Backyard Aquaponics
A place to discuss aquaponics

Officeworks are selling a 3d printer for $999. The build area is tiny, and next to useless, so a waste of money in my opinion.

Stu, if you are looking at getting something printed, hand draw it and post it on fiverr.com. Someone can do a watertight 3d model for you for $5 then you can have it printed at Imaterialise.com or shapeways.com. It is still quite cheap even with shipping to aus.


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They do exist but they are rather large. The smallest I have found has a peak operating efficiency of 58% at 3.8m head with a flow of 51L/s

The next size up has a peak operating efficiency of 82% at 4.75m head with a flow of ~85L/s.

There are some plastic ones from China that are smaller but they are so crap they are not worth considering. Actually rather than saying they are crap they just don't come with any information that is in any way sufficient to make a judgement on them. Including contact details in english.

It may be that small ones don't exist because the design doesn't work on a small scale. Intuitively I can't see a problem but I do know that they are very weird beasts. It is also not just the impeller that needs to be designed but the pump bowl, foot, casing and mounts.

Far out that fiver website is a bit weird.

For $5 I can get people to lie for me. Not that I take much notice of testimonials from people I don't know but that is kind of disturbing.

the CSIRO has a #D printer thats "prints" in titanium.

they do a set of Ti race horse shoes custom made to fit the scanned hooves for $300

In my googling I found a mention of one that does stain less steel.

Stuart check out " rep rap.org"

The implications for being able to print plumbing parts alone are great.
I need a 13.5 mm internal thread to 50 mm pipe connection
Mmmm no such puppy Print one
There are so many plumbing parts that just don't fit together print a joiner.
These 3D printers are a great idea. I just wish I could afford one.

I haven't looked into it properly yet though so I probably can afford one.

I saw Jaycar advertise one for around $1.3k

http://www.jaycar.com.au/productView.asp?ID=TL4020

reprap.org is indeed a good place to look around. But those are mostly for the DIY enthusiast and technical guys. For a 3D starter it is better to have a ready build printer with good firmware and software with it, so you can start working with it soon after buying it.

The UP!Plus 2 I have now is such a plug and play, easy to start with printer. They sell in OZ at the moment for around 1400 and for a bit more they throw in a UP Mini for "free". Both printers were tested and reviewed many times and have good credentials (mostly end 1st or second). Out of the box, you're up and running in less then 15 minutes.

The next one is probably going to be a Rostock Max, but you have to build them yourself or get a kit for US$ 999. They are more difficult to work with and requires a lot of tweaking in hard- and software. Build volume is biggest on the market for under US$ 1000.

I suggest google for these printers to find out more. It's mostly great reading.

There are maker groups in various state capitals and other cities.

I'ld start there. I know some will make all the printable parts of a Rep Rap for you, if you're a member.

Brisbane:
http://hsbne.org/

Gold Coast:
http://gctechspace.org/

I've attended event at the above and know these are still functioning. I follow them on twitter, meetup.com etc.

Then I googled this,
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/List_of_Hacker_Spaces

Another place to track is Barcamp events, they often have people doing domos of this kinda stuff.
http://barcamp.org/
This site only list current planned events, so need to be watched. It only list Canberra currently, so google for twitter & meetup.com accounts for you local barcamp. I've been to events in Sydney, Brisbane & Gold Coast too (Bris & GC are both run as part of Barcamp Queensland)

PS Just noticed at national page have extra entries the main page doesn't???
http://hackerspaces.org/wiki/Australia

Just saw this on the interweb. Printing one floor of a house per day!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkQSaM43nNw

Very cool. Pretty much unlimited uses. Agriculture, industry, construction, aviation. Add in some Kevlar, carbon fiber, and could do some very strong, light weight work.

Sorry it took me so long to find this thread...

I've been using my 3D printer for ages to make all manner of things, and in fact have a custom plumbing fitting on my desk right now that I printed up for the AP system I started building a while back. Unfortunately, I broke my ankle at at my age it doesn't come good as quickly as it once may have, so the system has been on the back-burner for a while.

In the photo the fitting is upside down, but it's designed to fit on top of a vertical 50mm pipe and spill the water over evenly into six 20mm poly pipes. The fitting will take a 90mm storm-water cap on top to keep extra "bits" out of the water flow but be removable for cleaning etc.

If your looking for 3D kit in AU, I'd recommend http://www.bilby3d.com.au. Good range of product, and usually in stock.

There are a range of different printing filaments available, including most thermo-plastics (ABS, PLA, etc), and specialty filaments made with plastic bonded particles of wood, stone, and several metals. They "look" like the genuine original material, but being thermo-plastic bonded don't have quite the same mechanical properties.

The one big issue with using printer parts is that the printing process leaves them with a "grain" - and they are much stronger when forces are applied to the components "against" the grain. I had some connector pieces I printed up to make a framework out of aluminium tubing. I'd arranged them on the printer so I could do a whole heap at once which meant they were mostly vertical on the build plate. The result was that the forces on the frame when my wife leaned on it, were all "with" the grain, and the whole lot collapsed in a heap on the ground.

Enjoy.

I 3d print all the time at work. Actually have a part printing right now that I started a few minutes ago.

Also, to respond to the above post, 3d printed (the melted ABS/PLA deposited type printers) parts are porous, they WILL LEAK. You need to do a post process if you intend for them to seal. Either acetone vapor, or some other vapor that will melt the material a bit and seal it.