3D Printers

[Jawloms]

I've just been to my son's prospective high school's open evening and they had a 3D printer, which they use with the students in their DT projects. Does anyone have any good or bad experiences with 3D printers? Any recommendations, warnings, etc? Interestingly, their lead DT guy said that they can't use the 3D printer for their entire project as the exams boards don't like them yet, even though the student will have had to have designed everything in 3D themselves using some form of CAD software. They just use it to make a few components of the final model. It also got me thinking that maybe we could print new ferrules for the stools in science which have lost theirs and are now digging in to the floor.

 

Thanks for anything.

 

Stuart

[glen_j]

3d printers are good fun but very very slow to make anything which is probably the biggest reason they can only make some parts for the project. i have a prusa I3 and it is of resolution isn't the greatest but does the job. had a few failures due to part coming away from the heatbed but other than that no real issues. not sure how long the stool feet would last due to the brittle nature of 3d printed parts.

[Jawloms]

I've been having a look around and the Lulzbot mini 3D looks quite good. Any direct experiences?

 

Stuart