Got the tachometer installed with custom brackets and enclosure:
and
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Sounds good. Actually, I have a couple of quads but I’d like to see all these quads placed over in the multirotor forum and the same with cameras. Have a page just for cameras and gimbals.
Ok guys… I need a 3D printer. I’ve been skating along fine without one now for some time but it’s fricken time.
I’m thinking of a resin printer, but not like a $4000 form labs model. I googled and this list came up;
But… because I don’t know wtf I’m doing here, I will defer to the community for feedback. Here are my touchpoints;
• sub-$1000 price range preferred
• very occasional operation, maybe once or twice a month at most
• would prefer resin but like inkjet printers they might not be good for low volume sparse print jobs? would there be a lot of wasted resin?
• any additional curing or washing equipment or materials need to be considered?
Any experiences and thoughts appreciated.
What do you want to make?
How accurate does it need to be?
How large of a printer do you need?
Why resin over filament? They each have their own strengths and weaknesses
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What is the maximum dimensions you would want to print?
How often would you want to print “larger” items? If they are one offs / occasional, could you outsource them?
If we know what size you need. it will be easier to suggest something suitable.
It sounds like you want High-Res, Resin is probably what you are after… Just need that info extra from you
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Haha, @Eriequiet you added to your post, now I look silly, like I’m repeating you 
Anyway
here’s a succinct review on pros and cons of resin printers
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So I’m just going to say this harsh truth
Sounds like you want something that “just works”
That’s not how any of this works lol
You learn to be good at printing things by fucking up and fixing your printer when it’s fucking up
Anything from random shop parts and things which require low accuracy but probably high strength, to molds and jigs that may require high accuracy but low strength.
The last thing I just ordered from Sculpteo was 126.5mm in diameter by 5mm thick.
It just makes more sense in my mind and filament seems so wispy, finicky, smokey, annoying, etc. with so many requirements like bed leveling and problems getting it off the bed and not sticking to the bed and junk gunking up the nozzle and heater coils failing and on and on. I feel like resin is just less fussy but with more after-work to do with curing and washing, which I’m fine with. Could be wrong… it’s just the sense I get. A real concern is the smell / smokey aspect though… the lab is in the basement of the house and smelling up the whole house when I’m printing things is not ideal.
hah well that’s not hash, it’s accurate. It’s kinda like… this is not a hobby for me anymore this is a business… so I need business level reliability. If that’s not possible with kicking out the big bucks, then I guess I need to consider more expensive options, or keep ordering my parts online.
For resin, take a look at the mars elegoo whatever the latest gen is
It’s got lots of adoption which is very beneficial… companies likely will never support the same as a million strong user base that has to fix things themselves
I’d say entry level “business machines” are a bit of a racket
Maybe twice as reliable at 10x the cost, and maybe only a hair more accurate
Hell the ender upended the fdm market by beating most business machines in accuracy even if it needs some love
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My opinion, Go Resin.
You will get the accuracy and strength regardless, plus speed which I also imagine will be important.
Now you just need to decide on the size:price ratio
The printer I have is a Creality Ender 3 pro. I was ligitimately surprised at the accuracy it can produce. After having it for a while I can tell you that most of the problems I’ve had with it are just regular maintenance issues like cleaning out the hotend, keeping dust out of the filament, and leveling the bed.
If I was to have a wishlist of features for my 3d printer I would keep most of it but move to a direct drive extruder and give it auto bed leveling.
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I’m definitely following this now.
I’ve also had an interest in a 3D printer for some time now for random 1 or 2 prints a month, small project boxes and enclosures, maybe outdoor/UV tough. Mostly things someone else has already designed, I don’t have the capacity to code and build something in a program for hours just to print it backwards.
I’ve been researching the Prusa i3 MK3S lately and now the resin printers but I have no idea what I’m looking at.
Also didn’t know a 3D printing services existed until now, so that may be the most economic way for me to proceed.
I’m interested in the collective opinion.
I really love my resin printer, would highly recommend one.
I like the Creality series of resin/SLA machines, but I know a lot of people like the Anycubic machines. I’ve had some bad luck with Anycubic in the past for their FDM machines, but doubt that transfers to their SLA printers. Elegoo is also fairly highly regarded, and they make some good bigger machines that are still <$1000.
