Woo Hoo!! New Toy!! Stratasys Dimension 3DP

The nice thing about those is you can get paid support; it's part of the price. And the software is usually pretty-well sorted. David Ranier bought another brand (but still good professional brand) and he was up and printing in a matter of hours, I think, and they had classes at a nearby library on using the machine.

I myself enjoy the build as much as the printing, so I'll stick with repraps.

How much are the filament cartridges?

 

If you want to talk about sources, I've done quite a bit of hunting in sourcing parts for the two (TWO) that are under construction right now. Shoot me an e-mail, it may save you some money.

 

Depends. Most 3D printers run 4-lead NEMA-17s, which can be gotten for $11 apiece. Bigger motors aren't needed to run a 3D printer (short of a huge one), and they actually can cause speed issues because of the higher inertia.

On the other hand, if I had a preassembled machine that needed electronics, I might live with slower print speeds to avoid the headaches of fitting new motors (assuming that the 8-lead is bigger than the NEMA-17). If anything, it would be worth trying what Ron says because if in the long run you're not happy with the stock motors, you can change them, after you get the printer running. During calibration, print speed is NOT what you'll be testing anyway.

But one of the suppliers I found was (yes, from Hong Kong) good for RAMPS 1.4 boards, and a neat separate board that hooks up to it that lets you run the printer without a PC connected. Well, any RAMPS-board printer can be run sans-PC using a micro-SD card, but the plug-in board (like $40) has an LCD screen, buttons, and a selector knob to actually tell the printer to do things without printing. Which is cool for calibration, bed levelling, testing motors, etc. I have the address at home; I'll post it here tonight. But I got all the electronics for my Rostock from them for less than 1/2 the cost of US sources. If it makes anyone happy, everything I make is made in the USA

 

There are a number of boards to play with; I like the RAMPS 1.4 because it's relatively cheap, it uses and Arduino Mega (so, easy-to-use software for programming). There are some newer ones but the RAMPS is still very popular and well-supported, and the issues have been worked out by hobbyists going before us RAMPS 1.4 can support up to 5 stepper motor channels, so it's good for XYZ + dual extruders.

I'll edit this post to add the rest of my answers once I get home. Quittin' time!!

 

Hmmm... so much to say now...

@Cannonman: totally obvious that it's a BMW Not just the wheel, but that taken with the sculture that is the nose of the car... ah...

@Steve - almost all the hobbyist control boards run DC. More to the point, power comes into the control board (like RAMPS or others), which 1)powers said board, which then 2) reads a thermistor on the bed and another one on the hot end, and apportions the 12V DC out to those to maintain temperature. It would be possible to scratch-build a system that uses the PID to run the heated bed (I think that the resistance of the common type is around 8 ohms if you are going to do it), and then use a second one (I don't know if the PID can do two channels) to run the hot end. But. One of the benefits of letting the control board do it is that the slicer software can specify different temperatures for different layers (it's nice to let the first layer be a little hotter for good adhesion) and using the PID would lose that. I wouldn't mind seeing you build a functional printer that uses the PID because I'm a tech nerd and I deeply respect the odd technical project done 'just because'. God knows I done enough of them. Late note, I discovered that at least some Cubex printers have a PID controlling their heated beds.


@ Ron - To answer the questions in order:
1) Most hot ends are single hotends, and you get dual extruders by adding more to the print head. My Mendel is like that, has 3 extruders and hot ends, all identical. There is one company making a FOUR-hotend single unit, which is E3D (makers of my favorite hotend), this actually pretty small unit is called The Kraken. It's a pretty compact unit, and the first water-coooled one that I'm aware of in production. It's 135 pounds british plus shipping if you really want to go crazy. I've done everything I need to so far with one extruder. (have 2 more but I'm still exploring!). The J-Head hotend is very popular among the reprap crowd, and not too spendy. This LINK is a typical example, many people make them. They take a little more effort to find for 1.75mm filament (my weapon of choice) vice 3mm. When I got my E3D hotend for the Rostock, I had to order from England (where E3D is), but they have since gotten an American distributor, Filastruder, who are the makers of a very nice filament extruder that I am planning to buy in the near future. One wall of my shed will have the Filastruder and the automatic winder bolted in place, under a nice dust shield.
2) I'm using Airtripper's Bowden Extruder find the print files HERE. I was just about to print 2 or 3 of them, but I just now turned on my power supply and something inside the PS is shot, only putting out 4 volts. Ugh. That was a nice Astron PS, too. Well, no free extruder until I buy a new PS.
3) Heated bed - most of them are a standard (for repraps) 8"x8" that is available many places. The one on my Mendel (from RepRapPro) looks identical to the one I bought from Amazon for $60. For the $60, you get the heating element itself, the aluminum backing plate (goes below the heating element), and the borosilicate glass plate that goes on top of the heating element. Must use borosilicate glass; regular glass will crack in no time from heating/cooling stresses. For $60, I was glad to get all three in one shot and they look great
4)PID temp controller. I like using RAMPS or another control board to do this. I have no experience with PID heat control. You will need to figure something out (like Herr Tyng) because your CNC package probably doesn't have two temperature interfaces (for bed and hot end). Most likely, a PID for each, but check to see if the hot end's heating element plays well with AC. Ditto for the heated bed.

 

The link to where I bought my RAMPS 1.4 board is HERE and it comes with all the stuff you need to run the motors and do fun stuff (yes, it has motor drivers) (although I'm not sure on current draw for a NEMA23, they're not doing more work than a NEMA17 would be in the same spot).
Link to the cool LCD control module HERE.

It does take a few weeks to get to the US, but I've not had any trouble with the items.

 

If I didn't make it clear in my earlier post, the E3D is my favorite hot end, I have one, and will be buying more.

 

@Ron - there aren't a lot of hot ends that are designed to withstand collisions of great force. Most mounts for the hotends have some give in them to let the mount flex if there is a slight collision. This is why it's really important to get the alignment procedure correct, and to do routine maintenance. But every hotend out there has a heat break due to the need to have a sharp temperature transition from cool to really hot so that the plastic is molten for the shortest length possible. That gives you more precise control of the filament extrusion, and hence more accuracy. The E3D hotend is a single piece of stainless steel (at its core) and is thus pretty robust, relatively speaking.

@Martellus - The Mendel is a great bot (the Prusa Mendel is pretty close to the RepRapPro Mendel, which is what I'm using), I love it. Did your bot run a RAMPS board, or something else like the Sanguinololu?