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Ask Slashdot: Economical Lego-Compatible 3-D Printer?
Wycliffe writes: There are plenty of high end 3d printers which allow high precision and large prints. There are also plenty of economical 3d printers but most of them don't have high enough precision for printing good Lego pieces. What is a good economical printer for printing small Lego pieces? Build size is not important as most Lego pieces are tiny but precision and quality prints are very important. What is a good, cheap 3D printer that can reliably print tiny Lego pieces? What is the best bang for the buck when you want a small printer and don't care about large prints?
I wonder if this is even legal?
As long as you don't print the LEGO trademark on them, it is legal. But it is not possible, at least on a cheap 3D-printer. Legos are made in custom injection molds with 0.005mm precision. A 3D printer is not going to even get close to that. Making Lego Bricks.
Duplo block might be as close as your going to get with the current precision of 3d printers.
Depending on how many parts you are having made, consider sending them to a company with a good machine. I had to have a few parts made for a work project. I sent the parts, they sent me a quote, the price was reasonable and I got my parts quickly. I don't do this every day, so for me I wanted the parts in my grubby little hands rather than the machine to make the parts.
How about LEGO gets a high-end 3D printer and customers can submit CAD files for custom pieces that then could be avail. in low quantities to everyone?
The most economical solution that I found was to simply buy used, good-quality Lego off of Ebay. The price is typically in the neighborhood of $17-$23USD per pound of used Lego (non-broken, washed, and sanitized).
A decent, high-quality, but non-commercial 3D printer costs $2500USD (for an Ultimaker 2). That's a lot of Lego.
With so much demand for lego pieces isn't it time to start thinking the right way? Forget a 3D printer, how about building a lego pieces making machine? A cutting machine, a moulding machine for home use as opposed to a 3D printer, which will probably not work well enough to make high quality pieces anyway.
You can't handle the truth.
That's the reason why many people who own LEGO bricks are scared of MegaBloks. MegaBloks makes generic bricks that are nominally compatible with LEGO bricks. But in practice, they are built to lower quality standards and tend to attach much more poorly. As small number of MegaBloks in a collection of LEGO bricks can cause a lot of havoc and result in LEGO models that keep falling apart.
And as the bricks look so similar, they are hard to remove from the collection of bricks, once the infestation has happened.
Having said that, I can definitely understand why OP would love to have a 3D printer that can output LEGO-compatible bricks. Every so often, it would be nice to build special-purpose adapter pieces that allow integrating non-LEGO hardware (e.g. a cell phone) into LEGO models. Perfect fit wouldn't necessarily be a strict requirement. And as the adapter is going to look quite unique, there isn't much risk of it accidentally getting confused with a genuine LEGO part.
How about "wee"?
Lost at C:>. Found at C.
Half a unicorn mane hair width.
I understand wanting the cheap one, I do. I don't understand wanting the cheap one to be precise. Fast, good, cheap; choose two. Accepting very slow can only get you to average precision if you already chose cheap.
He should probably make do with making larger, not-lego-format blocks that have a similar usage style but need a little clear tape on the outside to keep it snug. That is more doable next to "cheap." Or, plan to spend up to mid-range.
TYCO used to make their own LEGO clone called "Super Blocks" that caused havoc. They were easy to pick out of the pile though since the pieces were noticeably more "glossy" than the genuine LEGO bricks.
But Lego wins on quality and nothing beats Lego. Everything else is a cheap knock off. Lego blocks are nearly indestructible and will last forever, so costing a little bit more for something you can continue to pass down through many generations of your off spring isn't that bad of an investment.
The tolerance on Legos are really good. I have done activities where kids have practice mechanical drawing by measuring and modeling Legos, and I could often could not measure a difference between block using a really good caliper. This tolerance is very believable. From what I can tell, a normal $5,000 3d printer has a resolution of 100 to 1000 times this. I would think that a 3d printer with a 50 micron resolution would provide acceptable parts, but that may be getting to $10k. I know there are some sub 1 micron printers, which is what is needed, but that is 100K. Legos are awesome, and I just am annoyed that they mostly come in pre packaged promotional units and 500 pieces to play with are not so common.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
As someone in this industry (Ultimaker)
I will tell you. There no single printer you can buy that will do Lego level of quality. The precision of lego is just beyond of what current 3D print tech can do. The molds Lego uses to make their bricks are already on the extreme level.
