[Swansea Hackspace] 3d printer

[Gwion Davies]

Tbh it’s more like assembly required than a “kit” in this case. The kits you see on eBay for £160 are projects. The prusa MK3 is a tool and is rather straight forward to assemble.

It’s also a question of the printers feature set, the mk3 has a very sophisticated setup for high standard in reliability and accuracy. The only machine I could recommend as an out of the box RTR would be the wanhao i3 plus but it lacks many features like software levelling, anti stm skipping, blocked nozzle protection, etc.

My most recent machine (a mylan m150) recently failed when a dodgy connector caused too much resistance and ended up getting hot and melting the connector. Something I feel wouldn’t likely happen with an MK3 but may with a wanhao i3.

Sent from my iPhone

On 12 Mar 2018, at 11:32, Matthew Daubney <matt at daubers.co.uk<mailto:matt at daubers.co.uk>> wrote:

I'm gonna stick my head above the parapet on a couple of things here...

Prusa do a complete pre-assembled version as well as the kit version (It's a couple of hundred quid more though), however, when I built my Mk2 it was one of the most pleasant kits I've ever built. The instructions where better than modern Ikea instructions, it even came with the tools you needed.

That aside!

I'm not sure you can make 3d printing a 100% easy thing by just chucking a good printer in the room. Really it'll need a couple of people who are willing to consistently put an evening in to teach how to model in 3d (the software for which puts me off some days), how to use a slicer, how to use the machine and to expect spaghetti on occasion and how to troubleshoot that.

So I'm not sure you can make it "easy" for everyone, but you can make it easily approachable.

I'm not sure if that helps or hinders?

On 12 March 2018 at 11:23, Tim Clark <eclipse at sucs.org<mailto:eclipse at sucs.org>> wrote:

I worry that anything that describes itself as a kit doesn't meet the fundamental brief of "Tool not Project", when was the last time you had to put the plug on your new drill, or glue the handle on your new screwdriver?

Tim

On 12/03/2018 11:19, Alex Duffield wrote:
How are you at Lego Sophia? That's the level of the assembly instructions

On 12 Mar 2018 11:07 a.m., "Sophia Komninou" <sophia.komninou at gmail.com<mailto:sophia.komninou at gmail.com>> wrote:
I would like to offer my opinion as someone with no prior experience with 3D printers.

I would like to stay for a second to the " kit more likely as it's a hackspace after all" and remind to whoever will get more involved with the decision making that hackspace has a diverse membership and not just computer savvy members. It is also my understanding that this diversity is one of the points we are trying to promote as a "place for all people who like to make stuff". Further, I remember Matt saying at the AGM that what they did in Reading was to "make things as simple as possible" in order to engage more people and create a community. Therefore, how a kit is going to achieve that (unless I guess after assembled works very very simply).

As someone who is not as savvy with the traditional hackspace activities, I would personally want to see a non-intimidating looking 3D printer to be encouraged to try using it.

I guess I do get a bit cranky with things like that but I thought I should give my perspective regardless...

Sophia



2018-03-12 9:09 GMT+00:00 Neil Jones <neil at aurinia.co.uk<mailto:neil at aurinia.co.uk>>:


On 12/03/18 01:14, Alex Duffield wrote:
Best bet is hands on experience, I can bring it tomorrow if you like, bringing my signal generator so taking a bus anyway
Why don't you just bring it in anyway? It wouldn't be the first time someone has brought a 3d printer in to show others. Even if we weren't looking at getting a new one it would be interesting for others to see. It is a cool piece of kit.

Neil


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