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Good day all,

I thought I would start a clean thread with a slightly more educated shortlist on a printer for our needs, it needs to have a large build volume, preferably at least 30cm x 30cm x30cm, budget is under £10k ($15k). I would like to whittle this list down to 2-3 with your help.

Wanhao Duplicator 5 - $2400 – 300mm x 200mm x 580mm - http://3d-printers.ireviews.com/wanhao-duplicator-5-review

Leapfrog Creatr XL - $5600 – 220mm x 270mm x 600mm - http://www.amazon.com/Leapfrog-Assembled-Dimensions-Resolution-Laybrick/dp/B00JXOMHIC

Fusion3 F306 - $3975 - 305mm x 305mm x 305mm - http://www.amazon.com/Fusion3-Commercial-Printer-Extruder-Warranty/dp/B00SHYXSSM

MakePi M4141 - $11,000 - 410mm x 410mm x 410mm - http://3dfilamenta.com/3d-printers/241-makerpi-m4141-3d-printer.html

Type A Machines Series 1 - $2749 – 305mm x 305mm x 305mm - https://www.3dhubs.com/3d-printers/type-machines-series-1

3DP1000 - $17,000 – 1m x 1m 0.5m - http://3dpunlimited.com/printer-options-specifications/

Gigabot - $12,000 – 600mm x 600mm x 600mm - http://www.re3d.org/gigabot/

CSP Deltawasp - $7500 – 400mm x 400mm x 600mm - http://3d-printers.ireviews.com/csp-deltawasp-40x60-review

Prusa 13v – $650 - 300mm x 300mm x 350mm - http://www.makerfarm.com/index.php/3d-printer-kits/prusa-12-i3v-kit-v-slot-extrusion.html

One query, suppose I wanted to print some of the typical work shown with a Wanhao Duplicator 5 or the Creatr XL would I have to rotate the model 90 degrees so that it renders it length ways where this kind of printer has the larger build volume, if it’s printing buildings for example that have been rotated 90 degrees will they have enough support? If that’s not well explained please let me know and I’ll post an image.

I have attached a sample of typical work we’d need to produce and also a not so typical piece of work which is the print with the tree forms, though we often do organic forms so we might need to print all sorts of forms. Am I right in thinking that an FDM printer might have issues with overhangs/undercuts or is that more to do with the skills of the person working on the mesh/printer?

Outer dimensions 300mm x 300mm

Scheme.jpg
Scheme.jpg2000×1615 1.23 MB

Largest tree form 300mm high

Tree.jpg
Tree.jpg2592×1456 850 KB

Thanks all for your help, I’ve learnt a lot here already.

Martin

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Can you tell me the outer dimensions of the first picture? Especially the bushes (or whatever the yellow-white stuff should be) would turn out much better on SLA printers. I’d go for the Creatr XL or Creatr HS and an form 1+. The Form 1+ is way smaller in build volume, but better for detailed prints and very tiny features. You could print a base or similar on the Creatr (either version) and add details with the Form 1+. M preferences would be the Creatr HS as it’s more faster and generally more comfortable to use (standalone printing via USB). The XL is just the normal Creatr with extended Z height it’s still fairly slow and doesn’t have that greatly designed mechanics. I own an HS and have designed and machined my own.printhead. So I’m using the Creatr HS motion system (which is very nice BTW) and have added higher quality hotends (by e3d) to enable a wider variety of nozzle sizes (resolution) and more flexibility in material choise. Depending on where you live I could not Only share the 3d files to make that printhead, but I could also install that for you, leaving less room for errors. If you’d like print samples from my Creatr HS, then just contact me via my hub by clicking on the icon below. Cheers, Marius Breuer

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Just having a look at the Creatr HS, the only thing is it’s build area is smaller than I hoped for 28x27x18 cm - before we get a printer in it’s hard to tell if that would suffice but I’ve been asked by the boss to try as best I can to narrow my search to minimumns of about 30cm x 30cm x 30cm

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The outer dimensions of the first picture are 300mm x 300mm, it’s all 3D printed apart from those yellow-ish bushes, for smaller features like cars/people/trees we would just buy them, much cheaper, so we probably wouldn’t need Form 1+ - not saying it wouldn’t be nice to have.

For the second picture of the tree kind of forms, the largest one was 300mm high.

I’m in the UK, are you anyway near? - thank you for offering to help out!

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*comment moved

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I’m living in Germany so aside from the installation that’d work. I could send you some samples (larger or smaller depending on your request) I’d advise to discuss details about such orders privately, to avoid spamming in this thread. As 300x300mm slightly outscales my Creatr HS I’d look towards the BigBox by e3d, that might serve you well for a fraction of some other printers’ prices. The “Lite” should serve you well, if you’d like to go with the “pro” then you are capable of printing engineering plastics, for showroom prints the lite is more then enough. The “dual” enables printing of support material with a second nozzle, so that might be something to look out for. Currently only the “pro” is available assembled, the others are only offered as kits. The BigBox printers will be released around December so, maybe they’ll add assembled “Lite” and “dual” printers to their shop by then. You might be able to visit e3d, an English company that produces high quality hotends and 3d printer spares. They also brought the BigBox to life via kickstarter.

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The BigBox looks very good value, for relative novices in this area would it not be a risk for us to buy a printer that hasn’t had reviews? - it’s hard to know whether we’d end up with a terrible printer like I’ve heard the Makerbot Z18 is. The other thing again is the build volume, it says 300 x 200 x 280 which is not that big for something called the BigBox, I think we’d rather pay more and not have to print things in parts, although I say that having no experience whether printing in parts would be a better solution, in a perfect world we’d find a solution that involves as little messing around as possible.

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On another forum I had the response below, I just wanted to know the general consensus on FDM printers for architecture, do we need a resin printer for our architectural needs or will an FDM printer suffice

'Yes, as I thought I don’t think FDM would really be that helpful for you. For example, you would have to spit your “scheme” model into a ton of elements to make it printable or use a ton of support material.

I think you would need a resin type printer (there are several types and I don’t really have experience in that area TBH) in order to print these in a effective way. FDM is too limiting. Unfortunately the resin type printers are more expensive and generally have smaller build area but for $15k I think you could get into the industrial stuff vs. consumer grade DIY level like Prusa and makerbot.’

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Posso consigliare una stampante CSP WASP Delta 4070 con circa 5500€ +iva + 400€ di cassa e spedizione te la puoi cavare. E’ una stampante che stampa molto bene e se devi stampare oggetti piccoli e dettagliati (omini, alberelli automibiline ecc) la WASP presenta una nuova stampante DLP alla Maker faire di Roma. I risultati sono sorprendenti.

Imgur