I don’t own own one, but I’ve been looking at the “Tarantula” 3D printers/kits on ebay:
(There are several different tweaked versions.)
1 Like
There are a lot of things to keep in mind when 3d printing, especially if you want to use a lot of different materials.
Just because it can print in that material, doesn’t mean it can print anything useful with that material.
ABS:
1 - Minimum heated bed + Elmers glue to prevent curling. – perfectly levels bed + accurate z height also super important
2 - Enclosure super important for anything but small parts
3 - Large parts typically will require a heated chamber
4. Quality hotend is super important.
3 - Problems you run into with ABS are:
curling - see #1 above
Layers not binding - #2 helps with this but it’s a complicated issue. Simplest explanation is if the previous layer cools too much before you print the next layer it won’t bind to previous layer and you can easily peel the two layers apart. Cooling is affected by print temperature, print speed and layer length that has to be printed. So unless you have uniform layer levels the only solution sometimes is to print Faster or Hotter. Hotter only helps marginally, and can cause sagging when printing layers too fast. Faster printing has a limit also. The only really solution, that I’m aware of, for large complex ABS prints is a heated chamber.
Ninja Flex is really nice, but you have to print really slow and to really likes uniform hotend pressure and I get a LOT of failures when the print involves a lot of retractions due to moving around a lot while not printing. Ninja Flex also doesn’t like printing over gaps very well because it generally wants the surface tension of the surface it’s printing on to help it pull the melted plastic from the nozzle. Too much printing over gaps, i.e. 20% infill, will cause failed prints.
With all that said, if you want to print in a large variety of materials my recommendation is to buy something you can infinitely upgrade:
- E3Dv6 hotend is really nice.
- Heated bed is really required.
- Enclosure, enables much bigger and better prints in a lot of materials
- Large Parts with some materials is really going to require a heated chamber IMO. I’ve honestly not seen any consumer 3d printers with heated chambers (enclosures and dropping in a 100W lightbulb or something can help also).
If you’ve never owned a 3d printer I’d get a cheap printer to learn with, heated bed + enclosure (or plan to make your own), to learn the ropes with before you blow money on an expensive model that might not give you any additional benefits for the money for what your trying to accomplish.
Lots of other variables not even mentioned here you have to take into account.
2 Likes
Thank you, a lot of good information. I plan to get a fairly cheap one and upgrade, upgrade, upgrade 
I plan on upgrading to the E3DV6 hotend first…and now a heated enclosure second.
cool keep in mind heated enclosures + steppers inside the enclosure couldleader to stepper failure. So the heated portion really needs to not contain the steppers or you’ll have to keep the temperature lower than ideal for ABS.
googling heated chamber before you buy should help you get the info you need. Some googling on my own seems like a 70C internal temperature is what you want, not sure if steppers inside the chamber that temperature is a challenge.
I quit printing ABS cause I didn’t really need that material and PLA is so much easier to print and plenty strong for most things. I have some nylon I want to print with but haven’t done so yet.
2 Likes
Another +1 on the Prusa Mk2. I don’t have it but two other i3 Prusa third parties.
Not so wild about the dual head on the one but it does well otherwise.
1 Like
Has anyone printed with PETG? I have been doing a lot of reading and it seems like a great choice for printing.
A few nice things about the Prusa i3 Mk2 are
-
E3DV6 hotend standard
-
Automatic print bed leveling
-
Good Price ($699 for the kit)
-
Fairly Large Print Volume (9.8x8x8)
-
Heatbed With Heat Distribution Feature
-
PEI Print Surface (Don’t need ABS juice or tape to help prints stick)
-
Currently Supports Over 15 Materials ( They add more frequently)
-
Easy To Add Volcano Heater Block To V6 Hotend
-
Comes With Genuine RAMBo Electronics
1 Like
I like this kit:
This is there older version which has twice as many parts but cost $100 less. Good deal!
These are Delta Printers with huge print areas. Nice stuff!!
1 Like
Check out the tevo tarantula. Its cheap and got an awsome following around it. Ive ordered one
Look at the new feature of the Prusa i3 Mk2 they just announced today:
1 Like
Want ! definitely want !
That is very cool!
If you plan to upgrade yourself, and are fairly handy, get the cheapest one you can. I got a two-up a few years ago, and really learned a lot from it. The first prints looked pretty rough, but it did well enough to make some structural elements. Now I get prints that look better than about 80% of the pics on thingiverse.
Before buying any kit, one thing I would do is look on thingiverse at what sorts of upgrades are available. That will give you an idea of where most people go with that particular setup.
Of the things you mentioned, I would probably not worry about the dual extruder, metal frame, or materials. Upgrading to the E3D hot end will take care of the material issue as that is the limiting factor. Dual extrusion can be added at any time pretty easily by printing or fabbing a new extruder carriage and updating firmware. The metal frame, while nice, really won’t add a whole lot of benefit over hard wood unless you are trying to run at insanely fast speeds (I’m using maple for a large part of my rebuild).
Heated bed is nice, but aftermarket beds for common printer types are readily available and very easy to install, so I don’t know if that would be a deal breaker for me if I was buying a kit now…
Also, no matter what print volume you have, you will always want more. Fortunately, once you build the kit, you knowhow to build a printer of any size you desire. 
1 Like
Not sure if you bought a kit yet, but this is the next kit I wanna do. Fits all your specs, but you would need to add a second extruder
I went with a prusa I3 clone…it works well…I’ll find the link for it.
1 Like
Looks like a very nice printer. I have heard great things about Folgertech.
Make sure that you are ok with the extruder temperature. 245 degrees C is a bit wimpy.
Folgertech FT-5. Great kit and crazy good build area.
Wonderful printer for the price but the best think about it is the community.