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Are there any places that sell small amounts of PLA filament, like half a pound or so? Maybe in variety packs of different colors? I need some blue filament to print a couple of TARDISes for my sister, but I've got so much filament sitting around in a variety of other colors that I'm already worried about using it all up before it absorbs too much moisture. It'd be super cool if there was a store where you could go and roll it off a giant reel onto your own spools and just pay by the foot. Maybe in ten years or so. A man can dream...
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Jun 22, 2013 00:10
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I'd be happy if they would just add a preview viewer that could render thumbnails (maybe even rotating ones?) for STL files. Is there anything like that for Windows 7?
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Jul 20, 2013 23:13
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Those strings are a normal part of 3D printing at this stage. Yes, you're correct that they are caused by printing without supports -- at those points on the model the printer is basically extruding into midair, and if the filament doesn't successfully bridge across the gap it will droop down and make little loops and squiggles. You can eliminate them by using supports, by altering your model to remove steep overhangs, or occasionally by futzing with temperature, cooling and speed settings so the plastic hardens in place and bridges more effectively. Otherwise they're just a thing that happens and you get to clip them off with wire cutters. Watch the printer the next time you're printing a model that has overhangs and you aren't using supports -- you'll see it happening as the printer reaches the relevant layers.
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Jul 21, 2013 04:03
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There's no reason it can't work; an FDM 3D printer and a CNC mill are the same exact machine but with different heads installed and different ideas of how sturdy they should be. Any of the metal 3D printers (mendelmaxes and the like) should be capable of milling soft materials with little or no alterations beyond swapping the extruder for a dremel. You'll have to go slowly, you won't be able to tae more than maybe .05-.1 in a single pass, and you won't be able to work in anything harder than aluminum (I'd guess the most common materials will be softwood or machining wax) but it's certainly possible. I'd be most worried about all the dust and junk that machining produces loving up any 3D prints. I have to clean my printer's bed with windex every time I send a new part if I want the pieces to stick, and that's in a clean desktop environment. You really don't want to be constantly getting sawdust all over everything.
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Aug 30, 2013 04:36
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Actually, electromagnets on a mirror can be an extremely accurate positioning system -- it's how most serious laser projectors work, including those in bar code scanners, laser planetariums, and SLA machines like the Form 1. In that case they're called "galvanometers" though. http://www.scanlab.de/en/-/products/dynAXIS It's a perfectly reasonable way to go -- they just need to figure out a cheap way to build the things and drive them accurately from a regular sound card.
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Sep 24, 2013 06:11
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I used to have issues with the part prematurely coming off my glass heated bed, but ever since I started just wiping it down with Windex just before heating it for every print, I've had no problems at all. The parts stay rigidly glued on throughout the process, and then about ten minutes after it's done as the bed cools you hear these crackling and popping noises and the part breaks itself free. It's great. (Knock on wood). I use PLA extruded at 190C onto an 80C heated bed for the first layer, then cool down to 185/72 with fan cooling for every subsequent layer. It's just great. Also I just kickstartered that $117 printer just above with the electromagnetic mirrors and the drip feed and stuff. He's already getting pretty great resolution for something made out hot glue and MDF, so I'm very interested in seeing what he comes up with by the time the "reward" (aren't these all just glorified pre-orders with no guarantees at this point?) ships in a year from now. Even if it doesn't significantly improve from the current state, a $117 SLA that prints from the sound card is pretty sweet. I'm going to be the ultimate hipster and go to starbucks and sit there 3D printing little plastic owls or whatever that I recorded onto a walkman.
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Sep 25, 2013 01:40
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They claim it's shipping a year from now, though, right? That seems like enough time for what is basically a couple of plastic containers and a (demonstrated functional) electromagnetic laser beam-steering system. Most of the hackers in the electronics megathread could build the hardware for it in a weekend...the real innovation is in the software, I think, and all he really needs to work on based on the photos is fit, finish and reliability. The guy has more actual functionality and a better prototype now than the OUYA did when they started, and that somehow made it onto shelves.
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Oct 3, 2013 04:23
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Everyone does! It's part of the process right now. Desktop 3D printers are a constant battle to get working properly, and even the million-dollar professional ones that should be rugged as hell still pretty much need a dedicated technician if you're going to run them continuously. Makerbots are actually some of the more reliable printers out there right now, for what it's worth.
