I'm new to 3D Printing. Looking for users experienced in

I’m new to 3D Printing. Looking for users experienced in making small precision gears and SketchUp-3D CAD.

I don’t yet have a printer, but plan to get one in a few months. But I need some guidance in a few things before I can start to melt plastic.

1 - Has anyone used Sketchup 3D to create print files that will work on a Snapmaker.

2 - Has anyone made high quality small, about 1 to 1.5 inch diameter bevel gears? I need precision teeth with near zero backlash for a proof of concept model of a device similar to a differential. Very low loads and low RPM.

3 - Is there a nozzle available with a smaller orifice than .4mm, say .2 or .25 mm? I would need something like that for the precision gears I need to make.

Thanks
jgb

Yes, and then I transferred those skills to Fusion360 which I think is far superior. Sketchup works fine though if you’re comfortable with it.

Not in sketchup, there are models on Thingiverse that generate gears in OpenSCAD:
http://forum.openscad.org/adv-PolyGear-a-fresh-new-library-for-spur-and-bevel-gears-td27203.html

Yes, search Amazon or your favorite retailer for MK8 nozzles. They are available in a wide variety of diameters.

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What does “near zero backlash” mean to you?

The snapmaker’s minimum layer height is 0.05mm, which to me implies that’s its max X/Y resolution as well. If’n you work in imperial, that’s about 2thou. That’s not good enough for Abom, but it’s good enough for the girls I go out with.

Printing 1 inch models with a 0.4mm nozzle should work fine, as long as there’s no detail on the gears smaller than 0.4mm. The slicer knows the diameter of the nozzle, and takes it into account. You will want to make sure you have your calibration, extrusion, and first layer flow dialed in. Otherwise you can over or under extrude, which will mess with your dimensional accuracy. You only need 0.2mm nozzles if there’s some feature that small, like the teeth of the gear need to come to a 0.2mm point, or you want some very small raised text.

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Hello!
Fusion 360 has a gear generation module that can be downloaded and installed from the Autodesk app.
I have created a bevel gear and a spur gear.
Please check it out.

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Near zero backlash means that there is nearly no play when the gears mesh and have some load on them. I need fairly precise meshing accuracy in my model.

Thanks, but I have to stay with Sketchup 3D. I have dozens of complex models that would take a long time to transfer and tweak in any other 3D CAD system. Besides, Sketchup 3D is free and my learning curve is now flat with it.

What size are you trying to print? What type of material are you planning on using?

This sounds like something that would be better suited to a resin based printer.
I don’t personally have any experience with those so maybe someone else can give more insight.
Even if filament based would work I think you can do better than the SM. It does everything well and nothing great (or at least there are limitations as far as speed, power, precision. If you’re trying to do ABS the max temp of the A350 print bed can cause some issues. Better off getting a dedicated printer like a Prusa.

-S

Fusion360 is also free, if you do not need the 4th or 5th axis

I looked at resin printers, but most are too small for some of the other parts I need. Plus resin tends to be messy to use. I’m planning on getting the Snapmaker 250 (maybe 350) and experiment with smaller nozzles. I only need 5 bevel gears to start with, so I need to stay with a general purpose printer for now.

If you don’t need the laser or cnc (or just one of the two) I’d still recommend a different 3d printer.

-S

I had considered a smaller cheaper printer only, but I need bed size and print precision as well as CNC capability for some of my parts. Cutting sheet stock by hand will not give me the precision I need, and buying a dedicated CNC will be more expensive overall than a Snapmaker. Plus I get the laser cutter/engraver as well, and there are a few soon2be add-ons that will be very handy to have.

One major advantage to a Snapmaker is; it is all controlled with a single s/w app, where as having a separate printer and CNC means different s/w to learn and use. At my age, that is a big deal.

As for the high price of a Snapmaker, I plan to “rent” time and production once I’ve done my project and become adept at printing, milling and laser etching. I just have to develop an economic price point to make it saleable and at least break even on the overall cost.

jgb

Just making sure you weren’t getting it just as a 3d printer.
As a 3 in 1 there’s nothing that comes close for now.

