3D Printer People

[dan.schumaker]

Looking for some reccomendations/advice from people who use 3D printers.

My wife has gotten into cookie making lately, and has been buying some 3D printed cookie cutters online.  I'm looking at it and thinking "that can't be too hard", so it has me looking into some 3D printers.

Does anyone have some recommendations of some good ones?  Looking to stay on the cheaper end of things.  I've done a little looking at the Ender 3, but looking to see if anyone has any other ideas.

And I guess the biggest question... yes, my wife will be using it, but what cool pedal related things can I make with it 

[matmosphere]

I have an ender three and it's great. Although it's not a set and forget kind of thing. It takes a little work to get things printing perfectly from time to time. Once you get it dialed in it's pretty amazing how good the print quality is for the money.

One thing of note is that you have to be very careful about materials for stuff touching food and even then I believe you need to do something to fill al the pores and grooves the printing process leaves, in order to keep bacteria from growing in all those small places.

Not a dealbreaker, but another step in the process.

[dan.schumaker]

I have an ender three and it's great. Although it's not a set and forget kind of thing. It takes a little work to get things printing perfectly from time to time. Once you get it dialed in it's pretty amazing how good the print quality is for the money.

One thing of note is that you have to be very careful about materials for stuff touching food and even then I believe you need to do something to fill al the pores and grooves the printing process leaves, in order to keep bacteria from growing in all those small places.

Not a dealbreaker, but another step in the process.

Thanks for the info.  I've done some looking into the food-safe PETG filament.  I know nothing about 3D printing, so I am starting from scratch here.  Something set-and-forget that works easy enough that I could teach her to use (after I create the models for her) would be a plus.

[matmosphere]

The ender 3 may not be the best for you then. It doesn't need adjustment every time you use it. Maybe every 6-7 prints is usually alright. And it doesn't take a lot of work, just little stuff here and there.

I think you may have to spend a decent amount more for some of the more set and forget printers. I think monoprice has ones that aren't terribly expensive, that make pretty good prints.

As far as workflow once you have a model made in CAD or whatever you use, then you need to put it through a "slicer" program that will create the mapping for the printer to follow. I use a program called Ultamaker Cura. It's pretty straightforward but has a lot of options and versatility. Then it's ready to print.

Some printers do better than others with PETG as well so It might be worth reading up on that. The ender 3 has a system that feeds the filiment into a tube before it goes to the hotend and the nozzle, I have read that for some filaments a direct feeding system will give better results.

[davent]

Leevibe as far as i know is using one to create mounts and bits for inside enclosures. His most recent is a patchbay that has quite a few 3d printer parts.

https://www.madbeanpedals.com/forum/index.php?topic=31919.msg306786#msg306786

dave