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Oct 10, 2013 22:26
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MickRaider posted:Considering how much trouble we've been having with our replicator 2 I'm concerned by that. I agree, I haven't heard super great things about their reliability...but every other hobbyist grade printer I know of is generally worse. Solidoodles break down all the time, RepRaps are completely dependent on how good the person who assembled it was, PrintrBots are pretty good but they're made of wood and so lose calibration all the time. I can get stuff out of my MendelMax quickly and reliably but only because I know all the quirks and the careful process you need to go through every time you print. The Replicator is at least a known quantity with lots of support behind it. Actually, the one hobbyist machine I've heard generally good things about is the Ultimaker. MickRaider posted:The number of upgrades they've had to do just to get somewhat consistent results is a bit boggling for a $2000 printer. Remember that you can't compare this to a $2000 laser printer today. You should be comparing it to a $2000 laser printer in 1985, when the truly reliable commercial-grade machines were $50,000 and the $2000 printer was a brand new technology that probably had to cut a lot of corners to hit that price point. For all the talk about 3D printers in all the media, anything on your desktop today is still pretty much low-run experimental technology. Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 22:58 on Oct 10, 2013 |
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Oct 10, 2013 22:55
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Do you have a flat sheet of glass? You could buy some valve lapping compound and lap it flat that way.
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Oct 11, 2013 03:40
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Mostly, yes. The only machines I'm aware of that can do that are the zcorp powder-bed 3D printers that basically glue together plaster powder; any type of SLS machine, whether it works with nylon or titanium or whatever; and the LOM machines that build objects out of sheets of paper. All of them have inherent disadvantages as well.
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Oct 23, 2013 01:57
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Does HIPS adhere to PLA? How about the Taulman nylon?
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Oct 23, 2013 02:21
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I've got some, but haven't tried it out yet, actually. I do have a 0.4mm nozzle though so I can post back when I give it a shot if you like. I did try the glow-in-the-dark stuff and found it to be almost...gritty. I think the phosphorescent stuff doesn't emulsify with the PLA very well. Still prints, but it's a little rough looking.
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Nov 12, 2013 07:02
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If that guy's an inch tall, the detail on that is getting into SLA territory. The only printer on the market in reach of a hobbyist that can reliably hit that resolution is the Form 1, and that's still $3200. A well-calibrated FDM machine capable of 100-micron layers should be able to get close, though, and with a little bit of solvent vapor smoothing you could get something that's at least in the same ballpark. Do consider that you also need to be able to accurately model the characters, or have a design already available, and there will still be finishing work (removing support material) with each guy you print. e: here are representations of what you can expect from, respectively, an average quality FDM, a good quality FDM, and the Form1. The robot is about the size of one of the miniatures you're talking about.   
Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 06:40 on Nov 13, 2013 |
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Nov 13, 2013 06:31
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Well, if it were me, I'd get a Form1, but that doesn't have an 8" bed. None of the $3-4k SLAs do. I currently have a MendelMax 2 and it's great but I'd like better resolution. If I had both the MendelMax and a Form1, I dunno what I'd get next. Probably a delta design of some kind but you could get five of those for $4k. If I had to spend $3-4k on a printer and it couldn't be a Form1 I'd probably go for an Aluminatus, I guess.
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Nov 21, 2013 05:26
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Something else kind of neat that you might consider, too http://www.hyrel3d.com/ No idea how it performs, but the hot-swappable extruders sound cool.
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Nov 21, 2013 09:55
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See my post from a couple of weeks ago, from someone asking the exact same question:Sagebrush posted:If that guy's an inch tall, the detail on that is getting into SLA territory. The only printer on the market in reach of a hobbyist that can reliably hit that resolution is the Form 1, and that's still $3200.
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Nov 30, 2013 03:29
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The Jr. will almost certainly get you in the region of the first picture, and if you get it dialed in well the second one isn't unreasonable. That looks like about 0.2mm layering to me and good temperature control. Basically, the overall shapes will be fine, but tiny details like scale-mail or the guys' faces will come out like crap if at all.
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Nov 30, 2013 03:58
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bung posted:How does PLA filament compare to ABS filament with regard to strength and rigidity? Basically, ABS filament fatigues, stretches and deforms when you bend it, but PLA filament snaps. So you can deduce that PLA is more brittle, but also stiffer and more dimensionally stable, while ABS is a lot tougher but also slightly less rigid and warps/curls a lot more without proper temperature control. ABS also smells unpleasantly like burning styrofoam cups when you extrude it, but PLA smells really quite pleasant and sweet. I'd compare it to maple syrup baking on a radiator. Personally I'd like to see 3D-printable delrin. Yum
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Dec 3, 2013 04:24
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bung posted:What do you guys use for CAD? I installed Autocad as I got a 3 year license for free as a student. Are there options that are more geared toward 3d printing specifically? If you still have some connection to a school, you can get a full commercial license to Rhino for $95. It doesn't expire and you can use it for any sort of commercial work you like as long as you want. For that price you don't get the advanced renderers or the animation stuff, but you don't need that for modeling. If you want the other stuff it's $495 for all of it with the same unlimited license. The only thing you don't get is free upgrades to the next version. Fairly steep learning curve, but once you understand surface-modeling you can make basically anything to extreme precision without much effort. It's ideal for industrial design but also works well for mechanical CAD and some types of organic objects. For a zero-cost option, I recommend Sketchup and Sculptris. One for things with straight lines, one for things with blobs. Both easy to pick up.
