3D Printing My small print farm is expanding (big expansion for me)...

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BigMacDaddy

BigMacDaddy

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Hope I continue to have good luck with these Prusa Mk3s+ Clones with Triangle Labs upgraded hotends. Knock wood!

I started assembling yesterday and realized I had forgotten I needed to print all the parts!!! So my current 3 printers spent the night and day today printing parts for their siblings.

I did, however, remember to purge / clean the oil from bearings and re-pack with proper PTFE grease.

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hobie1dog said:
is this just so you can print the same parts at the same time?
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Most of the kits I am making have a dozen or more parts (the most recent one I am about to launch has 40 parts and is BT-80 scale so I can only fit 9 of the main parts on the bed). So printing 9-18 kits at a time (my usual approach) requires a ton of print time. More printers = greater throughput. Plus allows some preventative maintance, downtime, or new kit development without crippling productivity.
 
KenECoyote said:
Yeah, hurry up and make the kits I asked for already! :p

jk...I left your stand at our club launch this weekend with my arms full of your kits... I'll be busy for a while! lol
Click to expand...

Thanks Ken -- really appreciated the support!

As soon as the printers are done making printers I will print some Fritz-X kits!!!
 
BigMacDaddy said:
Hope I continue to have good luck with these Prusa Mk3s+ Clones with Triangle Labs upgraded hotends. Knock wood!

I started assembling yesterday and realized I had forgotten I needed to print all the parts!!! So my current 3 printers spent the night and day today printing parts for their siblings.

I did, however, remember to purge / clean the oil from bearings and re-pack with proper PTFE grease.

View attachment 545711
Click to expand...

Very cool to see! I am not much of a 3D printing guy, as my personal experience (i.e. user error, most likely) soured me to it, but it is obvious that it opens up the opportunities for both vendors and customers, so I'm a fan in that respect for sure.

I'm glad for your success and hope it continues to grow!

Sandy.
 
Sandy H. said:
Very cool to see! I am not much of a 3D printing guy, as my personal experience (i.e. user error, most likely) soured me to it, but it is obvious that it opens up the opportunities for both vendors and customers, so I'm a fan in that respect for sure.

I'm glad for your success and hope it continues to grow!

Sandy.
Click to expand...

They are pretty easy once you patiently get through the bumps in the road caused by the tinkering that is required to be successful.
 
BigMacDaddy said:
Yes 6x MK3s (Prusa or clones) and 1x Ender 6 that still does not do production work - I am giving up on the glass print surface and just bought a PEI sheet for it.
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Interesting. Let me know how the ender takes the PEI.

I would recommend you consider some minis in the future. They print faster than the Mk3S.
 
cwbullet said:
Interesting. Let me know how the ender takes the PEI.

I would recommend you consider some minis in the future. They print faster than the Mk3S.
Click to expand...
Yes, I saw that you had a number of them in your farm. I thought about them but I was worried about the reduced print area lowering overall throughput. I can only fit 9 of anything BT-80 scale on the MK3s with its 210x250mm bed (and the price for the clones is only $100 or less different) and I am running into space limits on bed even when printing smaller items.

What type of print speed are you running the minis at? I am running the MK3s units at 120mm/sec (maybe 80mm/sec for external walls and usually something like 60mm/sec for small details which there are not too many). As long as everything is tight in the unit I am not getting any ringing (although slight accentuation of the facets on lower resolution shapes).

For now I have been sticking with .4mm nozzles but now that I have more units I may setup a couple with .6mm or .8mm for larger prints. My experiments with 1 and 1.2mm did not get a big speed boost considering the quality loss / extra issues.

Actually I have found the biggest productivity gain has been in learning how to use the slicing software better (for example, letting the slicer hollow out complex shapes makes prints much faster, reducing or eliminating supports, etc...). I recently learned how to add parts to objects in PrusaSlicer and that lets me have different slicing settings for different parts of an object which was a gamechanger for me.
 
BigMacDaddy said:
Yes, I saw that you had a number of them in your farm. I thought about them but I was worried about the reduced print area lowering overall throughput. I can only fit 9 of anything BT-80 scale on the MK3s with its 210x250mm bed (and the price for the clones is only $100 or less different) and I am running into space limits on bed even when printing smaller items.

What type of print speed are you running the minis at? I am running the MK3s units at 120mm/sec (maybe 80mm/sec for external walls and usually something like 60mm/sec for small details which there are not too many). As long as everything is tight in the unit I am not getting any ringing (although slight accentuation of the facets on lower resolution shapes).

For now I have been sticking with .4mm nozzles but now that I have more units I may setup a couple with .6mm or .8mm for larger prints. My experiments with 1 and 1.2mm did not get a big speed boost considering the quality loss / extra issues.

Actually I have found the biggest productivity gain has been in learning how to use the slicing software better (for example, letting the slicer hollow out complex shapes makes prints much faster, reducing or eliminating supports, etc...). I recently learned how to add parts to objects in PrusaSlicer and that lets me have different slicing settings for different parts of an object which was a gamechanger for me.
Click to expand...
I do a lot of printing on MK3S with 8mm nozzles. It does hinder quality, but who cares on bulkheads and internal parts. I am going to try a 0.6mm nozzle next.

As for the size of the bed, I have found a 50/50 split ideal for printing. I have 3 larger printers (CR-10S Pro, Anycubic Chiron, and Predator), They are not used all that often. I have a Prusa XL that will soon be shipping.

Smaller printers - 5 MK3S, 5 Minis, a Ender 3 with BL Touch, and a BIQU BX. They offer great flexibility in printing. The Minis are the fastest and have the best quality in my opinion.

I am contimplating a SeeMeCNC with my first couple retirement check. Huge delta printer.
 
Getting these guys dialed in...

Now I just need to streamline my enclosure situation... I am thinking of going with an Ikea PAX shelving unit since it seems cheaper / easier to reinforce that shelf system than it is to build enclosures around all the 3D printers on open metal shelves. Anyone have thoughts on inexpensive enclosures for mini farms?

1668513317379.jpeg
 
cwbullet said:
Interesting. Let me know how the ender takes the PEI.

I would recommend you consider some minis in the future. They print faster than the Mk3S.
Click to expand...
I print almost exclusively on PEI with my Ender 5. PLA and PLA+ require no additional prep. Nylon (my favorite material) requires a few swipes of Magigoo adhesive, but then it pops right off the plate after printing.
For an enclosure, I just use an IKEA cabinet, and it works great.
 
KenECoyote said:
Yeah, hurry up and make the kits I asked for already! :p

jk...I left your stand at our club launch this weekend with my arms full of your kits... I'll be busy for a while! lol
Click to expand...
MARS I presume?

Sounds like I'm going to need to head up there one of these days, even if I don't fly. Would love to see some of @BigMacDaddy 's stuff in person.
 
Made some progress on the new enclosure.. .Could not find a good deal on a Pax wardrobe so wound up building one myself. Reflective insulation lining, lights, thermal switches w/ cooling fans, doors, etc... still need to be added (and lots more drilling to run PTFE tubes from filament tubs to printers.

1668888620012.jpeg
 
neil_w said:
MARS I presume?

Sounds like I'm going to need to head up there one of these days, even if I don't fly. Would love to see some of @BigMacDaddy 's stuff in person.
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(Sorry Neil, just saw this.)

It was at METRA in Pine Island NY. I had just messaged BMD a day or so earlier about ordering one of his kits and was suddenly surprised to find him set up and selling at our club launch (I had no idea he was even close by). I whipped out my phone, brought up our conversation, pointed to it and said "ROB?!?" LOL
 

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