Now, if you want to replace 1 brick. You most likely can get away with any printer, as 1 imprecise brick in a build isn't an issue. But 5 in a row are.
Your best bet would most likely be a small SLA printer. Like the a Formlabs or a Autodesk Amber.
If you don't want the dirty bits of SLA. You're stuck with an FDM printer. Not the best option for what you are looking for. But no chemicals. I would look at an option that has a 0.25mm nozzle option. There are a few. Our latest iteration has it. But that's most certainly not the cheapest machine.
I wonder if this is even legal?
It's technically legal to produce the basic bricks, since the applicable patents expired in 1989. As for trademarked Lego properties (like the mini-figures, for example) or any which are covered by more recent patents, you can still get away with it as long as you're only producing toys for personal use, and make no attempt to sell them.
But back to the OP's topic: The feasibility of making Lego compatible bricks with cheap 3D printers isn't actually the only question that you're going to have to face; you also need to take into account materials cost. Sure, the "Ultimaker 3D Printer" itself is quite expensive at US $2K -- but even if you gave up on cheaper options and decided to cough up that chunk of change, you also have to keep in mind that the plastic filament to feed the beast also costs money, to the tune of $20 to $80 per spool, depending upon what you're doing. On top of that, not every "printed" component comes out quite right... so you're likely to blow plenty of cash on ultimately wasted filament. Mind you, there are also so many other really cool things you could do with a 3D printer, besides making Lego bricks... but those things will just require that much more filament, and ultimately accomplish the opposite of your stated goal, that of saving money.
So the bottom line is, if you're going to get into 3D printing at all, you really need to do it "for the love of the game" as they say, not to save money. If all you want is cheaper Lego compatible bricks... then you'll probably be better off in the long run just buying generic brand bricks.
What Lego could do for me would be to offer kits of bulk pieces that are not intended to build something specific, at a good price. Older kits were a lot more like that
They do have those, appropriately named Lego Classic. And they are about the same price as any other Lego, around 6-8 cents/brick.
I could be wrong, but I think the injection molding process used to manufacture LEGO bricks is the reason they are so strong. Most 3D printers use PLA or ABS, and while ABS should be sufficient, PLA is a softer plastic that just won't have that "LEGO grip". Because of the layering technique used by 3D printers, there will always be more flex in the end product than the rigidity of a dense brick made with a highly-pressurized injection system.
I'm sure in the future these problems will be dealt with, but for now I think you're searching for a unicorn.
C. Griffin
"Can I keep his head for a souvenir?" --Max from Sam 'N Max Freelance Police
I know 3D printers are all the rage these days, but low cost CNC mills will give you far far better results than low cost 3D printers.
MegaBloks makes generic bricks that are nominally compatible with LEGO bricks. But in practice, they are built to lower quality standards and tend to attach much more poorly. As small number of MegaBloks in a collection of LEGO bricks can cause a lot of havoc and result in LEGO models that keep falling apart.
Yes, and even worse, in my experience, MegaBloks are dimensionally unstable over a decade or less, Legos are stable for at least 4 decades.
About 10 years ago I gave my nephews a set of MegaBloks and patted myself on the back because I had given an enormous set of "Legos" for so cheap. When new, they worked just as well as Legos. My nephews have long-since outgrown those MegaBloks but my own kids were visiting recently and we dragged them out. They do not stay together at all now.
I still have the real Legos which I had as a kid in the 1970's, and they hold together just like new.
So you might think you are getting a deal with MegaBloks, but not so much, if you plan on them lasting.
Ceci n'est pas une signature.
Although it's funny, I have found it is often best to say the same thing in two or three different ways because people are terrible about paying attention to what they read. Had the submitter not said "economical", "inexpensive" three or four times, people would be posting suggestions for $23,000 printers. Followed by linking to printers with 10X too much tolerance for the job.
In college, my speech teacher said "tell them what you're going to tell them, tell them, then tell them what you told them".