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Dec 4, 2013 02:52
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Check your slicer settings to be sure there aren't any weird overrides set?
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Dec 8, 2013 07:17
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Cockmaster posted:http://www.indiegogo.com/projects/hephaestus-slm-3d-printer Their SolidWorks model appears to be a single solid block with vague ideas of where several unidentifiable pieces are going to be positioned. I'm not especially confident about this one.
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Dec 12, 2013 05:55
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peepsalot posted:I think a 100W CO2 barely cut thin metal foil, since most is reflected, i'm not sure how that translates to sintering though. Yeah, the metal-capable laser cutters I've seen run 400 watts and up, and on top of that, the laser doesn't actually do the cutting. Like a cutting torch, the flame/laser energy is just used to heat the metal, and then a very finely directed oxygen blast (I think I saw one that used nitrous oxide, too) pointed into the hot metal oxidizes it into rust and blows the kerf away. That isn't applicable to laser sintering. There are SLS machines that use low-power lasers to produce metal parts, but they use a metallic powder that's pre-coated with a plastic binder, and the binder is what melts and glues it all together. Then you basically have a fragile "green-sand" version of the part that you dip into molten bronze to strengthen and fill the gaps.
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Dec 12, 2013 20:16
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UberVexer posted:it also looks like it costs more than every tool I own today, combined. Either you've got an extraordinarily well-equipped shop or you haven't looked at the prices of machining centers recently. I'd estimate that machine costs somewhere between 1 and 10 million dollars.
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Jan 12, 2014 03:02
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UberVexer posted:I spend a bunch of time trying to get people excited about 3d printing and the question "What can you make with it?" comes up, and most people don't like the answer "Anything you can imagine within that cube in front of you." That's not a very good answer. Most of the people I talk to who don't know much about 3D printing either assume it's like Tony Stark's automated factory that can build anything in the world from the ground up, or they've read an article about one of the weirder uses (food, tissue, etc) and think it's a machine that makes pizzas from food powder and water or something. A lot of them act pretty disappointed when I say that (on a hobbyist machine) you can't print electronics, you can't print glass, you can't even print metal. It's a device for making small plastic objects and that's it. That said, I show people some of the stuff I've made that I carry around with me -- a little RGB flashlight, some replacement buckle pieces for my backpack, etc. I think it helps to show them that you can make useful, functional things, not just yoda heads and gear toys.
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Jan 18, 2014 22:51
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I like MatterHackers -- great selection, good quality filament, decent prices. Spring for the "Pro" stuff, it's a lot nicer to use.
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Jan 21, 2014 08:05
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You could try loosening up the plastic by soaking the nozzles in dichloromethane, then poking out the goo with guitar strings or other fine wire.
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Jan 23, 2014 06:19
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Welmu posted:with the carbon parts being roughly equivalent in strength to CNC-milled aluminium: you can print durable & workable tools. Mmmm, no, it has a strength-to-weight ratio equivalent to aluminum. Carbon-epoxy composites normally have a specific strength about four times that of aluminum. His machine doesn't make parts that have the same tensile strength within the same weight and volume envelopes. Basically, if you made a rod on his 3D printer that weighed the same as another aluminum rod, they'd be about equally strong...but if his rod is full of plastic honeycomb and carbon fiber it's going to be quite a lot larger to hit the same weight target. So if you're okay with comically oversized plastic hammers, yea, you could print durable tools.
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Jan 30, 2014 05:36
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UberVexer posted:*ABS has way more finishing methods, like using Acetone to make prints nicer. * you can do the exact same process with PLA if you use dichloromethane (methylene chloride) or tetrahydrofuran. It's a little more complicated because CH2Cl2 is a fair bit more toxic than acetone, so you have to be more careful with the fumes, and THF is less toxic but it's an explosive precursor so you need to be a business to buy it. But they both do a lovely job of vapor smoothing.
