120c+ bed). Had good results on smaller PC parts but cracking as with ABS on taller items.
For drone parts the Carbon Fibre stuff is likely best all round as it’s also about 40% lighter than straight compounds of PLA, ABS, PC or Nylon.
I’ll just stick with my simple PLA prints then.
My only delve into 3D printing was to ask @callum to print something for me …. and we all know what that resulted in.
The boot print was perfection…