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markschnell

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This doesn't need to be a long thread, I'm just curious. I see some really cool stuff that can be done with a 3-D printer. My question is: Are the two and three hundred dollar printers I see on Amazon decent enough or are they basically just toys? I don't want to get into business, just maybe be able to print nosecones, etc. for myself. Thanks for input.
 
This doesn't need to be a long thread, I'm just curious. I see some really cool stuff that can be done with a 3-D printer. My question is: Are the two and three hundred dollar printers I see on Amazon decent enough or are they basically just toys? I don't want to get into the business, just maybe be able to print nosecones, etc. for myself. Thanks for your input.

I would either go with a Creality Ender-3 or a Prusa Mini. The Creality is a good printer but more fo a Toyota and the Prusa is the Mercedes. You will get a slightlt smaller but capable and plug and play printing from the Prusa. The Creality is a little more of a tinkered machine.
 
I would either go with a Creality Ender-3 or a Prusa Mini. The Creality is a good printer but more fo a Toyota and the Prusa is the Mercedes. You will get a slightlt smaller but capable and plug and play printing from the Prusa. The Creality is a little more of a tinkered machine.
Or, you can go for the AnyCubic Chiron for a bit more and get everything you wanted in the Ender 3 Pro but didn't realize until after you bought it. Larger print bed, dual-extruder, etc.
 
Perfectly happy and love my Ender 3. Great value for the money.
Are you good at tinkering? You have to assemble it yourself.
It's a hobby. You play with it often, learning how to make better prints. You find cool stuff to print on Thingiverse or your own design and it's fun to watch it grow into something.
Ok, in reality.. its kind of boring to watch, it usually takes 6 hours or more to grow into something you recognize.
I print lots of rocket parts. i've also made shelf hangers, random parts for things around the house, a little thingy for the hinge in my hatchback. Its just fun to play with.
Yes, in my mind. completely worth the money.
 
Will my Mac run a 3D printer?
Oh. actually... you don't plug your printer into your pc
well, you can.. but only to monitor the print. I don't. My printer is in the other room. The Ender 3 (and I think most?) has a micro-sd port. You save the gcode file (what the slicer outputs) onto the sd (via included usb/sd adapter). Then you just plug the sd in the printer, select the item to print, and push the button
 
here's the process. Make something in your 3d program or download from Thingiverse or other site. It will be a .STL file.
load the STL file into the slicer program. the slicer does all the work of figuring out how to print the file. Slicer is a software program. Lots available (Cura, Repetier, Slic3r, etc). I use Cura.
The slicer program is where you tell it what filament, temperature, and speed to use for printing. the slicer program outputs a .GCODE file. This is actually just a huge text file that you can read. It tells the printer to go to warm up print head to specified temperature and some other things, then go to x,y,z coordinate and start squirting goo.
You save the .gcode file onto the SD card. Thats what the printer reads to do its work.
 
I run Linux Mint on my main PC. I use Prusa Slic3r, Ultimaker Cura 4.4, Simplify3D on my Linux box. My favorite, at this time, is Slic3r. I have it set up so it pushes the gcode file directly to the OctoPi (a Raspberry Pi 3 B+ running 3D printing server software) that controls my Ender 3 Pro via the WiFi network in the house. Printer and OctoPi sit in the den, Linux box is in my bedroom. Webcam on OctoPi let's me watch the printer as it builds up the object. I even have a Telegram 'bot that will retrieve status reports from the OctoPi and pictures to show me what's going on while I'm away from home.
 
I would either go with a Creality Ender-3 or a Prusa Mini. The Creality is a good printer but more fo a Toyota and the Prusa is the Mercedes. You will get a slightly smaller but capable and plug and play printing from the Prusa. The Creality is a little more of a tinkered machine.

I stick with this suggestion. Start simple and add things as you get good with the unupgraded printer.
 
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