3d printer

ard123en

What are people's thoughts about 3d printers

I'm tending to think it's a good idea can print required stuff for my electronic projects on pla which is a carbon neutral product and as it's corn based will bio degrade in 6 months in composting bin

Reduced carbon footprint as not ordering single products coming on different deliveries money saving as can get a kg of pla for about £10

unforeseen

It's not as compostable as you think. In a carefully controlled scientific environment then 3-6 months is possible.

For a normal composting environment it is reckoned to take anything from 100 years up.
https://www.thoughtco.com/pros-cons-corn-based-plastic-pla-1203953

Which means it ends up as landfill

gardner1

ard123en wrote: »

What are people's thoughts about 3d printers

I'm tending to think it's a good idea can print required stuff for my electronic projects on pla which is a carbon neutral product and as it's corn based will bio degrade in 6 months in composting bin

Reduced carbon footprint as not ordering single products coming on different deliveries money saving as can get a kg of pla for about £10

Plus the cost of 3D printer

ard123en

The cost of the printer is negligible as have money to spend as no one knew what to buy me at Christmas

gardner1

ard123en wrote: »

The cost of the printer is negligible as have money to spend as no one knew what to buy me at Christmas

And the cost of this negligible printer is

z1a

gardner1 wrote: »

And the cost of this negligible printer is

Hope it's into 5 figures, or it's a toy.

gardner1

z1a wrote: »

Hope it's into 5 figures, or it's a toy.

This ones 5 figures:D
https://www.aldi.co.uk/balco-3d-printer/p/081171187467900

Ben84

unforeseen wrote: »

It's not as compostable as you think. In a carefully controlled scientific environment then 3-6 months is possible.

For a normal composting environment it is reckoned to take anything from 100 years up.
https://www.thoughtco.com/pros-cons-corn-based-plastic-pla-1203953

Which means it ends up as landfill

PLA may not be any worse than natural materials in this regard. Items in landfills don't degrade fast - not even paper or food. Decades old newspapers can be dug out of landfills! The tight packing, lack of air and water in landfills actually preserves things quite well. This is well shown by landfill gas, which is sometimes captured and burnt to make electricity. Landfills can keep producing gas for decades after they last had any rubbish put in them, so degradation in this environment is pretty slow going.

My experiments with composting at home have also found some natural materials to have limited or no degradability. Cotton cloths put in my compost bin came out seemingly unchanged several years later. Natural latex gloves didn't degrade either after several years, came out exactly as they were before. I would have expected these materials to have degraded or at least shown some signs of degrading, but they didn't.

So, I'm taking these PLA discoveries in context with what I know about the degradability of natural materials - which isn't as good as I had once assumed.

Well, if someone is going to use a 3D printer to make items they would have bought anyway, it's not leading to extra material use. Making the printer itself will use some though. However, I am very interested in their potential to make items that have been discontinued manufacture - as these can be used to repair things that otherwise would be challenging to repair. Oh, and 3D printers are really cool :rotfl:

ronaldmill

:money:great discussion about 3d printer is discussed here. kinldy guide me which model of 3d printer is best for home use.
thanks :-)

ard123en

I got one the other day bought a cr-10s which is billed as best sub £1000 printer

First impressions are good have made some calibration prints and also printed some gears and cases for my projects.

Still learning it's a bit an art to get a good print plus it takes a very long time to do anything of a large size