A couple things you should be aware of though:

Currently the Luban software is inadequate for cnc and passable for laser.
I’ve been able to do everything I want for laser in Luban, but many people have found the need to learn and use lightburn. I’ve come close but just haven’t yet.
As for cnc Luban barely does reliefs. To really get any usability out of the cnc at this point you need to use Fusion 360 which doesn’t have the simplest learning curve. The problem with it is more in figuring out what you need to ignore. It’s extremely powerful and there are so many menus and choices and can do so much more than one will ever use for cnc. Once you figure that out it’s actually fairly simple and easy to use.

Depends on what your definition of ‘soon’ is. The only officially announced ones are the rotary module and stop button. They’re supposed to start shipping in April after being announced in December. We’ll see how quickly they actually fulfill pre-orders and become readily available. Have to also see how they improve Luban to be able to handle it. You have to pay for Fusion to use a 4th axis. So any other add-ons would probably be next year at soonest.

It really isn’t a professional machine. It’s just not fast enough. I love mine and it’s great to learn all the functions, but it’s slow. Laser can take hours. CNC days depending on size and complexity. Also at this point the supply change is still being established and while more parts are being stocked in US and Europe, for most you can expect to wait for shipping from China. Support is still hit and miss as far as response times.

Just want to make sure you go into this with all the info. Mine has been great. I’ve definitely paid for mine in selling a few creations, making gifts and the best part: creating objects to repair parts that are either not available or over-priced. But I’m already looking at what my next cnc & laser machines are going to be.

-S

Thanks, that is valued info.

The CNC stuff I need to do is mainly flat thin sheet cutouts. I need a bunch of them with a lot of inside cutouts. It would probably take me as long by hand as the CNC would take with the accuracy I need.

As for the s/w, it’s still a major learning curve for me. I haven’t seen anything it made in the promos that my parts won’t cover, except maybe the bevel gears. Either print, CNC or zap. As for Fusion, it is Autodesk and I gave up on them over a decade ago. Their 3D was really 2 1/2 D. Case in point; I used ACAD for several years in strictly 2D mode. I spent almost 2 weeks in the new ACAD “3D” creating a poor rendition of an aircraft fuselage.

I looked at several 3D CAD’s and discovered Sketchup 3D. It took me about 2 hours from the download to getting my near perfect 3D fuselage, 3rd try. I then uninstalled ACAD.

The 2 add-ons I need are the rotary and the kill switch. So I’m good there. As for when, I won’t be getting a printer till July/August at the earliest.

As for “renting” time on my printer, I won’t be doing it “professionally”. I have no time for that. I will do local advertising and print when I’m not needing the printer. But, the slowness of the process (any brand of printer) will be the major limiting factor on what I can accept to do and charge a reasonable price. I ain’t gonna get rich, that’s for sure.

Otherwise, I have the same aims as you in why I “need” a printer, other than the project I’ve been working on for over 6 years now. For that I need to make a scale model of the gearbox to prove the concept. Powerpoint isn’t good enough, and for that I have over 65 slides to explain it. It will take at least 2 complex working models to fully prove it. The gearbox is the most complex.

What sort of pricing do you charge for printing? For me it will be some combination of my prep time, printing time and amount of filament consumed.

Thanks again
jgb

I don’t believe Sketchup has CAM capability. Still need something to create toolpaths. Whether that’s Fusion or something else.

I don’t have any kind of pricing. I’ve sold a few homebrew related things on etsy, tap handles, bottle openers, coasters. More as a hobby while I was on furlough and was running out of friends who needed stuff. Works great as a way to push myself and learn how to do stuff, but the $125-200 for a custom tap handle probably works out to way less than minimum wage for the hours I put in. But again I was doing to learn and now I can do them in a quarter of the time it took originally when I was learning,
-S

Sketchup can now do native .STL conversions/output.

Yeah, as far as pricing goes, I calculated that even a cost for minimum machine time and filament consumption, never mind my time, even the smallest parts are priced out of reason. However, if I did try to monetize the machine, it would only be marginally feasible if I worked from a good STL file, not a CAD file.

jgb

For 3d printing that’s fine.
But Luban can’t do anything more than carve reliefs with STL’s for cnc. Even with doing reliefs Luban can only use one bit, so no clearing paths with larger bits. Incredibly slow and frustrating.
-S

Thanks, I will keep that in mind.
jgb