Filament tip forming shoulder after print

[cloakfiend 996]

I see 3Dprinting basically as Multiple tiered 3D Plotting with plastic. For all the people out there incapable of Poly modelling and such, Zbrush is a wonderful program for artists, but for accurate mechanics not so great. If you can draw you'll be able to make what you want in no time.

And yes i also agree about the 3d printers and get annoyed when i say we have a 3d printer and the first thing people always say is, wow, you can print anything, your own printer, or print a computer, or something dumb like that. they've been mis-sold especially by makerbot people with his whole you can print anything routine. He brought awareness true but a lot of lies with it, but the lack of closeups had me very suspicious from the start as to the quality of the print, and to no surprise at all i though the quality was below my expectations, and hated the lines. Then some bright spark did the whole ABS routine and everyone is melting their pieces trying to achieve what they've been mis-sold. Thank god for PLA!

However after tinkering around, I am happy to talk up my ultimaker as i love the open source and can acheive things of a quality i thought i would never be able to at the start. Its just not as easy as 123. Or pressing a go button on a closed source printer.

[danilius 118]

As it happens, almost everyone flogging printers give roughly the same impression, that all you need is a 3D printer and then the world is your plastic oyster. The shining exception is this video:

in which Brook Drumm states quite clearly that 3S printing is hard.

I never expected the Ultimaker to be a walk in the park, but as it happens it turned out to be a flatter learning curve than expected, largely because the Ultimaker 2 and Cura combination are simply superb for what they offer.

With regards to ABS, I love the stuff. Weirdly enough for precision parts or quality surface ABS seems to do a superior job over PLA.

[cloakfiend 996]

With regard to ABS, i agree the quality of print you get is better than with PLA, but weaker. higher melting point, but weaker. I had so many delicate things break on me with ABS that just bend in PLA and go back to their original position. Also getting large flat surfaces with ABS, to sit and not move or warp during long prints even a millimetre is difficult unless you build a hood use ABS juice and blah blah, compared to PLA which you just knock out.

But most importantly which some people still don't believe is that PLA blends smooth out great with acetone and ABS simply melts uncontrollably. So I can finally achieve what I set out to when I bought the damn thing. This would not be possible with the maker-bot due to resolution restrictions.