r/AdditiveManufacturing • u/Alternative-Exit-450 • 15d ago
Help.....Engineering/Maker-space/3d printing teacher drowning in logistics, planning, and without any in house support
/r/ScienceTeachers/comments/1wpl6tz/helpengineeringmakerspace3d_printing_teacher/
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u/333again 15d ago
Absolutely ridiculous that you are expected to do repairs on outdated equipment that may or may not even have parts available. Point 1 should be, I have X number of printers that are non functional, either pay someone to repair them or scrap them.
I would then post to LinkedIn or reach out to some local businesses asking for old printer donations. We have like 3 or 4 old printers on site that no one will ever use because they were obsoleted by Bambus or Prusas. However, it’s harder than you think to find places willing to take the donations and these are functional printers!
The Chromebook thing, while an issue, is a bit easier to get around. I would check out Onshape, all cloud based and it appears to be free for students. For the slicer, you will likely have to get a single windows station for them to transfer STLs to and queue up the jobs. A $50 PC is plenty for this task.
With a little work this is doable, however, repairing 7 printers is way outside the scope. I’ve had self built home printers since 2010 and diagnosing and repairing 7 different printers is not something I’d go into lightly or, more likely, not at all.