Re: High School Teacher Looking to Check Out Your 3D Printer for Research
Keep in mind, his primary target is with high school students that have no experience with 3D printing.
....a few sharp students will learn quickly the proper procedure for clearing clogs and repairing the machines
I'm still not convinced about this. I'm not convinced it'd even be a good idea to let kids clear clogs.
a procedure that at best involves stick in needle thin piece of wire into a hot hole in a bit of metal.
and at worst involves near complete disassembly of half the machine, holding soft metal parts with pliers and possibly burning out plastic with a torch.
there would be too many burnt kids by the end of the day.
it's not that I have a problem with kids having access to tools or anything, we had electronics in our school and used soldering irons, (one kids deliberately burned another kids face) we etched our own boards with ferric chloride etc we did metal work with lathes and milling machines, (the only tools we weren't allowed to use was the band saw and press brake)
so I'm not saying that kids shouldn't be allowed to do dangerous stuff, I'm just saying that this is far too fiddly to want to let kids learn in a short space of time.
I also can't imagine kids having the attention span to make this practical.
nor do I think the lessons would be long enough to actually let kids be able to print things in vast numbers.
Lets consider the numbers,
generally a lesson/period length is 1 hour.
for practical technology lessons it would not be extraordinary to have double periods (given that there is a certain about of get out and clear up time needed. also those students that aren't currently in metal work/wood work, (or now plastic work) may be in a home ec lesson where there is also a baking time.
inside of two hours would would likely get 3 students to print parts that took 20 minutes to print.
a twenty minute print would be one very small keyring. (lets assume a shopping trolley token with an initial letter on it.)
that's a lessons start at 0
Printer gets turned on at 10
printer is hot at 20 minutes into lesson and first print starts.
1st print finishes at 40 minutes
ten minutes to cool and come loose from the bed puts you at 50 minutes
at 60 minutes the printer is hot enough to do the next print.
at 80 minutes that print will have finished.
at 90 minutes the part can be removed, at 100 minutes the printer would be hot enough to print.
the last child may need to leave class ten minutes late to be able to collect their print.
so realistically a two hour lesson can produce 2 small prints, (possibly 3 if you're lucky)
in a class of 30 that needs 10 2 hour periods. or ten weeks. which realistically is the whole semester, just for printing in lesson time, and includes no design time, (you're going to need to learn how to design before you can print!)
and that assumes that there are no clogs, no failed prints, no skipped steps, no bad designs no times where the filament runs out halfway through a print. no times where it doesn't stick to the bed properly.
I stand by my earlier statement, fused filament 3d printing is a cheap way to build things for hobby or small cottage art-craft / prototypes.
but it's not ready to be placed in front of scored of kids all wanting to print their little trinket.
it's not fast enough and not reliable enough.