In addition to the Lego Classic line mentioned above you may want to check out the Creator line. They do have specialty pieces, hinges, those triangle wing pieces but they are used in new and interesting ways. The amount of part reuse of late has really surprised me, and is a good thing. Also the difference between when I was little and now is that there is a lot more building with plates instead of bricks. This as well as making generic pieces for side building (SNOT) has greatly added to the detail and complexity that can be achieved. It isn't like it was in the mid 90s through the mid 2000s where they made tons giant pieces that really limited reuse. Also I never had a problem with hinges, and other specialty pieces that allow for lots of reuse and movement as well as the tiles (plates with the smooth top) as while they were limited back in the 80s I always wished they included more like they do now. Also now there is a greater willingness to have Technic parts in non Technic sets which seems to also have only made things better. I think Lego learned their lesson from almost going into bankruptcy then to now being the largest toy company in the world.
Time to offend someone
http://shop.lego.com/en-GB/LEG...
1500 pieces, mostly bricks but enough windows, wheels etc. And lots more colours than there used to be.
That's the largest, but there are a few sizes of the same thing, and in a Lego shop you can buy individual bricks by volume. I don't see what more they could do — there'd be no point having 50 no-particular-theme sets.
IIRC, it was relatively easy to tell TYCO blocks apart because they tended to be different colors than LEGO blocks (at least, the ones I had) and the plates were thicker -- 1/2 the thickness of blocks, instead of 1/3.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Another option would be a hack saw and a good modeling glue, and just build the blocks you want. Pure methly ethyl ketone is available at your local hardware store, that's the active ingredient in many quaity modeling glues, and if you soak a toothpick in it you can easily apply it exactly where you want. But for god's sake don't breathe the stuff, it's one of those intoxicants that really will fry your brain. There's a reason modeling glues are mostly nauseants polluting a single-digit percentage of glue.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
Or, more significantly, the sort of specialized pieces that nobody has ever made, and thus can't be bought at any price.
--- Most topics have many sides worth arguing, allow me to take one opposite you.
How about "wee"?
The preferred unit form measuring microdimensionality is "itty-bitty".
Just cruising through this digital world at 33 1/3 rpm...
Yeah, the courts tend to frown on using trademarks as a patent extension.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
As a child, lego is awesome because you can build stuff. Then take it apart. Then build new stuff.
As an adult, lego is awesome because you can build stuff. Then take it apart. Then build new stuff. And it's an engineering marvel in its own right. It's just awesome.
Binding properly 40 years later is merely evidence of the awesomeness. I pity you that this is something you don't appreciate.
It really depends on what the goals of the person are. You don't actually need the precision that lego does in order to create an interoperable part and I have done that with a consumer-grade 3d printer.
However:
You will have nowhere near the durability of a lego part. Not just in terms of strength, but in terms of wear. It will not last.
You will spend a *lot* more money per brick. Its been a while since I've done the calculation, but I'm pretty sure its at least an order of magnitude more expensive to print your own. Especially if you aren't using a consumer-grade printer (stratasys ABS is stupid brittle and very weak, completely unsuitable for the task, and absurdly expensive on top of that).
So why do it? Maybe for giggles (I've done a variety of 3d prints that are not really serious, but just to see if it can be done). Maybe for one-off pieces. It may be worthwhile to print an occasional piece that Lego does not. I've done a variety of those.
Bottom line: any reasonable printer should be able to do it, but *no* 3d printer can match Lego injection molding for quality, durability, price, etc.
This is starting out with the wrong assumptions.
Design a brick system that can be produced with 3-D printers, and will hold together when fabricated within the tolerances of an SLA printer. Forget FDM, it's too low precision and SLA is already achieving an equal or lower cost of manufacture compared with FDM.
LEGO is manufactured to astonishingly high precision, but I am not convinced that this is the only way to make a brick system.
Bruce Perens.
Just because the mold has 0.005 mm precision (which is difficult in steel, from which the molds are made - probably needs EDM or some other expensive, high-end method), doesn't mean that bricks themselves are anywhere near that. There are a variety of considerations (shrink, draft, wall thickness, etc.) that play a roll and limit the accuracy of the bricks. 3D-printers approach 0.05 mm accuracy, which might be enough. SLA gets even better results.
Short of anyone actually trying and measuring the result, it's just a lot of conjecture. But what I can state confidently, injection molding blows 3D printing out of the water for quantities > 100 on price and repeatability/quality.
So for that one special hard-to-find part, try 3D but for anything else it's probably a waste of time and effort.