Is a 3D printer worth it? Or, how to maximize my rocketry dollar...

Hi everyone- I did some searching on this, and could not find anything. I have a limited hobby budget, and while I have a reasonable shop, I'm looking to expand. I'm an L2 with a passion for scratch building, with dreams of L3 and hitting the 100k foot mark someday. I see a lot of great 3D printed parts being made for the custom/unique situations encountered, particularly with AvBays and interstage couplers, etc. My question is, is it worth it? Would I be better served investing in a great drill press (mine is pretty crappy) and a scroll saw (or a band saw?)? I'm thinking one of the $300 DIY kits, not a $3K MakerBot. I'm sure there's two very disparate schools of thought on this!

PS- I would also be excited to make my own LPR nose cones and special-bits, like the Satellite for the Estes GEOSAT LV (an awesome rocket!).

Everyone I know with a 3D printer spends more time making 3D printer parts and maintaining the printer than making parts for any other project.

Well, the thing with 3D printing is that you can get started without actually buying the printer. Just make some designs and pay someone else to print them (I've used 3dHubs with good results.) After you've done a few like this you can decide if a printer is worth the investment.

Yeah. Use a service to start with. I like Fictiv.

I bought a cheap printer (reprappro Fisher before they closed shop) and would recommend similar to anyone. I have put about 5 kgs of filament through it and only printed 3 small replacement parts and a few spares (probably only 100g of filament). Expect a long learning curve and to waste a lot of filament starting out. I bought it with the idea of using it for rocket parts but so far it seems to mainly be making ornaments and nice back for the missus. At least it helped convince her to allow me to buy the parts for a big one now. If the budget is tight then definitely send the files out to be printed elsewhere unless you can print things for the significant other to convince for a budget increase.

I'm holding off for now because this technology is changing so fast. As Neil and John advised, try a service first. Another option may be a local maker space or TechShop.

Thanks guys- I didn't know there were "services" like that, will definitely look into!

Glad to have found this thread, as I'm going to need to send some parts out to be replicated by 3D prints.
I won't be using the prints as flying parts, but as masters for future builds, or to share specifications with others that want the parts.
It's the struts for my SA-5 Gammon that hold the boosters on, and since they are so difficult to model, I want them set in stone so to speak once I get them right. I've got to get them perfected, and it is quite the task, so I will eventually want to invest in getting the 3D prints.
They can't do that for me at Staples yet.

I just took a look at Fictiv (as mentioned by John). Looks like you have to be in a supported area; I don't seem to be able to even get a quote. My guess is that's a good service for commercial use if you're in a supported area.

I highly recommend 3dHubs for getting started, for a few reasons:
1) Choice of lots and lots (and lots!) of different printers.
2) Can usually find at least one option that is much less expensive than most other commercial services
3) Often can find somewhere for local pick-up (and you can talk to the person who printed your parts)
4) In some cases, you can support hobbyists. One of my prints was done by a high school kid about half an hour away from me. I kind of like that. Of course, some of the printing services are commercial. You can pick what you like.
5) Directly connected to TinkerCad, which I love for its simplicity despite its limitations. Useful for me, maybe not so much for others who will do their designs using Real CAD Software.

Downside is that print quality is going to vary a bit from vendor to vendor. I wouldn't be as enthusiastic to use it for commercial work.

Anyway, I am not affiliated just a happy user.

https://www.3dhubs.com/
https://www.tinkercad.com/

A local community library here in the Fort Worth area (Benbrook) offers very low cost 3d printing and laser cutting service.

Buddies have had RC aircraft parts printed very cheaply. My understanding is that the library charges for the printing material only.

I hope this type of service will be a trend to help revitalize libraries everywhere in the Information Age.

I have used Shapeways for my parts. They do nice work in a variety of materials (Nylon is my favorite for general-purpose parts).

For example, I use them for the detail parts of my RS-2U:
jcrocket.com/rs-2u.shtml

Here's my 2 cents..

Use a service. Buy a laser cutter instead. Learn to design parts in a 3D program. Most parts can also (should) be machined, not printed; a la CNC 3 or 5 axis mill. PLA or ABS is heavy, and parts aren't as strong as you'd think. Most parts take hours to print. A good printer is a few kilo-bucks. Don't buy cheap. Some parts (most?) I see people print "Look what I printed" can be made out of cardboard in about a 1/2 hr.. Some ideas require as much or more 'support material' that the part itself, and removing said supports can be a hassle. Again, plastic..

the technology is still new. 90% of the printers are "FDM", layers of heated & extruded plastic. (basically a glue gun layering layers upon itself) That's where the weakness comes in, the layers can separate / don't bond well.. SO, you need to look at how it gets printed, how it lies on the bed for strength..

Look at a laser cutter. you can cut wood, plastic, paper, card stock, etc.. Much more useful for wood CRs, fins, standoffs, etc.. If you set it up right, you can even cut slots in BTs.. And, if you're good at design, the shape you want out of 3D printing, can probably be made from several pieces of wood, plastic, etc.. and assembled & worked for a better looking & stronger structure..

