Two Great 3D Printers to consider

[Flash]

Creality Ender 3 S1 Pro
https://www.creality.com/products/creality-ender-3-s1-pro-fdm-3d-printer


Creality CR10 Smart Pro
https://www.creality.com/products/creality-cr-10-smart-pro-3d-printer


The Ender 3 S1 Pro is a 220 x 220 x 270mm printer.

The CR10 Smart Pro is a 300 x 300 x 400mm Printer.

Both have direct drive, auto and manual bed leveling.

Top Mount Filament holder with direct path to the print head, saves table top room:)

I own the CR10 Smart Pro and love it.

If you want a printer at a good price that already has all the upgrades, I would give the babies a good hard look.

[Ez2cDave]

Whatt is the "learning curve" on these units, for a person with ZERO experience ?

Dave F.

[Flash]

The Learning Curve has gotten much easier thanks to these newer designed printers.
Also, there is good Youtube information that can teach you every step of the way.
That's how I learned, had no one to turn to local.
My first print was a full success.

Both of the machines has auto-leveling to assist you.
Great Build surface for prints to stick to and easy to remove.
Both can handle a wide range of filaments to print from.
Both have backup manual leveling dials.
Both are very easy to unbox and setup.
Both print great right out of the box and are reasonably priced for all you get.

Here are the basic steps.
Pic one of these machines

Down Load free Cura Slicer Program which will be used to download your Models to from online and to resize them if need be.
Setup your printer model in Cura to include Start and Finish G codes which really matches the software to your printer.
When you download the model STL file from mostly Thingiverse, it will appear on your virtual printer build plate, you will learn to set a few basic recommended settings, then Save the model, Cura will do this for you by saving the model as a G-Code that will be saved to a SD Card.

Remove the Card from your computer and stick it into the Printer, load the Filament, make sure the bed is level, allow the printer to preheat to 200 degrees for PLA Filament and 60 degrees for the bed in most cases.

Then tap print on the LCD screen. Watch the first couple of layers go down, if all looks good allow the model to print.

Thats about it.

Again, nothing in itself is really hard.
I recommend just watching some Youtube videos on this.
Don't get to overboard on the Cura sets, keep it basic, you can learn more about those settings as time goes on.

Hope this helps!

[Bob Austin]

I started 2 years ago with a MonoPrice Select Mini (the smaller printer on the right in the image below). I wasn't sure how much I would use it as I planned to use it mostly to create model rocket parts. Basically bought it to play around with. Last year I purchased my second printer - an Ender 3 V2 (the printer on the left). Bigger build area, auto-leveling (I would never again buy a 3D printer without it), plus a few more bells and whistles. Yea, I found I really liked doing 3D printing.

Most of the stuff I have printed over the past two years have been files downloaded from Thingiverse or elsewhere. I have a basic drawing program called MatterControl (https://www.matterhackers.com/store/l/mattercontrol/sk/MKZGTDW6). It allows me to draw basic objects and then print them. However, my next goal is to learn FreeCAD (https://www.freecadweb.org/) so that I can do more detailed "mechanical" drawings and projects. FreeCAD even has a model rocket workbench add on (https://wiki.freecadweb.org/Rocket_Workbench).

While I originally bought the first printer to do model rocket prints, I found myself doing a number of other projects for around the house. Sometimes it is simple things (like a backing plate around the thermostat) or things like a fire extinguisher holder. Printing a pretty vase for the wife is always a nice thing to create on the printer (and a nice thing to do for wife!).

If you like to create things, you will probably have a ball with a 3D printer.

[Ez2cDave]

Okay, that is good to know . . .

SECOND QUESTION :

What is the "learning curve" for someone, with ZERO experience, who wants to be able to create high-precision, detailed, parts for Scale models and other "own design" projects" ?

By this, I mean not downloading pre-existing files, but creating items from dimensions only.

Remember, this is with ZERO experience, whatsoever !

Dave F.

[Bob Austin]

A couple of things I would say. If you are looking at creating high detailed scale parts, forget the printers mentioned earlier in this post. They use filament that creates layers. These layers are visible and it takes a lot of filling and sanding to get rid of it. Look at the attached photo. The DynaSoar is straight out of the printer at 0.08mm layer height. You can see each line.

Instead look at a resin printer. Much better and finer detail in the prints and no sanding. The down side is that these are (generally) more expensive and as I understand it, they literally stink during the printing process. Maybe someone here who has one can provide better insight into their actual operation.

The bigger learning curve is not the printer but the one I am getting ready to tackle - learning CAD. You have to take those paper drawings and convert them into a CAD drawing on the computer. That CAD file is exported as an STL file. The STL file is imported into a slicer and generates a gcode file. The gcode file is what the 3D printer uses to create the print.

Of course if you learn CAD, you can use it for a lot more than just 3D printing (like that other project you have been working on for years) :)

[Ez2cDave]

The bigger learning curve is not the printer but the one I am getting ready to tackle - learning CAD. You have to take those paper drawings and convert them into a CAD drawing on the computer. That CAD file is exported as an STL file. The STL file is imported into a slicer and generates a gcode file. The gcode file is what the 3D printer uses to create the print.

Of course if you learn CAD, you can use it for a lot more than just 3D printing (like that other project you have been working on for years) :)

My thoughts, exactly . . .

I have ZERO interest in creating 3-D images in CAD. I want to create highlly-detailed 2-D "blueprints" for my long-overdue 18.26IA scale data project AND OTHERS .

I hope that, if 3-D CAD is required for 3-D printing, that programs exists to automatically create those "STL" files, from a 2-D file.

I want to be able to create drawings that are similar to these ( below ).

Dave F.

[Bob Austin]

I am not aware of any software program that will take a scan of a 2D print and convert it to a CAD drawing. If you find one, let me know. I do know FreeCAD will let you import a graphic image (such as your 3D views) and allow you to trace over them. There are also programs that will allow you to take a 3D scan of an object and convert that into CAD drawing.

Anything created with a 3D printer starts out as a CAD drawing, either from a CAD program such as FreeCAD or AutoCAD, or if an artistic sculpture a program such Blender is used. There are a number of free items available and you can create a lot just by downloading files (the DynaSoar was a file that someone else had posted to Thingiverse. We just scaled it up to fit a BT-60 tube).

Hope that helps

[Solomoriah]

I actually create a lot of simple stuff in Tinkercad. More than adequate precision, but lacks advanced features that I honestly rarely need anyway.

[Bob Austin]

I started using TinkerCAD about 2 months ago and I am really starting to like it. You can do some pretty complicated drawings if you take your time.