Anyone into 3D printing?

[OneWheelPeel]

I just found an Ender-3 V3 Plus printer locally at $499 Cdn. It has the 300X300 (12X12) build plate. Is that a decent hobby machine?

Thats the one I tried to link above, its targeted to hobbyists so probably fine.

 

[Scott Engelhardt]

My customer printed a suppressor for one of my .22 semi autos. Super quiet

 

[SLANTFISH]

I use a Qidi Q1, it does high temp filaments and has great print quality, I have over 500hrs of mostly trouble free printing.

I use it to make custom fender tags and I'm working on a new product, '70 Rallye wheel center caps that weigh 1/3. The initial design work is done, just finalizing some details. I use ASA for all this for it's UV, weather and temp resistance

 

[Photon440]

I think this has the 300 by 300 build plate for under $450. Probably what I would look at getting if my current printer died.
Here
I think I cleaned up the link

$749 on the Canadian site.

 

[qkcuda]

Canada Computers & Electronics is still showing them for $499 here.

 

[OneWheelPeel]

$749 on the Canadian site.

Well damn!

 

[Photon440]

Canada Computers & Electronics is still showing them for $499 here.

Thanks for the tip, I wasn't aware of that store. I see that there are some of them in my area.

 

[MJF_]

I use a Qidi Q1, it does high temp filaments and has great print quality, I have over 500hrs of mostly trouble free printing.

I use it to make custom fender tags and I'm working on a new product, '70 Rallye wheel center caps that weigh 1/3. The initial design work is done, just finalizing some details. I use ASA for all this for it's UV, weather and temp resistance

View attachment 1819208

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Could you make 1968 style fendertags?

 

[SLANTFISH]

Could you make 1968 style fendertags?

I'll have to play with it later today and see if I can do the small font, if the small letters turn out decent I would need a physical sample tag to get millimeter precise dimensions for the initial design layout. The biggest challenge on these is getting good crisp numbers and letters at such a small scale, if that works out the rest is straightforward.

So far I've done multiple '69-'73 A, B And E bodies and a few 'custom words', with my favorite being a Superbird.

 

[SLANTFISH]

Well that was a fun challenge. I didn't think the small fonts would work out well, I'm a bit surprised that they look halfway decent. Do these look like they might be acceptable? If anybody is in the Denver area and has a tag that I can get better measurements from it would help nail down the design a little better because this was purely off of visual pictures

 

[Photon440]

Having now read the book that I mentioned in a previous post, I can't really say that I would recommend it. It's too sparsely written and I'll be looking for a more detailed instruction book.

There are quite a few online sources and sites with downloadable programs though, and here are some of them:
This is one of the better known places:
Support - Bambu Lab

https://makerworld.com/en?from=bambulab.com

3D models database | Printables.com

https://cults3d.com/

3D model community. Search & download free 3D models. Share 3D models

CREALITY CLOUD - The All-in-One 3D Printing Platform

And finally, a site that is dedicated to 3D printers that replicate more 3D printers.

RepRap - RepRap

 

[OneWheelPeel]

Online resources are definitely the way to go, but also I say just jump in and do it. You can start crude and refine your skills from there, at least for me jumping in the deep end for that kind of stuff has usually worked out. Designing on tinkercad.com is free, whatever you design you download to your computer and process it in also free slicing software. Even without a printer the slicer will show you how it would be printed so you can educate yourself with just a small time commitment. This all assumes you have a decent computer of course. You can do the tinkercad part on an iPad too.