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Feb 5, 2014 06:18
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Yeah, 3v3 is by far the more common logic level in all the rad new chips. Yes, 5v is more convenient for running things like servos and LEDs, but chip manufacturers are focused more on power and size efficiency than anything else, so 5v is sort of a dead end in that respect. Higher voltage means you need more isolation on the die and better heat management. Level shifters are pretty cheap now anyway, even if you get discrete boards instead of designing them into the circuit yourself: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/11978
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Feb 10, 2014 20:43
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I use the cheap blue tape you can get for like $2 a roll at Harbor Freight and it sticks almost too well.
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Feb 27, 2014 06:17
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Orange_Lazarus posted:This is probably the wrong (unrelated to 3d printing) thread but my guess is if anyone on SA knows about plastics its you guys. A industrial-revolution-era scientist who I can't remember the name of once filled a cast iron flask full of water, bolted on the lid, welded along the seam to seal it, and put it outside in the snow to freeze. Later that night the flask exploded. So I agree with the above poster -- yes, you can find plastics that will maintain their strength when cold and will not crack under 100psi when at a sub-zero temperature. No, you cannot really design a plastic pipe that can be filled with water, sealed and then frozen without cracking. It's kind of funny that you're concerned about the plastic being able to withstand a 100psi running water pressure when the expanding ice exerts a force of tens of thousands of pounds per square inch. Also, glass-filled nylon is one of the toughest plastics you can get, and if the part is made of that I guarantee it's not being designed to fail. Water is just a hell of a thing.
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Mar 6, 2014 04:59
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kafkasgoldfish posted:You're right, the resolution on the z-axis only gets down to 1.8 microns. No, that is the theoretical (software) resolution of the stepper drive. The actual (hardware) resolution is going to be heavily limited by backlash and loose tolerancing, and even if it was capable of accurately positioning the head say +/- 10 microns in Z you'd still be stuck with an extrusion system and material feedstock that can only do ~50 microns at best. Get a copy of slic3r and you can easily chop your part up into 1-micron layers, but your machine won't be able to do it.
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Mar 14, 2014 05:49
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insta posted:Look into "captive nut trap". No, no, I tried that once and didn't like it at all.
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Mar 21, 2014 07:02
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I entered a fake email and it looks like a groupon kind of site where you have to get a bunch of buyers. If at least 5 people buy it, it's $69.99 for the five motors. As long as you're not using them to run your baby's iron lung or something, you can get them for less on AliExpress. http://www.aliexpress.com/item/5pcs-4-lead-Nema17-Stepper-Motor-42-motor-Nema-17-motor-42BYGH-1-7A-17HS4401-motor/1500927219.html Sagebrush fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Mar 26, 2014 |
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Mar 26, 2014 22:08
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There is nothing even remotely approaching the reliability of, say, a consumer inkjet printer where you just plug it in and it works fine indefinitely. Even the expensive commercial printers require maintenance and cleaning and occasional adjustments. And for the big industrial scale SLS machines and stuff, forget about it -- they need a full-time technician to keep running. I would put a 3D printer's reliability somewhere between that of a Chinese lawnmower and an Italian car.
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Apr 4, 2014 00:32
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Bad Munki posted:I thought it was this thread but I guess not. ABS melts under acetone, so a little bath melts the striations together and gives it a nice smooth surface. I'll try to find the thread that had the post, but there were some side-by-side pics of a printed bear, and the one that had taken a bath was nice and shiny smooth. I've done this and it works amazingly well, actually. The timing is important to ensure you don't overcook the parts and melt them into mush (thin things will start to droop and fine details will blend out, too) but it's really impressive. Note that acetone is not a solvent for PLA. If you want to do the same with a PLA part, you need methylene chloride or tetrahydrofuran.
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Apr 14, 2014 21:44
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Cheekio posted:What are the best 3D modelling software options for Linux? I don't understand the question.
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May 2, 2014 23:10
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Maybe they figure that for a commercial product reliability and ease of use are obvious no-brainers? The Stratasys FDMs are workhorses that any idiot can operate -- real companies would not put up with MakerBot, let alone RepRap, levels of reliability. And color printing (especially multiple colors in a single print) really is going to be a major thing for 3D printers to become generally acceptable by consumers. People have limited uses for a machine that only makes homogeneous plastic objects.
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May 15, 2014 07:33
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| # ¿ May 18, 2024 02:26 |
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Slic3r doesn't make STL files. Whoever wrote that doesn't know what they're talking about. Slic3r takes STL files and converts them into toolpaths. That said, every 3D modeling program can make STLs. It's an extremely simple open format.
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May 29, 2014 22:20
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