For those who know nothing about 3D printers, Bigbox 3D Printer from E3D.

I am a customer of this company but otherwise have no connection. My experience with them however have been positive to the extreme, and I can highly recommend their products and especially their service.

A lot of people here are enquiring about 3D printers, and many people can see that there may be a place for them in their home or business shops either to service their traditional high precision machines making "stuff" to enable a job to be completed, or providing customers with prototypes etc. But it's a confusing field and I can empathise completely as I went through the process not too long ago for myself. In my case I also didn't have a CNC background so I had nothing to lean on there.

A company in the UK called E3D has made the "hotends", the part of the printer that actually squirts out the plastic, for a few years (ie ancient history in this field ), and that's where I became a customer of theirs as I bought a hotend plus a few other parts for my own printer. The E3D v6 hotend is generally considered the best in the field. However the company is now just launching a complete printer called a "Bigbox" and sent out notice of their startup campaign last night (Sydney time). It's already over-pledged. In one day!

I've had a look at their spiel and know what the company is like so it's not BS and they would easily be able to achieve what they say. In a word it's game changing. I know that term is bandied about a lot, but this really looks like a jump forward. Until now most of the open source, reprap machines have been much of a muchness to be perfectly honest, as I've recently stated here, but this is definitely a major improvement. I am seriously considering buying one of these printers, even though I have a perfectly good printer at the moment.

For those not familiar with the Kickstarter program (I wasn't either until recently), it's a funding program where companies develop potential ideas and release the ideas to the public, together with a menu of options a "backer" can pledge money to. At the completion of the time period the company will have enough assured finance to enable their project to begin, and at that stage you're charged for your pledge. If the company doesn't go ahead with it, you don't get charged anything. So the company gets assured capital very cheaply. In return the offers in the menu provided to supporters are normally at discounts to what the product will eventually sell for. So you get a new product as soon as it's released extremely cheaply. In this case a factory assembled machine will be sold to supporters for US$1400? Because of the credibility of E3D in the field, it looks as if they're not selling the Kickstarter machines as cheaply as some companies may need to. Besides, all the "early bird" offers sold within hours of release.

Anyway, here's the details on the machine. Released for 1 day, but by heck it's good! The layer height is 50 micron and the self-levelling bed looks fantastic. I like the simplicity of that swing down microswitch, as most others use a proximity sensor and that has other issues.
Front Page | E3D BigBox

For those who genuinely know nothing about 3D printing with FFF technology, take a look through the videos and you should get a good idea of where the cutting edge is this with this type of technology in terms of resolution and surface texture quality.

Edit: When I first started looking through my emails and saw this machine, the pledge in the Kickstarter campaign was 36,000 GBP. I started typing this message 30 minutes ago and it 39,000 GBP. As I submit this it is 40,300 GBP ... no I made a cup of tea before submitting and now it's over 41K. Wait it's been another minute. 42K. I kid you not, that's how fast they're selling! I'd better post this or I'll be here all day!!!

Thank you for posting this link! I've been looking to add a new machine to my home shop. At this time GBP is above 115k

Hi Pete

Could I put one of those E3D v6 hotend extruders on my LinuxCNC retrofitted mill and make high resolution parts? I already have the 4th axis wired up so maybe I could use that servo drive to run the extruder feed motor.

Stan

SBAER said:

Hi Pete

Could I put one of those E3D v6 hotend extruders on my LinuxCNC retrofitted mill and make high resolution parts? I already have the 4th axis wired up so maybe I could use that servo drive to run the extruder feed motor.

Stan

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Sure, you can do pretty much anything in life if you put enough effort in. Whether it's a good idea or not is another matter entirely

Make Magazine did testing on 39 machines available and the overall winner was the TAZ 5. What amazed me was that it has many 3D printed parts, not machined or molded, yet handily beat out machines with what most would consider superior manufacturing methods!

Thanks for this thread Pete. I am thinking next year will be 3D Printer year for RC. I can see it being quite useful, simply as everything for me is usually a week's postage away as nothing ever gets stocked locally and a simple trip to the shops is $20+ worth of fuel anyway.

RC99 said:

Thanks for this thread Pete. I am thinking next year will be 3D Printer year for RC. I can see it being quite useful, simply as everything for me is usually a week's postage away as nothing ever gets stocked locally and a simple trip to the shops is $20+ worth of fuel anyway.

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I should think it would be handy. For me it often gets to do grunt work or prototyping, so I can model something while away and print it while I'm doing something more constructive. I'm just finishing a 4 facet drill grinding jig for example. It's pretty much all printed but I have a few components (studs, knurled adjustment knobs etc) I may finish up turning on the lathe from steel. If it works ok and I iron out any bugs I will then probably remake it in steel. However the printed prototype is actually quite sturdy and would probably suffice for initial use in a non-production type environment. I printed that in PLA as I wanted the rigidity, but nylon would probably also be worth considering if it were to be used permanently.

