Model Railway Forum

I've talked about getting a 3d printer before, and finally got one. For anyone interested its a Creality Ender 3 Pro.

On the bed today is the front wall of a loco shed.

Previously printed

2 sets of doors




Some downpipes...

Previously printed...

2 sets of doors



Some downpipes...



and some chimney stacks..

Impressive. Expensive to run?

I am interested in this, it seems to be a very useful tool. I notice that the coils used to make the print are about £20 to £30 each. About how much of a coil did it take to print the blue doors. The price I got was Amazon.

Hi Both,

i'm not sure on the electric costs to run it, i'll check out the specs of the heating elements and calculate it.

As for filament costs, £25 seems to be the average cost for 1kg of filament. 1kg ~= 330m.

The doors used around 4g or 1.47m of filament. took approx 44minutes to print.

There were a number of failed prints using less than 1g each, but as long as you monitor the first layer, your losses should be minimal.

The wall that is on the bed now reports 22g or 7.47m. Currently at 3 hours and i'm expecting another hour.

(could an admin delete the double post? thanks)

and heres the finished wall...



with the doors...

Wow, they look great!

Hi
My son has one of these printers, they don't seem very expensive to run. He
prints stuff for cosplay outfits, the longest time he has been printing something
was 53 hours, just make sure the first few layers print ok them just leave it running.
No problems with it so far, as long as the print bed is a good temperature.
David.

Hi Stese

How good is the Ender 3 Pro regards the layer lines, looking at the smooth bits on your prints faint lines are visible but look like a good primer coat would conceal them? Would you use it to produce a print that had smooth sides say a loco tender?

Richard