Need advice on buying a 3D Printer

[Bret]

I'd like to purchase a 3D printer to make small firearm parts. Magazine followers and floor plates come to mind, but I'd like to make other parts as well. I don't mind spending money to buy a quality 3D printer as I want something that will make good quality parts. Two or three thousand dollars (including the software) would be fine. The thing is that I don't even know where to start with this. Any recommendations regarding where to start?

[vandal5]

I'd be interested in knowing how durable these end products are. We had thought about getting a cheaper one for our son to play with. Figured it would be neat enough to get him into how to use di some basic design and take projects from concept to design to physical products.

Wondering how much would one need to invest to be able to use end product in anything more than just hobby grade use. Most prints I see end up with visible layers and look neat but not all that great.

I've seen some resin printers that look to turn out higher resolution prints but pose additional challenges and not sure how durable the end results are.

Sent from my SM-G920V using Tapatalk

[monkeywrench]

This thread is in the wrong location.

[TehLlama]

Durability is a mixed bag - for the applications you're talking about, moving towards SLA is going to be needed. You can make some remarkable durable FDM parts, particularly with some of the more exotic filaments (Ultem, etc.), and some of the other smaller widgets where flexibility is nice, basic/cheap TPU is actually somewhat amazing (but lacks tensile strength). The standard generic use is just cranking out PLA drafts of other parts you can use to validate.
With a good SLA setup, I have friends that have made their own quite operational lowers and glock bottom halves (I'm waiting to see what they can do with the new Sig designs), definitely solid stuff (slapped an X300 on the glock bottom and hammered a nail into a board to prove a point - ran like a Glock), so if you're looking to do the big investment, that would be the answer. Print times can be really long, and there's more to learn about supports and slicing involved, but if you're wanting to make functional parts with tight tolerances, that's typically the answer because resin is just tougher.
A basic FDM may still be a cost-effective port of entry just to learn more about it.
Unfortunately, I'm not the best resource - we have herds of already owned printers at work I can use, and rely on that for my drone shenanigans... but I know comparatively little about buying the silly things.

[Allen]

So:
https://markforged.com/3d-printers/onyx-pro

https://markforged.com/3d-printers/mark-two
Around 3x your budget but, you can run both of these on just the filament ( carbon stabilized Nylon "onyx") or run chopped or continuous fiber in as you're doing the print.

You will wind up with better than aluminum components - with the exception of high heat.

Al