Hi from Doncaster, UK

[sammo 0]

Hi

After some investigation and recommendations from contacts in the commercial 3D printing sphere, I took the plunge and bought an UM2 last week and I've got to say, I'm pleasantly surprised at the quality of prints I'm getting.

I've been designing and selling 3D printed parts for about a year now, but I've been having the parts made up for me in laser sintered nylon.

The reason I bought a UM2 was purely to speed up the prototyping phase for new parts, but at least one of the items I sell comes out looking better from the Ultimaker!

I've had to tweak my designs a little to make them more FFF friendly (SLS Nylon doesn't require supports so there's more freedom with your designs) but the cost of producing items is at least 10 times cheaper for small items and much much cheaper for larger parts.

I bought my UM2 from Dream3D in the UK, ready assembled, adjusted and tested and unboxing/setting up for my first print took about 30 minutes.

So far a week in and I'm over the moon with the Ultimaker 2.

One of the reasons I chose the Ultimaker was because of the support available through this forum, so I thought I'd say hi and hopefully once I have a bit more experience I can contribute to the community.

 

[DidierKlein 729]

Hi Sammo, and welcome to the community

Don't hesitate to share your prints, or to ask questions we are here to help

Happy printing

 

[sammo 0]

I'm having a go at my first 'long' print run - it's looking like it's going to take about 30+ hours of printing to print in 0.1 with 1.2mm walls and 25% infill.

It's an anatomical target pistol stock I've been meaning to design for a while, but I'm not great at 3D modelling organic shapes so having the UM2 available to run off quick prototypes that I can try out for size has been a really big help.

 

 

[IRobertI 520]

I tried modelling a very similar one a few months back. But, I quickly realised how much I suck at organic shapes and gave up after a few days...

 

[sammo 0]

That's what I thought - how hard can a lofted extrude with some swept cuts be? - erm.. lets just say, I have less hair now than when I started Getting it to print with hardly any supports has probably been the most frustrating part.

Really looking forward to seeing the output from the UM2 - test prints of small sections have come out very well indeed so far.

I'll post up some photo's when it's done.

 

[IRobertI 520]

Haha, indeed, just a few lofts and cuts and you should be done, right? Right?

This is where I stopped trying. This was like the fifth attempt or something. Meh! Looks like you've got a better handle (tee hee) on it than I do.

 

Mechanical shapes is where it's at for me I think.

 

[skint 61]

A bit of practice and you should be able to create those sort of things quite easily in solidworks or Creo.

Welcome aboard Sammo.

 

[sammo 0]

That was modelled in Solidworks - I wouldn't say it was easy though I need some more practice....

After a couple of failed prints (my fault, the filament snagged a couple of times, but I've realised my mistake now - pull the filament from the outside of the loose spool, not the inside doh!)

11 more hours printing and I should (fingers crossed) have the final part. After some experimentation with the prototype parts I've decided that it's far too light, so I've added a 22mm hole in the grip so that I can fit a standard 22mm copper pipe section filled with lead into the grip, then I've added a flush fitting screw in end cap to hold it in place.

The top part of the stock is finished and fitted to the pistol, it's looking pretty good - in fact I've already had 3 people asking to buy one.

 

[sammo 0]

Just had a chance to take some photo's of the finished stock.

 

[IRobertI 520]

If you'd be willing to share the SW file for it I'd love to take a look and learn from it (if it's 2013 or earlier). If you don't want to share it publicly feel free to PM it, or of course, just say no

 

[sammo 0]

Happy to Robert, I'll send you a PM.