Will pay $ for Ultimaker Print! Help please!

[trpeterson 0]

I will be ordering an Ultimaker but need a part printed within the next couple weeks... no time to order/assemble/learn on the Ultimaker until later this summer. Would someone who is successfully able to print good quality models with relatively smooth surfaces with their Ultimaker be willing to print a 5.5"x5.5"x1.4" (13 cubic inch) model for me? (139mm x 139mm x 36.5mm) Professional service bureaus want $250 to $550 to print this part, that's simply too much! I've checked my model with netfabb, it should be ready to print without modification. The infill will need to be pretty dense as it is a base for a small scultpure. File attached, please let me know! Thanks in advance!!

[joergen 2]

I will be ordering an Ultimaker but need a part printed within the next couple weeks... no time to order/assemble/learn on the Ultimaker until later this summer. Would someone who is successfully able to print good quality models with relatively smooth surfaces with their Ultimaker be willing to print a 5.5"x5.5"x1.4" (13 cubic inch) model for me? (139mm x 139mm x 36.5mm) Professional service bureaus want $250 to $550 to print this part, that's simply too much! I've checked my model with netfabb, it should be ready to print without modification. The infill will need to be pretty dense as it is a base for a small scultpure. File attached, please let me know! Thanks in advance!!

Shapeways is charging $165 for this model, which is hardly a lot of money for this.

printing on an UM will also take a couple of hours, and at $40/h you are at the same price.

as an alternative, there is always clay.

but maybe some friendly UM user will says yes and help you. I have been burned by these requests, they have not led to anything ever.

[destroyer2012 0]

This seems like a part more easily/cheaply/quickly made on a wood lathe. At 20% infill it would take 7 hours to print this part. That is approx $7 material cost in UM PLA (88.57 cm^3, as reported by KISSlicer), FYI.

In my opinion, 3d printing is for complex parts you couldn't make by hand, not this.

[trpeterson 0]

@Joergen - I had not priced it out at Shapeways. Thanks for suggesting them, I'll have to see what type of material offerings/printing technologies they offer. That's interesting to hear the $40/hr estimate you mention. We have a laser CNC machine (Epilog) for engraving which I charge about that rate for design services plus about $1/min for machine-run-time.

@destroyer2012 - I completely agree! I've got a handful of projects waiting to be rapid prototyped (hobby inventor here). While this base is incredible simple, it's been my benchmark to compare protoyping costs using FDM, SLA, Polyjet, SLS technologies from Stratasys, ZCorp, and Objet. While I have my eyes and budget set on a recertified ZCorp ZPrinter or Stratasys Dimension in the $10K to $18K range, their cost-per-unit is still too high for 'playing' with my ideas getting them ready for production (upwards of $4 to $8 per cubic inch). For that reason I'm in the market for a hobby system like Ultimaker to prep designs prior to higher-end prototpying, molding and casting.

Knowing there are a number of hobby-UM'ers out there... I'm still willing to pay for a UM print of this base, if for nothing else to have a sample in hand to see exactly how it stacks up against my samples from the big-dog printers. If anyone's game, feel free to 'PM' me to talk price if you'd like.

Thanks for the quick responses!