Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)
  • How much does it cost to get something 3D printed?
  • seosamh77
    Free Member

    And is there anywhere you could recommend to use? Either local to glasgow or even a decent online service?

    I’ve got the 3D drawing done(taught myself Fusion 360 last week! 😆 ). So just a case of getting printed.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Rough overall dimensions we’re looking at are 165mm x 95mm x 75mm (x 2) plus a few other smaller bits and peaces.

    Material, no ideas, some form of robust plastic. looking it for it to be fairly hi res too.

    wilsonthecat
    Free Member

    The quality of the drawing will vastly effect the quality of the print.

    In terms of material you are looking at two options. One will provide the high resolution but will not really serve a practical function. The other technology will be production grade but look a bit crap.

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    wilsonthecat
    Free Member

    Try calling SYS Systems in Derby

    cbike
    Free Member

    There are a few maklab type studios in glasgow. One at the lighthouse, possibly one in maryhill? cant remember the name.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Drawing is spot on if I do say so myself! 😆 Quite chuffed with how easily I’ve taken to it. I’m reasonable handy and accurate in illy, so that was helpful, if not frustrating till I realised I didn’t need to draw everything individually and could just intesect and extrude from there. Overall I’m happy enough it’s good enough to do the job. Grasping the concept of bodies/components and using tools to add/take away took me a wee bit to get.

    Are those maklab places decent enough then, I have been looking at them online. Seems alright, but as this is new territory for me, I’m just unsure?

    I’ll google SYS cheers. and keep in mind the material constraints mentioned, ta.

    tbh, the 3D print is just something as a prototype proof of concept and work out some kinks. Further down the line I’ll probably want to get something CNC’d of some something like that. no sure yet. but that’s further down the road.

    Daffy
    Full Member

    Material Solutions and 3T RPD are two Bureaus that we use when we have to outsource….

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Any idea on rough pricing, for something of the above dimensions?

    poly
    Free Member

    I’ve used 3d hubs for this. quality is variable, but consistent with their description. If you know what you are doing you can put multiple pieces on one design and run off together which saves some cost.

    poly
    Free Member

    3d hubs let’s you upload the part to get a quote depending on finish, material, urgency etc.

    TiRed
    Full Member

    I had a quote of £99 for two rear rack mount light brackets for my Cycliq rear camera light. Needless to say I’m looking for cheaper options!

    convert
    Full Member

    Overall dimensions is only relevant in determining what machine envelope it will fit in – what is important is the volume of material needed both for the product and the support material. Do you know the material volume – your software should tell you somewhere. Our machine uses ABS and costs 25p per cm3 of material. You would surprised how many cm3 a model can consume. Obviously a commercial place is going to want to charge for their time, machine investment/running costs and profit so it will work out probably more costly than you might think.

    ABS is good as it is much more robust but if somewhere will sort you in PLA that should be a good bit cheaper.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Ended up just buying a Prusa i3, good enough for my purposes! Hours of fun! Main purposes is for prototyping something, so for £300 quid(built), it was probably cheaper just to buy the thing! Plus if I ever get bored of it(unlikely, it’s a useful thing to have even if I don’t use it all the time, well I could just sell it) I don’t imagine these things depreciate all that quickly.)

    Just printing PLA and testing out and learning the machine, but seems to be working well. Quite surprised that PLA is reasonable solid, from what I was reading I was thinking it would be brittle. Going to get some ABS though and use that for the model though.

    Sorting out a glass base today for it, as the base that came with it was warped slightly, but once I get that going I should be good to start printing away, my instincts/short experience tell me that a flat and level bed are crucial! 🙂

    zilog6128
    Full Member

    My gut reaction was any printer for £300 would be crap (given how much the ones I’d looked at previously cost). Reviews on that one look good though so will be interested to hear how you get on, especially if you actually manage to produce a usable component on it!

    Did you buy a 2nd hand one at that price? Did a quick Google and couldn’t even see a kit version that cheap!

    andybrad
    Full Member

    ive got a mojo at work. give me the parts as an stl file and ill cost it up as material only.

