To buy or not to buy...

[TheShiek2008]

I have some money burning a hole in my pocket and was thinking about a 3D printer to make my own stamps. I was really wanting to print large stamps. I see that most are not big fans of the "kit" printers but they offer the printing size I am looking for at the best price. What is everyone's opinion. Buy a kit or save my money and buy one that fits my needs that's more plug and play? For the people that own a printer do you find yourself using it enough to make it worth it or would it be easier to just pay someone for stamps? Thanks. 

[dikman]

First thing to understand is that if you want to make your own stamps you'll have to spend some (probably lots) of time learning how to create objects in a suitable 3D programme.

Kits - a great way to learn about 3D printers, but again will require some time to build and get working properly. Kits were a cheaper way to get into 3D printing, but some of the ready-to-go units have come down in price so the difference isn't as great as it once was. Plus, if you have problems building a kit you're usually on your own and will have to figure it out yourself.

Some people get good value from them, RockyAussie being one as he makes a lot of bits and pieces for his sewing business. Me, I've made a few odds and ends for my hobbies, but they're pretty expensive things if I look at the time and expense I've put in to it! That wasn't why I built one, however, it was just something that I wanted to learn about, and anything useful that I make is a bonus!!

Just don't expect to buy one and design and print a stamp in a few hours.

[chrisash]

I have just followed this path, so here is my experience so far of first three weeks

After consideration and reading all the reports on 3D printers It was narrowed down to the Ender 3 which at present seems to be the biggest seller since launch and only £160. It comes as a kit form that took me two hours to put together, you only need to screw in about 20 screws and all the major parts are already done in the factory, clear instructions on both a leaflet and better instructions on a micro SD card included in the pack

Next is learning to design in 3D, of which my first port of call was a free program called Tinkercad, Simple to learn about 20 min and use and your up and running, after that Im wanted to do something more ambitious so looked around and the most powerful software that's free and used by industry is Fusion 360, after about 5 days I finally got my head around it after buying a book "Fusion 360 for makers" about £16 and written for 3D printer users at beginner level with lots of good examples

To date made a few stamps etc and still learning but that's life and not bad for about 3 weeks from start to finish. Stamps I make are for use with Arbor press £40 rather than hammering and aim is to make Basket weave in both single and multi joined together so maybe a large stamp of 5x5 cm or larger but time will tell if it works out, that's the fun it takes time but keeps the little grey cells working and from say £10 to £30 a Kg of filament about 330 metres the cost if very cheap as a stamp probably costs less than £0.25, I have also made some 3mm thick templates of card holder again at little cost a few pence and the machine just runs on its own , so plenty of time to do other work whilst it's running and power consumption is low at only 24 volt 

Lots of Ender 3 help on a number of Facebook forums ( had to break my self imposed stop on using facebook but only use it for this purpose) and tons of information on Youtube on both Ender 3 and Fusion 360 especially "Fusion 360 on Youtube by Lars Christensen, just remember its a professional program and takes a learning curve of more than a few hours)

Lots of free .stl files to get started at 

https://www.thingiverse.com

Good luck

Chris

Edited December 11, 2018 by chrisash