Go to homepage
3D Printing
3D Printing Service
FDM SLA/DLP SLS MJF DMLS/SLM Material Jetting
CNC Machining
CNC Machining Service
CNC Milling CNC Turning Surface Finishing Part Marking
Injection Molding
Sheet Metal Fabrication
Resources
3D Printing Guide CNC Machining Guide Injection Molding Guide Metal 3D Printing Guide Knowledge Base Webinars Help Center
Get instant quote
Jun 2016
21 / 22
Jun 2016
Jun 2016
Racoon44
Jun '16

What would be the benefit to buy a cheap prusa and then upgrade to steel frame? Cheaper than buying the steel frame kit directly?
What is your configuration regarding your motors, driver, board, hotend, and bed?

SOC3D
Jun '16

Cheap prusa would be cheap and quick. You would be up and running and printing. Then you upgrade to a steel frame later on. I have a cheap hictop, a steel frame a Rambo and toolson modifications on one. Two frames are en route and will have cheap ramps boards. I might throw the rumba on one. Each started as a different version of a cheap prusa with various upgrades. I might order a few more steel kits except I’m running out of space. With the fusion f400 and possibly a markforged coming in I would need to double my floor space.

flowalistik
Jun '16

If you’re not used to work with electronics and soldering one or two things, an Ultimaker Original + kit would be perfect. However, if you have a tight budget, I’d totally go for a Prusa i3 Steel (single frame if you will be moving it from one place to another). What I will never recommend you is to get a cheap prusa kit. Buy only quality parts (good nozzle, motors and electronics) and you will save money and time.

Racoon44
Jun '16

Thanks, I am an electronics engineer so shouldn’t be a problem. Do you have any recommendation on a good P3steel kit?

Toy_Factory
Jun '16

Hi Pierre,

Nice to hear you want to joint the 3d community.

Any of the Prusa i3 variant are a good choice to start, the P3Steel is maybe one of the best i3 around, take a look at the toolson edition in Thingiverse as said before.

The increase of the printing size on the i3 will cause a small decrease of the quality, but nothing to worry about IMHO. In any case, if you want to have the most accurate printer, go for the short version. The Y axis is probably theweakest point of the i3 and, increase the lenght will not help. You can also increase the smooth rods and linears bearings diametre on a later stage, designing and printing your own adaptors, which will give you a more solid structure. Btw, I got the long version, but I could not compare with the short so I can not tell you if there is a decrease of quality.

Anyway, as you will see, all the printer designs are compromissing quality on behaf of price in some way or another, however, you can get very decent prints with the i3. Don’t expect to be plug and play, I start getting decent printings after 1 month of having the printer operative (I am Electronics Engineer also), and still improving…

I thing the best advise I can get to you is to avoid any chinesse stuff regarding the mechanics (linear movement), avoid chinese LM8UU and stainless steel rods. Look for a known brand like Misumi or SKF for the linear bearings and use Hard Steel Chromed smooth rods with thight tolerance, try to source locally.

As you said most of the stores selling the P3Steel frame are from Spain, I live near Barcelona, so I buyed locally the frame, sorry I cannot help you here.

If you are really looking for big printing volume and good quality you can buy the Ultimaker 2+ extended or the BCN3D Sigma, ovbiously at a cost!!

You can also build your Ultimaker 2, look for Ultimaker 2 Tribute in Thingiverse, if you use a taller chasis you can get the volume of the extended also.

My last advise, use good quality filament like colorfabb, extrudr, our any other european or USA maker, advoid chinese stuff here also, the 3d printing is a sum of a lot things that can work well or not (including the filament quality) so as many things yu can leave out of the equation the more easy will be to locate the problems. When you have your printer working well, then you can explore other cheaper filaments if you want.

So move forward, look a lot, buy with some spares, start building and ENJOY!!!

RCole
Jun '16

Serious upgrades. I like the PEI surface and the upgraded extruder. The increased bed size is nice too. Of course, auto-levelling, better heat distribution on the bed - all good improvements.

Seems every week, there is a new “top of the wish list” for me.

Racoon44
Jun '16

Hi, thanks for the detailed reply. I agree with you and I now want to get the p3Steel and then later on upgrade to the toolson edition. Where did you buy your printer? As I said above, my researches have stop one this one: Welcome kitprinter3d.com - BlueHost.com 1 Since you appeared to have a 300mm printer, imagine that you had to print a rectangle with the following dimentions: 290-190-190 how much off would you thing the part would be? Just an approximation:) Also, are you happy with you surface finishing? At the end of the day, my goal wpuld be to print a matrix to then make carbon parts. The parts would be quite big=>that is why I need a big printer and I may have to assemble two prints to make one matrix=>that is why precision is really important…

Mirth
Jun '16

Prusa i3’s have got to be the best style. They’re really good.

Anyway, a design client of mine sent me a cheap geeetech ripoff from eBay, cost £150. It worked really well out of the box and I’ve been upgrading it to even better since! Check my hub, that’s the printer I’m using and it does really well. The Marvin (though upside down in the pic) turned out really well.

Get one of those and print your own upgrades. It uses a GT2560 board so can easily be firmware upgraded.

PS if you want to upgrade to an E3D V6 hot end I’ve designed a nice little mount.

Racoon44
Jun '16

Indeed, customer support is a big plus for a first printer. Do you know if his new printer can be upgraded to a steel frame/toolson edition? Or is the frame bigger due to the bigger bed?

moddhayward
Jun '16

I’m waiting for the upgrade kit, which does not include a new frame, so that that remains the same. The changes are in the bed, z-axis motors, I think the extruder motor, the hot end, the auto levelling, and some rigidity improvements where frame and power supply join. No new rods or frame. Whether that means it’s compatible with all previous i3 mods I don’t know.

I’ve just looked at some images of the steel i3, and visually, compared to the old Josef Prusa model, there is more room around the bed in the original Prusa i3 than the steel version. That implies Josef’s new bed might not fit the steel frame. What is the width of the space in the steel frame?

moddhayward
Jun '16

+1 for Josef Prusa’s original i3. His team is great. Fantastic friendly support, which is so important with your first printer, a great quality kit, and he’s just brought out the Mk II with auto levelling, E3D V6 hot end and a bigger bed with special surface! Superb results and long term support with his upgrade promise. Can’t recommend highly enough. And open for modding when you want to.

http://shop.prusa3d.com/en/3d-printers/59-original-prusa-i3-mk2-kit.html 1