[Noisebridge-discuss] 3d printing

Dave Peacock dave.peacock at gmail.com
Mon Jul 30 05:45:42 UTC 2012


Hello good people of noisebridge,

I came by the space on wednesday hoping to chitchat about 3d printers,
getting closer to acquiring one and hoping to discuss a few more things
about it all. But alas no one was around. So i'll ask a couple more
questions here, any further responses are greatly appreciated.

Our goal is to have a printer a group of folks will use: artists,
designers, makers. Idea visualization, showing physical models to clients,
printing molds, prototyping ideas, general making. We are looking for a
system that will allow us to print stuff without spending and endless
amount of lot of time just trying to make the printer work. We are looking
to spend less than $2k.

My big questions:

* How important are 2 heads?
* Any advice/thoughts on cutting up larger models and printing in pieces?
One request was that we be able to print larger pieces, but the FDM
printers in our price range all have a fairly limited build envelope.  Has
anyone done this? What software did you use to cut up your model? Did you
use keys or dovetail-y features to join or just glued on flat seams or what?
* Any recommendations re software? Of course want it all, cheep or free and
still usable, but i'm not seeing many free options other than blender,
which i don't really consider to be in the latter group. I've used sketchup
in the past but didn't strike me as much of a tool for any kind of organic
modeling. Anyone use 123D?
* Is a dedicated machine to drive the printer necessary? What is the
likelihood that i can do this with a linux machine, or will it need to be
windows?

Currently leaning towards the RapMan from a UK company, Bits from Bytes.
But Ultimaker also could be a good choice. Any further thoughts on these?
Taylor Alexander recommended the Ultimaker. But depends partly on how
feasible it is to chop up models into sub-pieces.


many thanks in advance,
dave
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