I think the trouble is people have the wrong expectations from a 3D printer and think that somehow they just wave a magic want and out will pop a widget to replace an xyz etc. The reality is that there's a learning process to getting them to function effectively, but when they do the results are often extremely good. However just as importantly, they will only ever be as good as the models you feed in to them. A 2D paper printer will never produce the Mona Lisa, but good printers may be able to reproduce facsimiles that are very close to the real thing. However they don't help the artist or in this case engineer create the art to begin with. So if somebody was considering going down the path of 3D printing, I'd suggest they first get a good working knowledge of a suitable CAD program, otherwise they will be forever stuck merely printing models from libraries, and just how many useless vases or similar do you need!

Edit: Incidentally RC, I figured you'd ask me about the sharpener, so this is it. This is obviously a render of the CAD model, but the 3D printed one is identical (except, rather embarrassingly, bright orange!)

Looking at some videos on youtube, the quality even of the cheapo ones as in less then 2 thousand dollars is amazingly good, in fact better then some plastic items I have bought out of china.

Being good at CAD and having a good CAD program is probably 3/4 of getting good results out of a printer.

I have been keeping a keen eye in the Bigbox discussions. They have a Google page that shows early adopter discussion. The build size is exactly what I need to make casting patterns. I was close to ordering a MakerGear M2 but was procrastinating because of the small build envelope. Bigbox solves that issue (without breaking the bank) IF it prints well.

I'm interested to know when Pete receives his. They are not shipping machines for non Kickstarter orders as far as I'm aware. That will happen possibly at the end of this month. I may well order one at that point.

Pete F said:

Edit: Incidentally RC, I figured you'd ask me about the sharpener, so this is it. This is obviously a render of the CAD model, but the 3D printed one is identical (except, rather embarrassingly, bright orange!)

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So let me get this straight - It prints plastic facsimiles of somewhat usable parts ready for sale at Harbor Freight? So they're cutting china out of the loop, now?

Kidding, but thanks for the updates. I tend to use the tech in similar way as you seem to.

Just to clarify, Pete will not be receiving his BigBox printer, not unless E3D have a sudden rush of generosity and send me one free ... or at least for an offer I couldn't refuse

I have no skin in this fight. I saw the printer, read about it, and know the reputation of the company behind it as I was a customer. That's as far as it goes, and my review was both honest and impartial. It was also 6 months ago, and that is an eternity in 3D printing. The sector is going crazy with everyone sprinting as fast as they can to try to obtain some sort of foothold when the music stops. It's so crazy that it would be literally impossible for any one person to keep fully informed of who is doing what.

The latest printers coming out, if from a reputable manufacturer WILL do good quality prints, no doubt about it. Provided of course your expectations are met by the price point at which you enter. So if anyone is waiting hoping something better will come out, then don't. Something better will likely be out a few weeks later! Likewise if you're waiting so the printer can gain a reputation for being good/bad, then forget about it, by that time you're buying obsolete technology. The answer is unfortunately just to bite the bullet and buy SOMETHING to get yourself started in the field. Once you get started the machine will most likely do you for a number of years, by which point you will have a very good idea of the use you have for the machine, and alternative technologies may well be with us.

The speed at which the sector is moving is quite unlike anything else I've seen before, and my background was in electronics as my first profession!

Zahnrad Kopf said:

So let me get this straight - It prints plastic facsimiles of somewhat usable parts ready for sale at Harbor Freight? So they're cutting china out of the loop, now?

Kidding, but thanks for the updates. I tend to use the tech in similar way as you seem to.

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Yes I don't really have an interest in 3D printing per se, it's just another tool I use to get the job done. But it sure is a handy tool!!! It just happens that I try to keep abreast of what's happening in the sector as best I'm able to. Unless it's some crap for the kids, my printer will be working making useful widgets, and not printing for the sake or producing useless crap.

For those who are interested in where the bar sits (this week), I'd suggest taking a look at Raise 3D. Raise3D | Raise the Standard | Best Large-Format FDM 3D Printer In particular the N2.

Without going in to full details, that has a number of features that make it very good. Amongst those are a fully enclosed build chamber, aluminium construction, open source, touch screen, print re-start on power-out, all metal hotend, remote print management/wi-fi, factory calibrated bed levelling etc etc. It reviews well at trade shows, but it remains to be seen how it rolls out. Unfortunately I haven't always had a positive experience with what Chinese manufacturers say they will do, and what they actually deliver, but there you have it.

Pete F said:

For those who are interested in where the bar sits (this week), I'd suggest taking a look at Raise 3D. Raise3D | Raise the Standard | Best Large-Format FDM 3D Printer In particular the N2.

Without going in to full details, that has a number of features that make it very good. Amongst those are a fully enclosed build chamber, aluminium construction, open source, touch screen, print re-start on power-out, all metal hotend, remote print management/wi-fi, factory calibrated bed levelling etc etc. It reviews well at trade shows, but it remains to be seen how it rolls out. Unfortunately I haven't always had a positive experience with what Chinese manufacturers say they will do, and what they actually deliver, but there you have it.

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Not meaning to unfairly question the claim but who determined that this printer was "Best Large-Format FDM 3D Printer"? Was this evaluated by an independent source or....?

Randy