SLA has sooooo much less tinkering, which is the main reason I’m recommending it. There’s no esteps to calibrate, no extruder to clean out and tweak. The only bed leveling in most cases is loosening 4 screws, lowering the bed down all the way to the screen, and tightening them. Takes less than a minute. I had a print going less than 10 minutes after taking mine out of the box, and it turned out fantastic. There’s some more things you have to learn about model prop on your PC, but it tends to be way more automatic and easy than FDM model slicing.
Honestly, if you have the space or will power, having something like an Ender 3 Pro FDM machine in addition to a much smaller SLA machine is fantastic. The setup can still be achieved for <$600-700, and would allow massive prints with medium accuracy, and small prints with insane accuracy.
If you go resin, you’re definitely going to want a good wash/cure station. The wash station can be avoided if you use water-washable resin or if you manually clean with alcohol. However, getting in every nook and cranny can be hard, hence a powered wash station.
Most companies have their own wash/cure stations based on the same design. A rotating shaft is at the bottom, and either a plate goes on top to spin the model around the internal UV lights, or a tank with a magnetically attached propeller goes on top, to clean the model. From what I can tell, no brand really has an advantage here, they’re all very similar. I have the Creality wash/cure station, works great. The mounts for the build plates can differ, which is why you’d want to buy the brand that matches your printer.
Regarding the smell, yeah, it’s a thing. With the cover on my machine, and the power off, I can’t smell anything. With it printing, there’s a somewhat strong smell. It’s nowhere near as bad as something like acetone, and I don’t think it’d travel upstairs as long as there’s a door in between. I print in my bedroom, and you can’t smell it in the living room a few feet outside of my door. If you have any ventilation you could aim at it to suck the smell away, that’d be ideal, but totally doable without.
I’m not sure what your current situation is with heat/cooling in the basement, but important to keep in mind that FDM machines can struggle a bit with extreme temps, even with a heated bed. SLA doesn’t really care.
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this is another good reason for resin over filament, as cold temperatures (basements/Seattle) can /will make your filament brittle, leading to allsorts of pain-in-the-arsery
You might be interested in this. It’s underpowered CAD, and mostly wildly overpriced, but if you only need one part, and need it real bad. It could work for you.
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yep. I used to use shapeways because they had a deal with tinkecad where you could just order your part right out of tinkercad basically… it would export it right to shapeways directly and you’d just have it shipped. now tinkercad is owned by autodesk and shapeways went through some kind of wild spasm where it was just broken and shitty, and now the costs are getting out of control with lead times continuously expanding… unless you want to pay for faster service.
scuplteo has a $30 minimum order fee, which makes buying single smaller parts seemingly not worth it… but when i compared the same disc part I’m having printed now, it was actually cheaper even after they tacked on an additional $10.43 to bring it to the “minimum order” of $30.
Shapeways quote
Sculpteo quote
My point here is, there are all kinds of ways these services are taking shots at gouging just a little more from you so it can be hard to make direct comparisons… the materials are even becoming a bit obscured. Shapeways used to be very straightforward with material descriptions, giving the chemical makeup of each type etc. but now they seem to have switched to the Venti, Grande, Mochachocabullshit marketing approach to materials names… again making it difficult to make direct comparisons.
Still, I’m glad these services exist. I’ve been able to order the odd custom part when I need it and save the space on my bench and the headaches associated with maintaining such a device. But, as I said, the lead times are growing and the costs are going up… the very same STL file I had printed by Shapeways a few years ago for $4.50 plus $3.75 shipping, now costs $7.90 and $10 shipping… and I have to wait twice as long.
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Just found one called AnkerMake M5, it’s still in it’s late stages of kickstarter, but looks promising as a plug and play printer.
No such thing, even if it works mechanically perfect
unless you remove the ability to change print settings entirely from the user which is a terrible idea
At least half of 3D printing learning curve is what your print settings should be for a given print
Does this need to be strong and have more walls?
Faster and tougher? Slower and more crisp?
Overhangs? Supports? Flow multiplier? And a thousand other settings you need to mess up to understand