We have two at work, and we use them for prototyping new designs. (Makergear M2 & Fusion3 F360 if you're curious).. Once the part is proven, it's off the machinist for a pre-production run..

Looks like you have a maker space (aka scratch builders wonder land) in your area:
https://www.xerocraft.org/

Besides the tools, that are often too expensive and/or bulky to own at home, you can usually find some friendly folks there, that will show you the ropes.

Reinhard

Reinhard said:

Looks like you have a maker space (aka scratch builders wonder land) in your area:
https://www.xerocraft.org/

Besides the tools, that are often too expensive and/or bulky to own at home, you can usually find some friendly folks there, that will show you the ropes.

Reinhard

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hey, thanks!!

Well enough others have said this but I can also state some of my experience......for FDM I use a Fortus 400mc almost every day, its a very expensive machine and probably near the top of the line in FDM. Look at what all the others have said - and even with this $100K machine I still use another local top end polyjet, SLA, etc....for different prototypes where the layers lose strength, we need other materials, etc. The main reason we went with the Fortus (vs the Connex I liked with much better resolution) was the Fortus prints in ESD material we needed for a specific project.

I'd think you would be MUCH further ahead financially by outsourcing the print to someone with a good printer. Or use a maker space or printer hub...... The technology is evolving like crazy and the services will be keeping up to date with the tech. A few of my colleagues have their own hobby printers and the prints look very poor quality, when they can even get them to work! This across a spectrum of DIY kits, through the Cube machine, etc. Of course it is a GREAT hobby and I hope it encourages some to learn and express some creativity with manufacturing things. It is a great if you have the expectations up front that the hobby will be in getting it to work well consistently. But what I see - anything less than this Fortus, and it seems like a ton of effort and tweaking to try to get things to actually work for the most part. Yeah, a bit of a generalization, as I am sure some people get them to run.

watermelonman said:

Everyone I know with a 3D printer spends more time making 3D printer parts and maintaining the printer than making parts for any other project.

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That certainly describes my experience. I had access to a couple of MakerBots a while ago, and people spent significantly more time fixing things than printing usable parts (when the printers even worked, most parts ended up in the trash). Many solutions were tried and all of them failed to resolve the issues. As a joke I covered up the MakerBot label with a piece of tape with "MakerNot" written on it.

Here's another vote for using a service.

I will vote on the other side of the fence.

A 3D printer has been extremely useful for me, in and out of rocketry. Yes learning to 3D print and maintaining the printer is a learning experience. However, I spend more time printing useful objects then stuff for the printer or fixing the printer.

OP states - "I have a limited hobby budget"
"$300 DIY kits", not unless you "love", what the community calls, "tinkering".
Ive heard too many probs w/ the chiching kits.
Learning curve for slicers and modeling software. The machine is the easy part.
I have 2. Modded and hacked. Inexpensive w/ upgrades. About .1mm tolerance.
Youre better off getting info from 3D Print forums.

BLKKROW said:

I will vote on the other side of the fence.

A 3D printer has been extremely useful for me, in and out of rocketry. Yes learning to 3D print and maintaining the printer is a learning experience. However, I spend more time printing useful objects then stuff for the printer or fixing the printer.

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Same here. There was definitely a learning curve and a lot of initial tweaking, for me it was probably more about the software (slicers and modeling software) as the 'quirks' of the hardware, but I'm pretty amazed by what can be done and how 'easy' it's becoming as time goes on. Several weeks back I had created a .scad file to print a 'ring guide', to align holes around my airframe on various angles, the first one I made was for a 54mm airframe, but I designed the code so that it could be re-sized in the future, last night I decided to print a 4" version. Tweaked exactly one line of code based on a caliper measurement of my airframe and sent it off to the printer just before I went to bed, woke up this morning and took it off the printer and it's perfect. Now would it come out the same on any other printer or with different slicing software, answer is probably not (I have some other adjustment knobs in my .scad that would hopefully account for those variations), but I think I have my setup pretty dialed-in for what I need.

There are still some parts I'd like to print to make the printer a bit better (like attaching my webcam to the print bed so that it moves with the part), but they're all nice-to-haves not anything that needs to be done, so I haven't been doing them. I would like to experiment with some different materials and perhaps some different ways of getting the parts to stick to the bed (possibly driven by the different materials), but there's also the 'if it ain't broke' side of things causing me to stick with what I know works so far.

I should note that I went with an $800 printer, not a $300 one, so I can't speak to how the lower-cost ones work, but I didn't shell out $3k for mine either. I also didn't have to do any assembly, though in the end I did end up opening up the bottom to re-position some wiring because there wasn't enough slack as they built it to go to the maximum Z.

woferry said:

I should note that I went with an $800 printer, not a $300 one, so I can't speak to how the lower-cost ones work

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What printer do you have? I think the brand plays a huge part into this as well. I'm reluctant to use any MakerBot printer again, after ongoing problems with two of their printers, both $2k+. Not that I have the money to buy even a cheap printer of my own, but I still think they're cool to use and capable of doing a lot, so I'm interested in using others at some point.

