3D Printer
TinkerMill has a variety of 3D printers available for your use. Some require additional training for use (SLA printers), but general-purpose plastic printers can be used by anyone.
Contents
FDM Printing
Quick Start Guide
If you want to get printing right away, you can use one of the Dell laptops in the printing area. The software that's preferred for slicing and printer control is Simplify3D.
Simply import your desired STL(s), select a profile for printing (the default is JV_FFCP2). After the part is sliced, you can either print directly to either of the CreaterPro printers, or export the gcode to an SD card. There are several on the bench for your use, please do not take the SD cards home.
It is ideal if you can stay around to watch a print, however, unlike most machines in TinkerMill, the 3D printers may be ran unsupervised as prints can take many hours to complete. In these circumstances, please leave a note on the machine with your name and telephone number and make every effort to retrieve the parts when the print is complete. Unattended parts will be discarded.
Costs
Plastics cost about $0.10 per gram. There are two small AWS scales for weighing completed prints and print attempts. There is a jar where users are expected to donate money for all attempted prints.
Safety
Please allow parts to cool for about 15 minutes once a print is complete. It will be easier to remove once cooled.
FlashForge Creator Pro (FFCP)
There are two of these printers available for use. These are dual-extruder machines and there are laptops available for slicing/printing.
The manual for this printer can be found at the following link: www.flashforge-usa.com
Additional guidance on using the FFCP.
Flashforge (Wooden Case)
Lulzbot Taz
The Lulzbot Taz printer is favored for larger prints and higher production. This machine is a modified Lulzbot Taz5 which has been refitted with a Flexion extruder and Duet3d control board running RepRapFirmware. This printer is primarily set up to use PETG filament. Other filament types in the Tinkermill inventory may be used but are only partially or completely untested.
The Duet3d/RepRapFirmware controlled printers work quite differently than our other filament printers. The basic process for the Taz is covered in Using the Taz Printer. These machines have both a graphical touch screen and use Duet Web Control. The Duet Web control presents the user with many more options but users will only need to learn a few simple operations run a job.
RostockMax Delta
Colido X3045
SLA Printing
TinkerMill recently acquired 2 new Elegoo Mars 3 printers. We do not require that you buy any special equipment to use these printers but you do need to take a certification class. These printers use Elegoo Standard Translucent resin--if you want to use a different resin you can but you would need to bring your own resin tank. These are currently available to buy for Mars 2 printers (Mars 3 not advertised as available).
