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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.
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.
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.