Tips for heavy printer use? Or Recommendations for outsourcing printing?

[ihackstuff 5]

I had a little Etsy project run away from me and now I'm printing a lot more than I expected. I'm at about 4+ hours per day right now. Good problem to have, but I want to be responsible and keep my printers happy. Any suggestions for keeping my printers in top shape until I get to the point that I am ready to just outsource the printing?

 

I have an Ultimaker 2 and an Ultimaker 2 Go. (Oddly, the Go prints SO MUCH BETTER and more consistently than the standard 2.)

 

For bonus points, can anyone recommend a good site for competitive prices on printing fairly small parts (12x12x25mm at most)? I'm using Craftcloud for now, but open to suggestions. 

 

Thank you all!

[geert_2 557]

Printing 4h/day is not that exceptional. Here on the forum I have seen people who print almost continuously. If you do regular maintenance on your printer, it should be fine: nozzle cleaning with atomic puls, cleaning and lubricating rods, removing dust and hairs from the fans, cleaning feeder wheel,...

 

Or you could try moulding and casting: 3D-print a master-object and a shell, carefully post-process these (=sand, smooth,...) and use these to cast a silicone mould. Then use that mould to cast plastic items. On Youtube you find a lot of good tutorials on moulding and casting. Then you combine the best of 3d-printing and moulding and casting.