I spotted a Dremel 3D printer at the teachers convention today.

3D Printing
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I spotted a Dremel 3D printer at the teachers convention today. Anyone have experience with these? Nice looking display prints.

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They don’t have a heat bed so they are PLA only.

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Exak still da world try

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Hope balls ain’t to chopping blok for independent developers

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@Thomas_Cox is right. For the money you could get a printrbot plus metal which is much much better. It’s not a bad printer but $999 for only PLA and that size build area isnt a great combo to me.

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Thanks for the thoughts. Nice looking machine, and price is not too bad, but there seems to be others that are more functional.

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@Glenn_Gibson I know that if you look at my comments it seems like I recommend the @Printrbot almost nonstop but it’s because they are very very good machines and @Brook_Drumm is top notch at helping out (he is pretty active on this community).

http://printrbot.com/shop/printrbot-metal-plus-kit/

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I have a printrbot metal simple and it works pretty good. I am working on a proposal to get a metal plus at my job. Ironically enough it was brought up by management last time.

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@Griffin_Paquette ​ To heat or not to heat, that is the question.
Since I’m fairly new, what are the advantages of the heated bed?

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@Glenn_Gibson heated beds are great for numerous reasons.

  1. They allow the print to stick to the bed better and the heat keeps the prints from warping as some plastics (cough cough abs) like to warp a ton without a heated bed. The warping is from the plastic contracting as it cools so the heated bed more or less stops the contracting process by keeping the bottom layers warm and therefore allowing for a better structure.

  2. Large surface area prints- just like stated above the prints that are large are going to contract a lot more. The larger the print the larger the warping so a heated bed is great for that.

  3. When printing with some materials you have to use a heated bed. Abs is the most typical example. Others like polycarbonate etc. are common and need the heated bed as well. Now I have printed small abs prints on a non heated bed but I had to use a raft under it (a removable support structure that basically makes for a larger surface area of contacts on the bed. Makes the print less able to warp.

Sorry about that being a little repetitive but I tried to cover as much as I could think of. Any other questions just let me know. But I almost always print in PLA and don’t feel the need for a heated bed unless it’s a large print.

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Awesome, thanks! I’ll also pass this along to the guys with the purchasing power in my division.

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No problem!! If you think of any other questions just let me know!! I’m always happy to help.

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Heated beds also help with adhesion of PLA. You just don’t have to run them quite as hot.