Low budget 3D-printing again ...

LOL! Do yourself a favour and forget this idea. Look here:
http://www.pearl.de/a-PV8625-1122.shtml?query=freesculpt

Fan, heater, extruder and nozzle - new for 50 Euro ...

Btw. behind the wires you can see the white plastic parts of the extruder. This little asshole causes most of the problems. Probably I will order a milled alu-part from a small company near to me as substitute for the shitty capping.

 

I guess so. Since my models have to be sliced into smaller parts for most of the printers below $10000, each printer should be able to do the job. This MoonRay printer looks pretty nice. But even with a smoothing function the models would need finishing. The building room is small = more single prints. Resin is more expensive than ABS. It'll be manufactured in China ... like my crappy printer. And last but not least:

That says the normal price will be higher than $2500. And December 2015 (respectively January 2016 for Europian Union) is far away in the future ...
Regarding thread title I will stick with cheaper printers for now.

 

Hehe! Problems are way bigger :-( I made a mistake: the heater is not part of the replacement set but costs 40 Euros extra. So I become my own steeling whore because I post more about the printer's malefunctions meanwhile than about the original project. Just another whining thread ... haha!
I'll give that printer one last chance. Than I will try to give it back finally and get another one.

 

That's indeed very interesting! Thank you for the info, Nikto. I watched the video and stumbled especially about two astonishing points:
- the texture was printed with a conventional ink-printer? Holy shit!
- the process envelopes parts of the figure complete i.g. the legs of the panther
Could be important for tattoos and photorealistic texturing instead of handmade painting.

 

Well, tbh, I was in need for some motivation with all this printer trouble. So I made a Rhino file of what I want to get finally. The main goal even. Either with the current printer or another one.

It shows my Step01 and Step02 (Tamara) in front as you know them from previous posts. Behind of them Ulla in Lion armour with her old Enblade-10 as grabbed from the game (which would be Step03). To show the size I added a dummy of my desktop (1600x800x720 mm) - cigarette boxes won't help for that any longer ;-)

I know meanwhile that it's possible and I think it's really worth a try!
Side effect: I came back a bit closer to EU again ;-)

 

... and I know what it would cost:
500$ modeling
40$ print material
50$ filler, sandpaper, colours etc.
100$ printing
in summa: ~700$
Huuu wait ... we are still below 1000 Euro with 700$? Goddamn, yes we are! Sounds pretty good to me!

 

Thank you for the infos. Haha, I had a filament extruder already in mind when I saw all the scrap from the support elements. But now I use them with Aceton as glue for my printed parts. This is really a supahh method. Even if the not used rest went dry you can use it again next time. Finally the costs of ABS filament are't that high. Everything else of such a project costs way more. Additional I saw the problems with thickness tolerances too. So I gave up before start ;-)

Regarding the little alien: I just sanded it a bit (because I was to lazy to do more). Now I know how to handle the surface of the prints in the best way: sand it a bit and than use filler with fingers. Than sanding again a bit and it's done. Really smooth surface and it's quick. Let's say something around half an hour for the alien (without the waiting time for the filler to dry).

Well, than painting ofc. But this is a seperate theme for me. It doesn't belong to the printing process. But it is still important to get a good final product. I'm afraid many enthusiasts don't think enough about this part of it. What is it good for? What the hell shall I print? Another model of the Statue of Liberty or another funny bunny? Stupid! First you need an idea of what you want. Must be something you cannot buy somewhere or would cost a lot of bucks if you order it from others.

 

Holla, this 3D-printing thread became attractive to spammers it seems. Nice move. Should I be proud on it?

Hmmm ... can any moderator delete this Angelika9-BS please?


Edit: Aaaaaaand swush! LOL! Thank you ... ***throw kisses***

 

Well, Pearl announced the delevery of the missing heater yesterday. Hopefully I can reassemble the printer during the next days. This will be really the last chance for this printer. Next time it breaks I will send it back to Pearl finally and have a look for another one. I would really like to concentrate to the models and not anymore to constant fucking printer issues!

I have so many ideas! Alone the models from my Elder Scrolls characters ... oh man! Ulla in fashionable armor with a large twohanded broadsword on her back sitting on her black horse ... 800 mm high and 800 mm long ...

Since I know it's possible, I want it so bad! And I would like to offer it to other folks.
Tap, tap, tap ...

 

I love this idea too. Although no pregnant can touch her unborn child it is for sure an extraordinary experiance for a blind mother.
@Nor Alien: Every new born child looks like an alien ;-)

 

Okay, the heater arrived this afternoon and the printer is running again. I'm curious how long it'll work this time.
Reducing the infill to 4% (instead of default 10%) was a good move and helps alot. No need to put more material into the parts.
The cosmetic rasps my friend bought, are really good tools. Another proof for the importance of female participation ;-)

 

Yep, termination!
The printer's tooth belt has male function again. Some shift at my last print. I cancelled the print and I will cancel my friendship to Pearl as well. Unfortunately it's Whitesuntide. That means, I have to wait until Thuesday before I can contact Pearl about cancel all that bullshit and find a good solution. The printer did a good job when it worked. But 20 months working with it shows to me that it isn't ocean-going, as Kristin said. I am really pissed. It's time to check other machines!

This is a very important aspect to my main theme: Low budget 3D-printing. "Low budget" includes the use of a cheap printer (consumables and tools are cheap). "Cheap" doesn't mean "bad" automatically. But in the case of the "FreeSculpt EX1" it does. Don't buy this printer!

 

Well, got a bloody nose even. And it'll throw me back dramatically. Ulla's Entropia statue was scheduled for August. The main problem is the money. I'm still jobless and have to buy Rhino3D within three weeks (1100 Euro). I tend to cancel further works with this Tamara model ... not sure about it. The 3D-model of the Entropia-Ulla would cost ~500 $ and another printer would probably be more expansive than this Pearl device. Let's see, what will happen next week.