Hi from silicon valley!

[carter]

what up makers!

I've been obsessively researching printing on my time off for the last 3 weeks and still feel like i know nothing, but if i don't get my hands on one soon Im gonna go crazy! Blue thingie i think it's called

i waited for the last two weeks to go to a meetup.com event, hoping someone could give me advice on buying a hobby printer, but everyone was either virgins, or hard core silicon valley industrialists who sneered at anything in the 4-digit price range. so, based on print volume, the enthusiasm in this forum, and the coolness of deltas, I'm taking the dive with the max.

I have seen a lot of good info in forums, but no good organized data. i was wondering if anyone could point me to:

how often can i expect printer parts to break? what are preventable/expensive problems?

list of orion specific upgrades - what can i hope to do with it?

a good place to read up on CAD/slicers

nursing applications for printing. the stem cell organ printing stuff gets all the glory, but us nurses must have some use for 3d.

making $. I don't want to be the next Ford, but if i can sell stuff on craigs list to pay for this printer, then my wife may let me buy a nicer one. maybe carbon fiber next time. i have ideas for some products, but how have you marketed stuff?

[geneb]

Welcome to the zoo, carter!

If you break any parts on the Orion, I'd advise you to quit hitting it. Otherwise you shouldn't see anything break.

The most common upgrade I've seen on the Orion is the addition of the E3D hot end.

Check out http://www.makexyz.com for an excellent "mart" to sell your 3D printing services at.

g.

[JohnStack]

Welcome!

Medical is a great frontier for 3D printing and a number of companies have jumped in of course. I expect loads of medical devices to be prototyped with 3D printers and maybe sometime in the not so distant future, someone in a remote area who needs a device can just print one!

Right now, I'm not seeing any specific forums about medical anywhere; however, I feel that the medical industry in general is the last to share - and we're in, at least for now, the open-source world.

As for general cad, jump into Sketchup and quit researching! Buy your printer and rock and roll...

[carter]

Well, I have a handful of POSSIBLE ideas for nursing... but without a research grant, an ethics board, and several interns, I'd never print anything to touch my patients with. I should probably go to the nursing forum site I frequent with that question. I was more thinking of stuff like, a better clip board for taking notes. But then, I have that covered with my tablet.

I'll check out the E3D hotend, but so far, a quick google search has not clarified what the purpose of it is other than it can get hotter than your average hotend. does this mean more materials can go through it?