jvik

Hi HDEAR, I think Tom might guide you in to a easy start hardware. I`v been working with additive manufacturing for more than 16 years. And like most people talking about buying a 3D printer to day, you are looking at FDM machines. This is the simplest and therefor the technique choice for the majority of the market today, due to the simplicity and open source revolution in development, this "robotic glue gun" was studently possible to build as a school project run by a $5 arduino computer. Anyway, after having 3d printers from $1000 to $230.000 these years, I must admit, that the FDM principle machines have turned most ideas to reality in my timeframe. It is however important to understand that they all need a little "tweaking" and the advertised "copy machine, push button get part" does not hold water neither the $500 machine or a $500.000 one. Start building parts in PLA, the material is not great, but in most cases, it is a "design check", when you have hit the target, swap into a more robust material, you then know the part fit, and have learned the basic tweaking. The tube fittings you show are a typical case that you will find complicated at start, use PLA and learn the "business", design for 3d printing will be a key thing to learn. I have been hired in to teach engineer and design students at university to 3d print for years, learning them to design for 3Dprinting have been the key to success, not to learn the 3d printing bit. The use of .obj (Wavefield) as post out format from IC is a good advice, the majority uses .stl (stereolitography) that is sad, because it have lowered the general standard of the shared 3d print objects for the global communities. When you have got the hold of printing PLA materials, you should try PETG (PET), ABS or CPE (co polyester) filament, and get products with long lifecycle. Good luck ! Jan