3D printer

[jamesrguk]

I'm working on printing an HVAC faceplate with improved less light bleeding shields. My Formlabs printer can only print flat to 5.4" and I wanted to print flat so the back side has no supports. I can sand off the flat front side. What I have done so far is print a 5.2" section so I can adjust the model and print another test print. The back side does come out nice without supports using clear resin.

I was thinking of getting a new filament printer but I have no clue as to how they work and what models are the best.

The Formlabs has a larger printer but it's over $10,000. I may be able to send my 3D file to some companies that do that work but I like to make adjustments all the time for perfection.

So what are some good filament printers I should look at?

Dave,

Depending on what you need to do I use all Creality FDM hardware for my small business, they're pretty solid in terms of build quality and with a few tweaks can be very reliable and good value for money in my opinion, also lots of online support as they're very popular.

I print quite a lot of big parts for which I run larger nozzles (0.6 and 0. but also the odd small job and the quality can be very good indeed.

To give you an idea I run the following:

1 x Ender 3 (build volume 300mm x 300mm x 400mm)
3 x CR10s Pros (build volume 300mm x 300mm x 400mm)
1 x CR10s Max (build Volume 400mm x 400mm x 450mm)

I only really print in PETG and ABS which are pretty tough.

This HVAC control Knob was one of my smaller projects for a client and with a quick sand and a blast of paint a good level of finish can be achieved:
HVAC.jpg

Lots of people have their favourites but Creality's what I know quite well.

J