I've been designing and flying RC for sometime time now. I've made Foamboard designs and CNC'd Carbon Fiber, but up until recently I've never 3D printed anything. Last month I saw my friend's face on youtube saying that he was now selling them on his website.
I pulled the trigger and submitted my order. It arrived a week later and went together just like the video.
My only issue with the printer is leveling the bed. The dip switch for the Z access is too high, In my opinion. So, I decided to drill some lower holes in the frame, about 2mm below the original holes.
Why? I didn't like the fact that I had the leveling screws all the way out. The springs had almost no tension on them. This caused me to have to level the bed more than what I wanted.
Second issue that I had. The free software. Now the first word in that sentence is FREE, so considering that I have nothing bad to say about it. But, when I compared prints from Simplify3D and the Free Cura software the difference made the $150 I spent on Simplify3d well worth it.
With Simplify3d the print was smoother, shinier, stronger and way faster. I was printing my VD frame in 1 hour with Cura and down to 15 minutes with Simplify3D at 10% infill. The set up I used in the software was for the Wanhao Duplicator i3. This works perfect.
Other than those two things I couldn't be happier! It's an amazing value, I can't wait to see where this tec will all be in the next 5 years.
I'm including the links to 2 of my designs. One is my "VD" which is a 65mm brushed TinyKwad and my "TKO" which is 90mm Brushless TinyKwad.
If you haven't seen them fly I post video's on my instagram.
Thank you,
Jake
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I know that you were not saying anything directly bad about Cura, but reading the article, it feels like you are implying that because Cura is free (as in cost) that it is inferior to simplify3d. I have not used simplify3d, and I don't think I would need to, because on my Monoprice Mini select, cura 2.4.0 has produced some excellent results. I did have to make a few tweaks and did some testing to get good results, but I'm sure with the same amount of work, Cura would produce good results on this printer. I would also think that slic3r would be something to consider, especially since this printer is a clone of the Prusa i3, and as pointed out in a previous comment, there is a version of slic3r for the i3 printer. Its awesome that we have lots of choices of software for 3d printing, and I appreciate that the people that started the at-home 3dprinting movement understood that. I imagine if a big company had started it, then we'd all be locked into their software stack, and 3d printing would not be where it is today.
I feel like I need to clarify a few things to people unfamiliar with opensource software. For me personally, I always consider using opensource software first. Not because its often free in cost, but also because its free as in freedom. It means that now that I have Cura tuned and working for me, I don't worry about being forced to use a newer version, or pay for a new license. At any time in the future, simplify3d could change their software, making it not work with your particular printer, for example (it doesn't make sense they would do that, but they could). You could be in a similar situation as the automatic upgrades to windows 10 put a lot of people in.
Having said this, I do use a lot of closed source software (adobe and autodesk products for example), but I'm also looking and trying out opensource alternatives, and when they include the features I need, I move to them.
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Third, Open Source is great. I'm for open source and against big corps like DJI. I just didn't see anyone in my research using something that did what I wanted. Granted I have 6 kids, my research time is limited.
Oh and I run windows 10 too.
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