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    zilog6128 – Member
    My gut reaction was any printer for £300 would be crap (given how much the ones I’d looked at previously cost). Reviews on that one look good though so will be interested to hear how you get on, especially if you actually manage to produce a usable component on it!

    Did you buy a 2nd hand one at that price? Did a quick Google and couldn’t even see a kit version that cheap!It’s pretty decent from what I’m getting and I’ve only been printing a 0.3mm for the time being (for speed, when you go down to .1 the time to print goes up a fair bit).

    I think when I go down to 0.1mm and start print with that I’ll get much better quality, but it’s decent enough for my purposes. I reckon it’s fairly equivalent to those makerbots you get for around 2k. But it’s a open source sort of thing as well, so lots to learn, if i choose, and it’s an upgradable platform, how much, not so sure yet.

    Yes, it was bought second hand. I was tempted to buy the kit (I seen them about for around £250 or so, but when I spied this one on gumtree, I though that an already built machine would save a lot of hassle, and a £50/60 premium on the kits you can get seems a reasonable for time the guy spent building it.) the guy had another printer on the go, so I guess this was just his spare he was selling, apart from the slighly wonky bed(which we are replacing today) it’s all in tip top condition.

    Regarding a usable component, from what I’ve done so far, I’ll be able to make something, it’s more for proving a concept though and developing, ie we’re still at the design stage. Once/if we get past this stage, the actual production process we’ll want to put in place will be different, most likely injection molding I guess. I reckon we’ll be able to produce something that will work in short term. (Can’t tell you the actual thing as yet though, that’s a secret, to be revealed under penalty of death! 😆 )

    Speeder
    Full Member

    How are you getting on with the Prusa? I’m thinking of doing similar and picking one up off Gumtree or similar rather than ****ing about with agencies and hubs. At least if it fails for any reason it’s my fault and I can just set it up again to run during a day.

    I would like reasonable resolution so would liek to aim for 0.1mm prints – I have heard this can cause heat issues – have you had any problems?

    danjthomas
    Free Member

    Protolabs.. Upload your file and they’ll send you back a interactive off where you can change materials qty and delivery times etc to see cost impact. I think min cost is £80

    ajantom
    Full Member

    For low cost printing look at machines from XYZ. I’ve got their cheapest model, the Da Vinci Junior, which will only print in PLA, and has a max size of 150x150x150. Cost £255, and goes down to a 0.1mm resolution.

    Very impressed for the price so far – of course it won’t be as good as a machine costing 2K, but it’s as good as some machines double or triple the price that I’ve used before.

    I’ve been using it for mocking up small pieces of work for GCSE and A-Level design students, and it works very well for making formers for sandcasting.
    The PLA is surprisingly robust!

    maccruiskeen
    Full Member

    There are a few maklab type studios in glasgow. One at the lighthouse, possibly one in maryhill? cant remember the name.

    Maklab moved from the Lighthouse to St Georges Cross, they’ve also got a unit with bigger industrial scale machines in Tradeston (but thats not a walk-in facility their ‘front of house’ is at St Georges)

    They’ve also got a few places popping up elsewhere in Scotland too

    seosamh77
    Free Member

    Been doing alright, been printing at .3, with some overly complex over hangs and stuff, ie right angle over hangs, so the detailed stuff in there is getting lost somewhat due to the support material being difficult to remove at overly complex bits(simple sections are fine), but tbh it’s expected, printing a flat floor 100mm of the bed is a bit of an ask, so for current purposes, it’s doing the job. But it’s a difficult job I’m asking of it.

    can’t show you any pics just now, but when I get down to testing out the 0.1mm and doing other wee bits and pieces I’ll post up some images. if not this weekend, probably next.

    allthepies
    Free Member

    I’m in the market for a 3d printer.

    Will probably go for a Wanhao Duplicator i3 as a starter machine. For the money it’s hard to beat, minimal assembly to get it up and running too.

    Although I fancy a Delta printer 🙂

Viewing 22 posts - 1 through 22 (of 22 total)

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