3D Printer Buying Guide – How to Buy 3D Printer in India: Divide By Zero

Are you looking to buy a 3D printer anytime soon? You might watch YouTube review videos, company background & history, service ecosystem, and whatnot. But, you’re missing out on the most important aspect of purchasing a 3D printer in India. The 3D Printer Buying Guide, in other words, you may say, the 3D printer purchase checklist.

So here are the 7 most important 3D printer buying guide checklists that you must know and correlate with your application requirements.

3D Printer Buying Guide – 7 Things to consider before buying a 3D printer

1. AutoSwitchover –

Imagine, you need to print a complex critical component on-demand during weekends. Now, without manual supervision, you need to take risks for nozzle clogging to filament run-out, isn’t it?

Hence, check if the company has the AutoSwitchover feature which will ensure automatic changeover to the next filament set once the ongoing runs out. In addition, it invokes a closed-loop counter feedback algorithm that eventually prevents the printer from going nozzle-clogged.

2. Ball-Screw-based motion system –

A belt-driven extruder motion system will generate backlash errors in your finished parts. As a result, you will get less repeatability and accuracy in your final part. Check if your choice of OEM provides a ball-screw-based motion system as you can completely reduce these effects.

3. Deposition Rate & Speed –

One of the foremost primary factors in choosing the right 3D printer is its speed. Imagine you’re printing a 500 gm SPM component in 20-25 hours and then facing clogging issues, warpage, and whatnot. Imagine the expenditure that you would eventually incur on your accounts book.

Hence, always check print speed and deposition rates well in advance. By the way, just so you know, our FFF printers are 10X faster than any other printer in the segment.

4. Active Filament Dehumidification –

3D printing filaments tend to capture surrounding air moisture easily. As a result, you will face issues with warpage and loose layer bonding in your finished parts. To prevent such damages from occurring, OEMs suggest heating filaments once in a while. But that’s more like a passive dehumidification process. Your filaments will anyway catch moisture and degrade your finished part.

Check if your choice of OEM has an active dehumidification system. This will help you in removing all moisture content from your filaments, thereby keeping material properties intact.

5.  Automatic Bed Leveling –

Usually, all FDM/FFF 3D printers have glass beds. Now, imagine your extruder and nozzle set is far too close to the glass bed leading to scratch marks. Beyond that, this will give catastrophic first layer issues leading to poor adhesion. All these by not having an in-built auto-bed leveling feature.

In auto-bed leveling, proximity sensors pick and analyze the distance between the build platform and the nozzle set in real-time. This data then goes to the microcontroller that decides the optimal orientation of the print bed to nozzle movements.

6. Multi-user IoT compatibility –

Choose an IoT-enabled high-speed polymer printer that you can control & operate with the highest standard of security sitting anywhere in the world.

This will help you run a chain of centralized distributed manufacturing set-up. You can deliver on-demand custom parts just-in-time to your customers by saving millions.

7. Multi-material compatibility –

 Depending on your application requirements, you must choose a printer compatible with multiple high-strength materials. Industries usually prefer Nylon, CF-Nylon, ABS, PCB, AFPM, HIPS, PETG, PP, TPU, PLA, PLA-tough, wood composites.

3D printer OEMs usually commercialize the above features in a combination of two or three depending on the build size. Choose your printer as per your application needs and business prospect.

So here it is! 3D Printer Buying Guide – 7 Things to consider before buying a 3D printer.

Just so you know, our high-speed printers are helping leading manufacturing and industries across India. As of now, DRDO, Samsung, Wipro, Eicher, Tata Motors, Daimler, Bharat Forge, premier IITs, and 800+ establishments are associated with us.

This content was originally published on the Divide By Zero website.