Cheap 3d printer kits – Experiences?

nickjb – Member

I understand the act of making it is fun in itself but in this case wouldn’t you be better off buying something? For example this is almost exactly the same as your bill of materials:Yes, that is pretty cheap as those things go (normally about that price without any electronics), but it’s also about 1/4 of the working area that I’m planning. (900mm y axis, 600 x axis).
And – yes – building is part of the fun (family project).

But I agree that it’s not for everyone – and obviously I didn’t know I’d have such PETG trouble – although I can always revert to PLA – many have.

On the positive side.
Just before this, I completed a christmas present.
First time printing at 0.1 layer height.
First time printing with loads of support.
First time printing in bits and glueing together (you can just see the split line above the wavey split so that I could print in the correct orientation for each bit).

Designed in Illustrator and Fusion 360.

It’s a soap dish – about 120mm diameter.
Support was a total mare to remove from the underside of the lid (as you can see). It’s almost enough to make me buy Simplify 3D!
But happy with the colour, texture and shape.

I’ve been having mixed results with the PLA I got from RS. Just this morning DHL turned up with two reels of Colorfabb NGEN

I’m about 20% through a first test print but I’m utterly sold already ! Will post pics later..

Good to know! 😉
I’ve just ordered some NGEN from ColorFabb, 2.85mm/750g for £24 a roll, currently 25% discount on some colours.

The cool Grey looks good, but one of the reasons I felt comfortable with 3D printing was the corn starch/biodegradable nature of PLA. Still considering it though as I haven’t found a good blueish grey for prototypes in this country yet.

Just before this, I completed a christmas present.

You’ve done a great job with that. [like]

Blimey – doing a quick search….has anyone bought anything from lightinthebox.com?

I was hovering over the buy button for a tarantula on there last night.

Guess you’d have to add on 20% duty plus the £35 uk delivery.

One thing I couldn’t work out was if the voltages were ok to use in uk?

pat12 – Member

One thing I couldn’t work out was if the voltages were ok to use in uk?

If you look at the YouTube video reviews, most of them give a bit of detail about things like the PSU.
Of the ones that I have watched, most of them seem to be switchable PSU’s – so you can run them 110 or 220v. You just need to make sure the switch is in the correct position before turning them on.

The closest adaptor option seems to be EU adaptor, so I assumed it would be necessary to have an EU-UK adaptor permanently plugged in.

Yes, but not a 3d printer. Be warned that they use a courier which you’re pretty much guaranteed to get tapped for import duty/vat and a fairly eye watering “handling charge”. So factor that in when comparing options.

Most of them have a switchable PSU and use a standard kettle plug. The CR-10 certainly does.

I didn’t get charged duty from Gearbest, Banggood or AliExpress when using standard free delivery. Never heard of lightinthebox.com – I would do a bit of due diligence. If thy are undercutting Gearbest/Banggood then it sounds a bit too good to be true.

Back to my warping PETG problem.
I splashed some cash on a PEI sheet (£25 for 300x300mm) and it seems to be working.

Latest one to come off the printer shows only 0.5mm warp on one corner.
Fingers crossed that it doesn’t effect anything.
Of course it could just be the warm night as I print in my shed and it was 10-degrees last night as opposed to 2-3 the other nights.

Printing beautifully in all other ways though.

(new on the left | warped on the right)

pat12 – Member

One thing I couldn’t work out was if the voltages were ok to use in uk?

I could be wrong but I think mine came with a 2-pin and a UK adaptor. It’s got a UK plug on the end now though

Of course it could just be the warm night as I print in my shed and it was 10-degrees last night as opposed to 2-3 the other nights.

There is the problem! I’ve found my room needs to be 16-22°C for good prints. They don’t stick to the bed very well if its cold and the quality is poor, same when humidity is high. Also wind can affect the print quality.

So, then….I have been looking more & more at 3-D printers & am pretty sure I’m gonna get one soon.
I just can’t decide which one.

Tevo Tarantula is a good price, but from what I’ve seen it needs a lot of 3-D printed mods to get it working well (new fan shroud & fans, stiffer Z-Axis mount, stiffer bed mount etc.). I am not sure I want that level of fannying about.

