3D Printing Prices

Question

goodmorning do any one have a list what prizes are for 3d printing. seems that prizes are high.

CochranRobotics · Answer

Are you asking about 3D printing services (where you submit an order to have something printed) or about buying a 3D printer? I self sourced my 3D printer and it came up to about $700 to buy all of the pieces that I wanted. The price could go down to about $450 if you went with basic electronic and were more willing to do a lot of the fabrication yourself. I didn't have access to a machine shop when I first placed my order so I purchased everything. As far as printing services, they will be quite high I think. The time involved in printing an item could range from 45 minutes to days. They have to pay an employee for their time, or be willing to work for nothing. Long prints have a much higher chance of failure, which results in trashing the material and starting over. Honestly, if you were going to do 1 robot, it would probably be beneficial to build or buy a 3D printer based on cost alone. You can buy personal 3D printers now for anywhere from $500 to $3000+ (USD). If you are the kind of guy that likes to tinker and build robots, you might not like this option. 3D printers have a lot of moving parts and break or need adjustments. They are not like a paper printer at all. I wanted to know my printer inside and out, and know what parts I would need in the event of a break. That is just how I am. I also have completely rebuilt 2 cars, multiple DVR's and build my own computers (unless it is a tablet or laptop). I like to know what is going on in detail with items like this. You might just want it to print and if it breaks, send it back to where you got it from to have it repaired. Either way is good and is just a personal preference. That doesn't mean that you can't fix a purchased printer, just that you will understand one that you have built better than one that you have purchased. Just a word of caution... Building a 3D printer can be very frustrating. Build or Buy was the toughest decision that I had to make but, I am glad that I made the decision that I did. BTW, I made what is called a RepRap Prusa i3 rework. Pretty good design but I think the next one will use extruded X metal instead of the roundbar. I like the though of it and it allows you to put your motors, belts and stop switches a bit more out of harms way

Rich · Answer

Prices for printing services vary from place to place and from material used. I found a decent place here (3DPrint-UK) which is basically charged at 10p per cubic cm based on the overall size (as if the item was in a box) using nylon. They will print as much as you can fit in the virtual box too and advise on how to get the most out of your print. Shapeways is a popular choice of 3D Print Service however I found them to be pretty expensive and not exactly helpful. Shop around or ideally find someone local(ish) to you with a printer and see if they will print for you. Some members of the community will print for you for a reasonable price.

CochranRobotics · Answer

I was actually about to comment that I think it is much cheaper to find someone that has a 3D printer and is willing to print something for you. It all just depends on what it is you want printed and how high of quality you want it printed in. For example, the 3D printer parts that I printed this weekend used a low print quality setting and turned out to be great for my printer. Also, infill % can reduce the cost but also reduces the strength of the item, but I printed these parts with a 10% infill and they are plenty strong enough for what I needed them to do. Services are out to make money to stay in business. Individuals are far more likely to do the job for less. Once I feel comfortable that my printer is in a state to print parts for others, I would have no problem doing this for little more than the cost of shipping and the cost of the materials used. A service would be able to stock many more colors and types of material than an individual, so if you wanted a specialty material or a specific color, you might look to a service.

Rich · Answer

It's like anything else, for example if you have a friend who could fix your dripping tap it'll be cheaper than hiring a plumber. If you have a friend who can convert your old VHS tapes to DVD it'll be cheaper than a company that does the same. However, 3D print companies will most likely get materials for a lower cost than an individual as they buy in bulk, this can sometimes be reflected in their charges.

Nomad 6R · Answer

i found one here in brussels.the prizes are huge . ,it looks like bying a printer is cheaper then letting making parts.. i need two off these see pic  and two off these  and one off these  what will these parts cost ?

CochranRobotics · Answer

what color/material do you want them in and at what quality do you want them printed? The last one looks like it requires a dual head printer to get the two different colors. do you know how much infill you would need? I have access to a few 3D printers besides my own. It is just a matter of if the material you need is available and if the dual head printer is up and operational. It would take me about a week to get these built as these printers are about 20 miles from my house and I wouldn't want to consume all 3 of these printers for extended periods of time. Let me know and let me know your address so I can calculate shipping. You can email me at d.cochran@cochranrobotics.com. One more thing, do you have the STL files to create these?

Nomad 6R · Answer

only white cause jd is white on ly from the female little part i cant save the files due i dont have a printer i send a mail to you thank you

CochranRobotics · Answer

I haven't seen an email yet. My domain name is pretty new so DNS may not have replicated around the world yet. if you would like, you can send an email to d.cochran@cox.net

Nomad 6R · Answer

great i will send you.

Nomad 6R

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