Fwd: [rp-ml] Comparison of ABS parts from Stratasys and Others

From: Charles Overy <cwho_at_lgm3d.com>
Date: Thu, 27 Jun 2013 11:45:15 -0600

>"Not to disappoint owners of these $100'000 machines, but for me it's hard
to imagine why a $400 RepRap should print parts substantially different."

I agree there is a big gap between 100K and $400 or even between $20K and
$2k, however to an engineer who has worked with both types of systems and
built motion control machines and worked with low cost and expensive
machine tools there are a whole list of reasons why they will print
differently. A good analogy is how a $15000 dollar car and a $65000 car
feel when you drive them. Yes, there is more profit and more glamour
and a lot of other bells and whistles in a $65k car that really don't
effect if you get to the corner grocery or not, but there are a lot of
features that matter.

The most substantial difference it that if you are trying to engineer a
very low cost system you have to compromise on how precisely and how
quickly you can move the head, As you want to improve the position, speed
and repeat-ability of those movements, you have add in more precise and
heavy duty components which increases costs. This is one example of a
whole host of trade- offs throughout an engineering system.

Bre and Zach's genius with makerbot was to take the RepRap work by Adrian
Boyers <http://adrianbowyer.net/> group and to say, Hey lets make a
machine that makes parts that are good enough to be useful. Before that
time we in the *prototyping* community were all focused on parts that were
more perfect and better looking.

So what is good enough for you application? I think this is what the
poster is asking.

Charles

*Charles Overy <cwho_at_lgm3d.com>
LGM <http://www.lgm3d.com/> :: RapidArch <http://www.rapidarch.com/> ::
CADspan <http://www.cadspan.com/>
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*970 827 5274 *


On Thu, Jun 27, 2013 at 10:58 AM, Markus Hitter <mah_at_jump-ing.de> wrote:

> Am 27.06.2013 17:28, schrieb Robert Jaquiss:
>
> I would also like to see comparison data. I am totally blind and
>> read braille so I have a good sense of touch. I have felt one part from
>> a Cube printer (February 2012) and parts from Stratasys and 3d Systems
>> machines. The parte from the Cube had a rougher texture than those from
>> the more expensive systems. In my opinion, the best way to study this
>> would be to have the same part made by several different systems.
>>
>>
>> > Has anyone done a comparison of part quality (strength,smoothness,etc)
>> > between the Stratasys systems and other less expensive systems
>> > (Cube,etc). We would like to see the results if possible.
>> >
>> > Chathamres_at_aol.com <mailto:Chathamres_at_aol.com>
>>
>
> Not to disappoint owners of these $100'000 machines, but for me it's hard
> to imagine why a $400 RepRap should print parts substantially different.
>
> Strength is a matter of the used plastics and the layer bonding, i.e. the
> nozzle/room temperature it was printed with. Texture is mostly a matter of
> layer thickness. And you can fill any plastics - as long as it's available
> as filament - into a RepRap and print it at any temperature and layer
> thickness imaginable.
>
> What you're really asking for is a comparison of different plastics and
> different printer settings. And this can be set for every print or even
> every layer individually.
>
>
> Markus
>
> --
> - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
> Dipl. Ing. (FH) Markus Hitter
> http://www.jump-ing.de/
>
>
Received on Thu Jun 27 2013 - 20:25:55 EEST

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