Anycubic i3 Mega – looks very solid & gets good reviews. I probably don’t need any more than 200x200x200 build volume

Creality CR-10 – still hankering after this one, but will probably never (or very rarely) need such a large build volume. Same goes for the Tevo Tornado, which seems to be a CR-10 clone.

Creality Ender – seems to get good reviews, but worried the bed size might be a bit small at 150x150x200. Also, the cantilever nature of the design doesn’t look ‘right’ to me. Having said that, all the reviews I have seen reckon it prints very well.

Once I’ve decided what to get, I need to decide where to get it from!
The China suppliers seem to be AliExpress, Banggood & Gearbest. Some of them have EU warehouses which I guess will guarantee I will not have to pay import duty on top.
If I get one shipped from China I guess it is a lottery whether I get charged an extra 20% or not; and knowing my luck with this type of thing, I will be charged it!

AliExpress have got the AnyCubic i3 Mega available from a German warehouse for £233.15 with shipping bringing the total cost to £265.
Tempted to go with this, to be honest.

Gah! I need someone to make a decision for me!! 😆

Always always look for a code from GearBest. There will always be one – look for a recent youtube video review of the printer for e.g. and there might be an affiliate link in the description. usually 12% off.

For Gearbest I would order using the cheapest possible delivery. I haven’t been charged extra with that on the 3 of 4 large things I’ve bought.

I don’t have any experience with Banggood. AliExpress is usually dearer for these printers in my limited experience, but I do use them for parts often.

Printer-wise. You could go cheap first then see if you love it. If you grow out of the Ender (or even cheaper Tronxy), you will feel justified in getting another 🙂

Otherwise in the mid-price area there is also the CR-10 mini currently at £226.18 on GearBest (flash sale so codes might not work).
It’s still massive compared to many!

Cheers AlexSimon.

Yeah, I don’t know why I discounted the CR10 Mini.
I think when it first came out, it was only a bit cheaper than the CR10 and I saw a review where the bloke was saying for a price difference of only $30 you should get the CR10. But, the price gap appears to be bigger now and it certainly seems to print at a good quality.
That link you have provided does make the CR10 Mini look like a very good deal!

I don’t think codes work with Gearbest’s flash sale stuff, but I will definitely look into it.

I think I am tending to move away from the really cheap printers because I don’t really want to get something that limits me in a couple of months & I wish I’d gone for something a bit pricier – mainly due to the build volume & the perceived longevity of the many plastic parts that seem to be on the really cheap printers.

Part of me is still erring towards the i3 Mega from that Germany warehouse on AliExpress because of the VAT thing.
I’ve not used any of these Far East shopping portals before so am a bit wary. The AliExpress seller has plenty of reviews & seems to get good ratings.

I’ll have to do some more ‘googling’ tonight! Thanks for your help.

My son ordered a 3D printer from GearBest in mid November – still not arrived.

wwaswas – Member

My son ordered a 3D printer from GearBest in mid November – still not arrived.
[/quote]

Yeah, this is another thing that concerns me. Quite a few of the questions asked on the product pages seem to be ‘where is my printer?’.
Have they given him any idea of where it is or when he’s likely to get it, or is it just silence from their end?

Got an email ‘item with courier here’s your trackign number’ tracking shows ‘waiting to pick up from warehouse’ and has for the past 6 weeks.

Emailed a couple of times and been told ‘we’ll look into it’ yesterday went back and said we’ll be doing a paypal chargeback if they don’t respond within 48 hours with some details on where it is.

Disappointing – it was his 21st birthday present.

^^ I was definitely intending to pay either via credit card or paypal to hopefully have some kind of protection should this kind of thing occur.
Ta for the info.

Just a quick update on my CNC printing.
Warping now completely solved by using Elmers Purple Glue. Miles better than Pritt or UHU for some reason.

Printing marathon in full swing now. About another 6 pieces to go.
Some of them are massive – the 2 bottom-left together was a 34hour print!

It’ll be about 2.5kg of PETG in the end (50% infill 3 perimeters).

Chain links for scale 🙂

Yep, purple glue ftw.

I decided to get a little Anet A3 in the ebay sale, since so much of what I print is pretty titchy, it’s amazing how fast things have moved even since I got the Tevo. The build area’s only 15cm cubed but that’s ideal for my purposes.

