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Re: 3D Printers

From DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com>
Newsgroups sci.electronics.design
Subject Re: 3D Printers
References (9 earlier) <10d262t$2bk90$1@dont-email.me> <aR*s5spA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> <10d2hst$2e27d$2@dont-email.me> <aR*7hupA@news.chiark.greenend.org.uk> <10d3h9n$2oqkf$1@dont-email.me>
Date 2025-10-20 01:33 -0400
Message-ID <xnbjm2dtmm.fsf@delorie.com> (permalink)

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Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> writes:
> A cursory look at offerings shows some machines north of $1K.  But,
> without looking into detail, the sorts of features that I see touted
> seem superfluous (to me) -- multiple color filament, etc.  (though it
> might be nice to be able to switch to a semi-transparent material for
> portions of a print).

I got one of those printers as my fourth printer, because my other three
weren't big enough.  I've got it configured with two different nozzle
sizes and a couple different types and colors of filament, so it's
always ready to print "whatever".  It's nice to be able to print panels
and boxes with the labels already in them, with supports that cleanly
break away because they're a different chemistry.

For a custom LED display that takes advantage of these features, see
Clough42's https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7nWGfz3__3A

Those more expensive printers also allow you to print with more exotic
filaments (so-called "engineering" plastics) like TPU, Polycarbonate,
ASA, nylons, PEEK, etc.

>> Oh.  So, you can't tweek anything once you've built the file?

The file is just too big and it's too difficult to map the bazillion of
tiny things its commanding to what you get in the real world, unlike
programming a CNC machine.  The file is so big, in fact, that most
printers support a compressed binary format *just* to get it to the
printer faster.

Example: I just printed a small L-shaped bracket for my wire stripper (a
stop so I'd strip a consistent amount off).  The raw ascii gcode without
comments was 1,522 commands.  The biggest gcode I still have on disk is
132 MB.  The *smallest* gcode still on my printer is 82k of compressed
binary. and that was for a plain cylinder that took 26 seconds to print.

So while you can (and I have) manually edit gcode, you really don't want
to.  It's like choosing to hack the postscript being sent to your
printer instead of just fixing that typo in the word processor instead.

And no, most 3D printers do not support complex gcode constructs like
looping or conditionals, so manually crafting gcode for them is tedious.
Even for custom hacks you end up writing software to generate the gcode
for you.

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Thread

3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-16 18:53 -0700
  Re: 3D Printers Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> - 2025-10-17 09:45 +0100
    Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-17 02:05 -0700
      Re: 3D Printers Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nonad.co.uk> - 2025-10-17 12:11 +0100
        Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-17 04:53 -0700
  Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-17 13:20 +0100
    Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-17 08:22 -0700
      Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-17 19:24 +0100
        Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-17 13:27 -0700
          Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-18 11:02 +0100
            Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 06:20 -0700
              Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-18 15:36 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 07:58 -0700
              Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 18:01 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-19 08:37 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 01:04 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-19 11:11 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 04:26 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 04:52 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-19 16:46 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 13:22 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-20 01:33 -0400
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 23:44 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-20 14:04 -0400
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-20 16:15 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-20 21:07 -0400
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-20 18:38 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-21 11:58 -0400
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-21 09:47 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-21 13:28 -0400
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-22 01:22 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-20 15:19 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-20 07:50 -0700
        Re: 3D Printers albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2025-10-18 09:17 +0200
      Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-17 20:22 +0100
        Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-17 13:42 -0700
          Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-18 11:25 +0100
            Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 07:39 -0700
              Re: 3D Printers Theo <theom+news@chiark.greenend.org.uk> - 2025-10-18 17:17 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 09:41 -0700
          Re: 3D Printers antispam@fricas.org (Waldek Hebisch) - 2025-10-18 12:36 +0000
            Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 06:52 -0700
              Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 02:03 -0700
      Re: 3D Printers albert@spenarnc.xs4all.nl - 2025-10-18 09:12 +0200
      Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-19 00:44 -0400
        Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 22:04 -0700
          Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 22:08 -0700
            Re: 3D Printers liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2025-10-19 10:34 +0100
              Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 03:44 -0700
          Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-20 00:53 -0400
            Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 22:08 -0700
              Re: 3D Printers DJ Delorie <dj@delorie.com> - 2025-10-20 01:50 -0400
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-19 23:59 -0700
                Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-20 00:01 -0700
    Re: 3D Printers john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2025-10-17 08:32 -0700
      Re: 3D Printers Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2025-10-19 02:10 +1100
        Re: 3D Printers john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2025-10-18 09:09 -0700
          Re: 3D Printers Lasse Langwadt <llc@fonz.dk> - 2025-10-19 03:46 +0200
            Re: 3D Printers john larkin <jl@glen--canyon.com> - 2025-10-18 20:11 -0700
            Re: 3D Printers liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2025-10-19 10:34 +0100
              Re: 3D Printers Lasse Langwadt <llc@fonz.dk> - 2025-10-19 14:41 +0200
                Re: 3D Printers liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2025-10-19 15:29 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Lasse Langwadt <llc@fonz.dk> - 2025-10-20 17:35 +0200
                Re: 3D Printers liz@poppyrecords.invalid.invalid (Liz Tuddenham) - 2025-10-20 17:22 +0100
                Re: 3D Printers Lasse Langwadt <llc@fonz.dk> - 2025-10-21 01:17 +0200
          Re: 3D Printers Bill Sloman <bill.sloman@ieee.org> - 2025-10-19 16:32 +1100
      Re: 3D Printers Lasse Langwadt <llc@fonz.dk> - 2025-10-19 03:41 +0200
        Re: 3D Printers Don Y <blockedofcourse@foo.invalid> - 2025-10-18 20:38 -0700

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