Well, you aren't alone. The concept and practice of 3D printing has largely been in the commercial business realm, however within the past 5 years, advancements in scale into the DIY market has enabled nearly any one to get into 3D printing.
So, what are the keys to look for? It all depends on what you want to accomplish with 3D printing, and what the size of your budget is.
Pricing starts from ~$200 for the very basic, assembly required printers with small print surface space. These printer ranges are great for novices, and individuals whom aren't after the finest resolution, build space or speed, while not "breaking the bank."
Monoprice Select Mini V2 ($220)
The next jump up is around 50% pricier around $300-500. In this catagory you'll get the the best of both worlds, build plate size, multiple different filament types (Wood, Carbon Fiber, PETG,Copper, and more), and speed. These printers have great resoultion, and will give pretty much any DIY'er enough range to print anything they CAD design or obtain from 3D print databases like Thingiverse.
These printers are the best value for the money and are ones I'd recommend for even a first time user:
Finally the upper end. I chose to cap the price at $2,500, and the prices range all the way to $10,00 and beyond for professional/commercial printing businesses. These are the ultimate with the latest extruder/programming technologies and can print wide ranges of materials with speed. Stereo-lithograph methods are the finest in resolution and speed, although the equipment/resins costs are high currently.
Makerbot Replicator 2 ($2,500)
There you go! I personally would recommend the Creality CR-10 for a first printer..it is what I personally have kept and worked with and have gotten great results. Tough to beat any of them though.
What are your thoughts on 3D printing or experiences with these, or any 3D printers for that matter?
Happy Printing!
3D printing is a very exciting technology. For the most modest model, how much would a pattern cost for say... auto parts? Are patterns available in other places besides the manufacturer?
That depends entirely on what kind of part you're talking about.
Any kind of metal part is probably going to be outside your reach for desktop manufactury. There are certainly industrial commercial 3D printing providers who are willing to do one off manufactury, but it's not cheap.
If you're talking about simple plastic pieces, then most designs and models are made by individuals. Usually in some sort of 3D parametric CAD system (like Fusion 360 or Onshape), though you can use photogrammetry to take a series of carefully chosen photographs and have the system build a proper 3D model.
For the most part, auto part 3D models aren't available from even the manufacturers at this point. That may be something that happens in the future, but I wouldn't bet on it. When an industry makes money selling parts, they are really unlikely to want to help people make those parts for themselves.
@lextenebris is spot on. Unless someone else has CAD designed an auto part and posted it on a site like GrabCAD, then you'll have to make it yourself and print it. Then with respect to printing metal, it is best to shoot for the higher end printers like the MakerBot Replicator 2 which can print in metallic.
If you're looking to do one-off custom prints of rare parts than this is the way to go, like for a 1913 Mercer or 1929 Duesenberg it would be perfect!
Keep the faith!
My own feeling is that you might have better luck going with an external service like 3D Hubs or Fast Radius if you really need rare metal parts printed for you and you have a design. (Hell, Shapeways does some very nice aluminum-printed bits with good structural integrity as long as the part you want isn't too large.)
The situation for desktop metal printing is a long way – a very long way – from being something that it's a good idea to tinker with. There are some new technologies which look like they might pay off in a few years, but for the moment, you're far better off sticking to plastics and resins than you are trying to get desktop metal printing to do the job for you.
There is a serious difference between being able to print "metal infused plastics" and "metals," and when you're talking about functional parts – never the twain shall meet.
True, best hold off on the metal extruder DIY printers for now. As you said, eventually there will be a diffusion of the tech down into the personal use market, but for now best stick to service providers.
I've heard a lot of good things about Shapeways too btw; very reasonable rates for high quality prints of nearly any material.
I've been really happy with the service that they've provided, not just with the printing but with the store front end. A couple of my previous posts talk about how to go about designing something, preparing it for 3D printing, making a prototype on your personal printer, and then sending it up to Shapeways for broader selling.
Frankly, they make it easy.
Interesting..I've actually consider posting some of my designs up on Shapeways. Not sure really what's holding me back, but its good to hear that your experience has been relatively painless, I assume.
A little more motivation!
Well, if you really want the nitty-gritty, you can start here and trundle on through here, which should be far more than you ever wanted to know. [grin]
It does involve quite a lot about how to set things up on Shapeways though, especially in Part II.
Congratulations @superchef! You have received a personal award!
Click on the badge to view your Board of Honor.
Do not miss the last post from @steemitboard:
SteemitBoard and the Veterans on Steemit - The First Community Badge.
Congratulations @superchef! You received a personal award!
You can view your badges on your Steem Board and compare to others on the Steem Ranking
Vote for @Steemitboard as a witness to get one more award and increased upvotes!