Except, it blew up when I plugged it in 😆 So now waiting for a replacement

Wow, that pile of bits looks great AlexSimon. Do you have any close-up pics?
Have you measured any of it to see how close it has come out to the nominal dims?

I am still procrastinating, although CR10 mini is probably top of the pile.
If the Anycubic Mega i3 was a comparable price, it would be that one, but the cheapest I’ve seen it is around £40 more than the CR10 Mini.

Nortwhind, why did you buy the Anet A3? To replace the Tevo, or supplement it? Weren’t you doing a print bed expansion on that at some point?

Except, it blew up when I plugged it in

😯 😥
Yes, until this project I think everything we’d printed would have fitted in a 15cm cube.
I keep looking at the Creality Ender-2 for £130 from Germany!

stumpy01 – Member

Wow, that pile of bits looks great AlexSimon. Do you have any close-up pics?
Have you measured any of it to see how close it has come out to the nominal dims?It’s within 0.2mm generally. I haven’t measured these, except to push the parts onto the aluminium sections and line up the holes with bits that they have to line up with!

My original 20mm calibration cube came out at 20.0 x 20.1 x 19.9(z where first layer is squashed into bed) so I decided not to mess!

I’ll get a close-up next time I’m in the shed.
You can see my benchy, turtle and signs a few pages back.

AlexSimon – Member

I keep looking at the Creality Ender-2 for £130 from Germany! [/quote]

Bloke at work has got one & bought in his first Benchy print from it.
It was bloody impressive for a first print.

AlexSimon – Member

My original 20mm calibration cube came out at 20.0 x 20.1 x 19.9(z where first layer is squashed into bed) so I decided not to mess!

Considering the price of the machine & the fact that you’re effectively squidging layers of molten plastic onto a bed, then I would be very happy with +/-0.1mm

I saw a review the other day of a printer (can’t remember which, I’ve looked at so many) where a bloke measured a calibration model (like a top hat of decreasing diameter cylinders) and said he thought that the printer was ‘quite a way out’ because the diameter in one direction was something like 19.97 & 20.04 in the other, for a nominal 20.00. I think perhaps people expect too much from these machines 😆

Calipers that are certified to 0.01 of a mm start at about £130+ , so I’ll never know 🙂

stumpy01 – Member

Nortwhind, why did you buy the Anet A3? To replace the Tevo, or supplement it? Weren’t you doing a print bed expansion on that at some point?

Supplement it, I’ve found it hard to hit a balance of messing around with the Tevo as it’s so upgradable, and keeping it up so I can actually print stuff when I need to, so I’m thinking this will basically be a “production” machine and the Tevo will do big jobs, random materials etc. TBF if I didn’t already have the Tevo this little one would be absolutely fine for me, except for the blowing up bit.

I’m leaving the Tevo print bed standard but adding a second Z axis- which has been a lot of hassle so far but should improve the resolution a good bit. Then I’ll have to finally grapple with the firmware to get my e3d hotend onto i

Close-ups as requested. links for high-res versions.

http://thingswelike.org/root-cnc-1.jpg

http://thingswelike.org/root-cnc-2.jpg

http://thingswelike.org/root-cnc-3.jpg

http://thingswelike.org/root-cnc-4.jpg

PLA comes out cleaner for me. This PETG has been a struggle at times. One of the problems is that it sticks just as easily to the brass nozzle as it does itself, so little whisps and strings gather into blobs that deposit themselves on the print from time-to-time.

Perfectly good enough for the CNC though.

Wow! They look really good. The surface finish looks great!

I take it PETG is a more robust material than PLA?

Well, I took the plunge last night & ordered a CR10-Mini from Gearbest using that link that you provided on the previous page.
I got a few points for signing up to Gearbest so I think in the end it cost me £224 or thereabouts.

God knows where I am going to put it, but I have a few weeks I imagine (at least) before it arrives so I can spend that time working out where it’s going to go & trying to get some of my own models designed for printing. I’ve got a few ideas, already.

stumpy01 – Member

Wow! They look really good. The surface finish looks great!

I take it PETG is a more robust material than PLA?

Well, I took the plunge last night & ordered a CR10-Mini from Gearbest using that link that you provided on the previous page.
I got a few points for signing up to Gearbest so I think in the end it cost me £224 or thereabouts.

