After a few days faffing and two failed test prints I got my printer working-

28mm test Rook



Even the writing on the top came out.



Then decided to try one of my models for a 2nd test print. 1/16 scale Vickers HMG (about 71 mm long).




Bloody amazing for a printer that cost a little over £400 ($500) including shipping from China (though I did get hit with £36 import duty). Still my first printer cost £800 three years ago.

I think 3D printers will go the way of the PC, and you'll see prices come down and performance improve. The first PC we got cost $1,700, came with windows 3.1 and had a whopping 4 meg of RAM. 25 years later you can see for yourself what a PC costs and how much memory it comes with, and you get a whole lot more than 4 meg for a whole lot less that $1,700

Hopefully it will be the same for 3D printers!

Very cool! I like the detail and how smooth it looks.

Yes I bought my first PC 20 years ago for £1500. Now my £70 phone is more then 10x more powerful.
I think the only thing thats keeping the prices up is the fact the the big companies are trying to figure out a way of making money out of the consumables. Like you can get an inkjet printer for £25 but the inks cost you £8 a time.

@ philipat This is done at 0.5mm, when I get some proper resin and get it all tuned in I should be able to get even better resolution.

I got one last year a Prusa i3 rebuilt used plastic acrylic frame then upgraded it to a black steel frame had some problem with it getting them ironed out a couple motors died there cheap motors to replace on Amazon for $15.00 270 X 210 X 190 build plate .
I got another on E-Bay a XYZprinting Da Vinci Jr 1.0 with 6 by 6 plate that's a nice small beginners 3D Printer works great for small pieces and work right out of the box .
I plan to build a bigger one you can find plans on the Internet with STL files to print your own plastic parts and build your own frames out of T-slotted extrusion X metal square bars .
Now I'm learning how to use different building design software like Setchup Pro and getting files from places like Thingiverse and Pinshape plus others Ive done printed some recoil bracket parts some coasters for the family of there favorite sports teams and a few other things .
I see the 3D printing of parts and and weave seen a tank printed on here just shows that the possibilities are endless to come with this ability for are hobby .
Thanks
jimmy

I wish we could develop a stick thread for 3D Printing - specializing in support of our hobby

Oh gosh. Like as if your products weren't great without out it! What amazing clarity and quality.

Yep... printing is the next wave of modeling. Looking around on shapeways is such an experience but really helps for unique hard-to-find parts.

Wow. Which printer is it?

It's a Wanhao D7

It is still a beta model.

cool work! keep going!

Once you get them dialed in a resin printer is great for detail parts. These below are all made on $270 USD Elegoo Mars. I like their grey ABS like resin.








1/6 Scale Sterling MG

Nice. Those things are getting better all the time. I was visiting a neighbor today who is into 3d printing and his new machine is printing a full scale R2D2 from Star Wars. It's in parts, but the top dome is one print on his machine. He wants me to help him put RC controls into it so it moves and flashes lights and makes sounds.. I think it is a fun project so I'm giving him my RC tank know how to help him get it working. I don't know what kind of 3d printing machine he has, but he said it was about $500.

Oh young grasshopper. My first PC, an original IBM blue cost $3100+ and had 48 k of memory two 5" floppy drives and a boat anchor of a monochrome
tube monitor and dos wasn't just a curious task to run it was the operating system. 1200kb modems were extra and you better know how to interpret the communication protocol because it broke a lot... and this was a hella step up from the Commodore Vic 20 with cassette tape storage..

I had to wait for these 'cause at the time I wasn't adventurous enough to buy a Altair 8800 and put it together...but I drooled over them...

I agree with you 3D printers of a year from now will knock your socks off...

Jerry

Wow, been a while since I wrote that . But in the three years since we've definitely seen Improvement in printers and a reduction in price, so I'm going to call my prediction a success.

My first PC came with Windows 3.1 and a whopping 4 Meg of RAM so while I don't go back quite as far as you do I kind of get the picture.

I hate it when I fail to notice when some newbie resurrects some ancient thread.... my bad. I must have been looking for
something to do late last night...

LOL... My first PC wasn't as old at that, but I do recall surfing BBS' with a Commodore 64 & a 300 baud modem! Go Dial-up!

Oh the days of the modem shrieking to connect!!! Wow and when you wanted to add more memory one had to actually install the individual memory chips (that looked like bugs) into your memory expansion card!!! And the choice of either monochrome green or amber for your monitor. OH, OH, and the most coveted graphics card was a Hercules graphics card!!! Or maybe cutting a notch on the other side of your 5.25" floppy disk to get more data on it cause your floppy drive wasn't one of the double sided reading kind!!! I do not miss those days! LOL

LOL, yes the shrieking modem!! Or using a 10 inch television and a tape player to load the program??? boy, that takes me waaayyyy back. Mine was an Exidy Sorcerer which cost $800 (a small fortune at the time). Running space invaders. My 5 year old son would sneak out of bed at night and turn it on to play when we were asleep.....
I don't miss the unreliability though......seems like the darn thing was in the shop more than not, or the constant rebooting to keep it running.....