On 30/04/2018 09:30, Nightjar wrote:
On 29/04/2018 21:11, dennis@home wrote:
On 29/04/2018 19:36, Nightjar wrote:
On 29/04/2018 19:19, dennis@home wrote:
On 29/04/2018 17:03, Nightjar wrote:
...
One of the Ultimaker videos shows a Oscar statuette they have
printed. The finish is good, but it took them 20 hours to print.
Not a problem for a one off master, but not desirable if somebody
wants to buy several of them.



More printers.

They cost £2k each. I would need to go into business doing 3D
printing to justify buying more than one and I am looking to cut down
on my work, not increase it.



You can have 10 for £2k and have a lot of change.
The £2k ones don't actually print better, but they may be easier to use.

Which printers in that price range can achieve a 20 micron layer height
using a 0.08mm nozzle, which is what the Ultimaker 2+ can do?

You have read the product spec for the two+?
https://ultimaker.com/en/products/ul...specifications

It doesn't list 0.08mm for a nozzle or 20 micron layer height.

Ultimaker don't sell nozzles smaller than 0.25 on their site either.

Anyway the cheap ones are mechanically similar and use similar software
(one of mine is a chineese copy of an ultimaker) so you could put a
0.08mm nozzle on one but the chances of it working reliably using FDM is
about nil even on the two+. Even a bit of dust getting in would block it.

I think you have been reading what individuals have been experimenting
with. People are doing similar with all sorts of cheap printers but I
don't think that you want to do that, it takes too much time.

Notes..

The 20 micron layer height is just going to be what you get when you
turn a standard 4 mm lead screw by 1.6 degrees which is the normal step
size on these printers. You could even claim 10 micron if you fit a more
expensive 0.9 degree stepper or a 2mm pitch lead screw. They generally
don't because the gains in quality aren't worth the increase in print times.

Layer height is linked to nozzle size.
The nozzle head has to press the plastic down onto the preceding layer
so the layer height has to be about 80% of the nozzle size or less. My
printers will easily print 0.1 mm layer height even using a 0.4 mm
nozzle but the print speed is so slow I never do it.


You could get a prusa multi-material machine for about £1k

https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-print...3-mk3-kit.html


Which says it has a 50 micron layer height.

So more realistic then?


Or maybe you want colour..

https://www.xyzprinting.com/en-GB/pr...da-vinci-color

Which uses PLA filament, while I would want ABS, PVC and Nylon.

I believe it will print those but not in colour.
The colour is done by painting the filament as it goes in and you can't
paint some of them.


or a resin printer..

https://www.xyzprinting.com/en-GB/pr...obel-superfine

Again, wrong materials.



Better materials in most cases.
You can get hard, flexible, casting, etc. resins.
Printing in ABS and such like is not necessarily the best, I use ABS for
one of my printers but when it runs out I ma going to switch to PETG I
think.