Before retiring, I did a lot of prototyping work for a small engineering company. The thing I miss the most is the laser cutter/engraver. I did a few fins and centering rings for myself when I worked there. I could still use the shop, but it is ~ 35 miles from home, so Id probably want to queue up a number of parts to cut, rather than drive over just for a set of fins.

For anything 3-D printed, I think I'd rather let the technology progress, and buy anything I might want from someone with 3-D printing expertise.

I've got a pretty extensive wood shop, and my favorite tool is my lathe. I used to turn nose cones on a drill as a kid, so having a lathe now to turn custom nose cones, transitions, and parts like engine intakes and nozzles, is very fun and rewarding.

TheTehk17 said:

What printer do you have? I think the brand plays a huge part into this as well. I'm reluctant to use any MakerBot printer again, after ongoing problems with two of their printers, both $2k+. Not that I have the money to buy even a cheap printer of my own, but I still think they're cool to use and capable of doing a lot, so I'm interested in using others at some point.

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I went with the Robo3D R1+plus, and have been very happy with it for the ~3 months I've owned it so far. It's sold as a complete pre-built unit (I was running my first print within about 30 minutes of unboxing it), but it's really a RepRap printer, running the Marlin firmware so it's based on open platform standards. When you open the unit up the guts is simply an Arduino with a (slightly optimized) RAMPS board. The non-printed upgrades I've done so far were to change to a dual-fan parts cooling solution (helped tremendously with bridging), replace the original Hexagon hotend with an E3D V6[*], and add a full-graphics LCD board, as well as an external Pi2 to run OctoPrint and a webcam to watch it remotely and take timelapses. All told it's probably another ~$150 in add-on parts. All I've really printed to use on the printer so far was an oiler for the filament, a piece to make the included spool holder work better (this is a simple design deficiency on Robo3D's part, I originally printed a different spool holder but stopped using it pretty early on), a resized mounting plate to deal with the E3D hotend's different mounting requirements (also required taking a drill to the stock Greg's Wade extruder to increase a hole for the E3D's PTFE tubing), fan ducts to go with the dual-fan parts cooler, a grill to close off an area in the unit where things might fall inside the printer, a case/mount for the full-graphics display, and a bracket that attaches to the bed that I plan to attach other things to (a scraps tray to help with scraping the bed clean and a mount for my camera so it can move with the bed rather than sit in front of it. I do want to make a cable chain to replace the default cable management, but haven't finished the design yet (most of the above items were my own design, sometimes based on someone else's). And of course I've made some minor tweaks to the firmware, to support the full-graphics display (by default it only supports the text display) and to set a different extrusion default as Robo's value was more than 10% off (under-extruding).

My biggest gripe so far is with the bed heater, it doesn't span the full XY print area (for now I've reduced the usable print area to avoid running out of the heated zone) and the heater itself is pretty uneven (proven by my IR camera), so I can even get some lifting within the "heated area" if I'm not diligent with the hairspray in those spots. There are solutions to this on the excellent community forum Robo3D has, but they're pretty involved (and generally require adding higher-current relays and a beefier power supply), so I haven't tried to tackle that one yet, it's manageable so long as you're careful about it and don't try to do a full 10x9 print (I'm limited to more like 8x8 right now which still isn't too shabby for what I'm printing).


[*] Technically I'm using a V6lite though I also have a V6. I figured I'd upgrade the hotend eventually after hearing so many good things about the E3D V6, but that plan got thrown into overdrive when I had a serious clog (jam? I forget which is which) from crappy filament I bought from Fry's (Shaxon), and I wound up breaking off the Hexagon's nozzle trying to put things back together after clearing the clog (didn't realize that you're supposed to have the heatbreak hot when re-installing the nozzle). So the printer was down for a few days as I panic-ordered the E3D V6, and I realized that I could get a V6lite delivered a few days faster than the V6 so I ordered it as well, figured it also wouldn't hurt to have a spare in case the main V6 ever failed, but so far I haven't bothered to go from the V6lite to the V6 since I'm only printing PLA so far and the V6lite is working perfectly for that.

I bought my Makerbot Replicator over four years ago for $2200. I'd been watching 3D printers for several years and the Replicator seemed to be the first out-of-the box printer - I wanted to print, not fiddle with a printer. It did work that way sort of... it did a reasonable job right out-of-the-box, but it soon fell to a (still) unending series of upgrades. But then, it worked out that it was half the fun, making it better. For a long time now, it has been truly dialed in - push the button and walk away for most prints. You can get a similar printer for half that now, but I've had more fun with that $2200 purchase than I have for anything similar. Glad I didn't wait; do it again in a heartbeat.

Hold no illusions that any printer isn't going to take a large time investment, in learning and fiddling. Only you can judge if the hassle is worth the utility, or if the hassle is fun.

Deciding what to buy, I've recently heard very good comments about the Craftbot Plus. Heated bed, CoreXY (IIRC), semi-enclosed (enclosable), at around $1K. Last week's podcast at threedprintingtoday talked about it. No current Makerbot product is worth anything.