I know a lot of you may have been shocked by the news that Mark and Trish are exploring the extruder style machines. And the first response is typically what about the quality? That style of printers quality is so poor. Well what was found is that they don't have to be if you don't want them to be and if you look at the June 23rd posting they have a couple videos that show this. In particular the partial print of the statue of liberty. It should also be kept in mind that this posting and videos are emphasizing speed not quality. These models were done on the ultimaker. Not sure about you guys but I can't even see the layers though I question there choice in color
Here are some good quality pics I found of the UltiMaker. So far out there the Up and the UltiMaker are the best DIY 3d machines. We plan on being a part of this Its going to be super cool to walk up to this machine a put out some plastic models!
http://picasaweb.google.com/10721918352 ... 1744195410 Here is the link to the ones i was referring too
Nice!!! This one came out great. i am guessing like any other machine. If you slow it down and take your time with it it will turn out nice. Looks like they found the sweet spot on theirs. They boast on being the fastest FDM machine on the market but in the video that shows the fast printing the part comes out rough. I think we can, as a group achieve even better results in the extrusion.
The article has been finished. Expect to take a half hour to hour to get through it. Do to its length it wrote it on my site heres the link https://sites.google.com/site/makingfoa ... in-systems
Wow Nick, nice write up. That really helps show the differences a lot. I didn't know about needing more projectors to get the bigger size. I always thought that one would have been good enough for a fairly big size. I was not able to find anywhere to add comments, but I was wondering about fumes from the extrusion method. I thought I read somewhere about when heating ABS there should be proper ventilation. The PLA wasn't critical. I do see that the extrusion method isn't so bad now though.
Nice job on this article Nick! I really appreciated the side by side comparison approach. Helps us all to get a better insight on making the right choices as we venture into the world of 3D printing. Great job once again, this will be a huge help. Mark and Trish
I know what you mean about the number of projectors Shaun, I thought the same thing. until I tried making a little grub screw and i noticed that the hex slot for the allen wrench wasn't correctly shaped at all. It made me dig into the reason and I found the obvious
I like the idea of going with an extruder for the simple reason that if you make the extruder head removable and make a router attachment this stops being just another 3D printer and becomes the Phlatprinter 4 with 3D fabing capabilities and with the sharpie attachment you now have 3 machines in one, a CNC mill, a plotter AND a 3d Fabricator.