God knows where I am going to put it, but I have a few weeks I imagine (at least) before it arrives so I can spend that time working out where it’s going to go & trying to get some of my own models designed for printing. I’ve got a few ideas, already.
Good stuff!
You’ll probably get a small amount of filament with it, but it’s worth keeping an eye out for bargains. I like Filamentive rPLA (recycled) and every-so-often they do 40% off which makes it very competitive.

I consider £18/kg about right for my needs, but I’m tight.

Unfortunately, to get a range of colours, it costs quite a bit!

PETG is less brittle than PLA so better for impacts, hinges, etc
It’s also more resistant to temperature, which is something I was warned about with my CNC because both the stepper motors and router could get above the limit for PLA.

Yeah, I debated getting an extra roll of filament from Gearbest, but I’ve got time to have a look about & see what looks to be decent stuff.

I think I’ll stick to fairly neutral colours to start with & buy specific brighter stuff for certain projects.

First task is probably designing a headphone stand for my desk at work.
I know there are models out there, but I don’t want to download stuff other people have done & use their models for stuff I can do myself. For me, one of the reasons to buy it was to understand the design process for plastics & particularly 3-D printing.

I know there are models out there, but I don’t want to download stuff other people have done & use their models for stuff I can do myself. For me, one of the reasons to buy it was to understand the design process for plastics & particularly 3-D printing.

Yes, that’s exactly how I feel about it. Unfortunately the groups and forums (and youtube vids) are full of people printing endless Baby Groots and other thingiverse trinkets. Not for me.
Maker’s Muse does some good Fusion 360 introductions. Cad for newbies playlist here

I’m sure there’ll be a degree of printing fancy things, just to see what it can do.
Some of the more intricate stuff out there has impressive details & things like overhangs for testing what can be achieved.

But, in the whole I hope to use it for finding solutions to things & an educational tool for my own purposes.
I do a lot of mech eng design for mainly metal components, with some ceramic & machined plastic thrown in for good measure as part of my job.
But, I feel that learning to design for 3-D printing & for plastics will be a new challenge. Especially when it comes to things like sweeping curves, swept surfaces and generally creating more organic shapes.

I’ve got Pro/E Wildfire 4 at work – supposedly being upgraded to Creo soon & I’ve got Solidworks on my home laptop.
I quite fancy downloading Fusion360 though & giving that a whirl.
Thanks for the playlist link. I’ll take a look.

There’s a few things that Solidworks does that Fusion can’t (yet), so you’ll probably end up using that instead.

I’ve only sliced using CURA so far, and even though I know Simplify 3D is better at removable supports and cleaner top layers, I can’t bring myself to pay for it.

Well, I never! It arrived! 6days from China to here is pretty good going, I reckon!

Not had time to do anything with it yet. Not even opened the box, so a bit of a pointless post…

I assumed it would be another couple of weeks so thought I’d have plenty of time to find somewhere to put it!

Well, I never! It arrived! 6days from China to here is pretty good going, I reckon!

Woohoo! Mine was 10 days I think. Going by all the forum posts I allowed 60 days!

Got notification yesterday that my son’s one is now in the country (ordered mid-november)!

AlexSimon – Member

Woohoo! Mine was 10 days I think. Going by all the forum posts I allowed 60 days!

Well, I was thinking it would be a month or so. That would have given me ample time to clear up the study/office/dumping ground and perhaps put a sturdier desk/work surface in there.
Not that I’m complaining. Hopefully I’ll get it built up this weekend & try a test print or two. Might do some thingiverse downloading tonight.
I debated doing some ‘build pics’ but there are so many YouTube vids out there that it seems pointless. I’ll see how I feel.

Supposed to be doing a ride tonight – but got other distractions now!

wwaswas – Member

Got notification yesterday that my son’s one is now in the country (ordered mid-november)!

When I saw it arrived, I immediately wondered whether you had seen sign of your son’s printer. Do you know what model it is he has bought? Maybe I just got lucky that they had plenty of stock of the one I ordered.
Weird though that yours has taken so long! Hopefully it won’t be much longer to actually get it to your house.

Weirdly, I checked the tracking number on the Yodel website the evening before it arrived & it was saying it was in it’s way but still from sender, with no more information. I took this to mean that it was not yet in the UK.