Task: Purchase a 3D Printer for Designing and Printing Parts for Atari 8-Bit Computers and Game Consoles
Needed: 3D Printer
Time: 30-60 minutes Introduction
Disclosure: Note that as an eBay Partner Network Affiliate, I may earn from qualifying purchases.
The number of uses for 3D printing has continued to grow as the community designs and builds objects and devices for Atari computers and consoles. For example, I have previously posted about building your own Atari computer cartridges which requires purchasing a shell that can cost $20 or more from a seller such as Corei64. Files for printing cartridge shells are widely available. For example, here is one from Thingverse that was created by Robert Trebor that is provided for free through a Creative Commons license requiring attribution. Printing this shell would only cost pennies in filament.
Instructions
There are lots of choices out there for entry-level, mid-level, and professional 3D printers for sale. The process of choosing a printer can be a little intimidating. Several things to consider are price (what is your budget?), brand quality and reputation, and size. As for price, I decided I did not want to spend more than $1000 on my first printer. To pick a brand, I watched a ton of YouTube videos, read a lot of reviews online, and followed several Facebook groups to see what people where buying and what the comments were.
Ultimately, I decided to purchase a Bambu Lab P1S from Micro Center. I paid $650 for the printer. I added another $200 for their warranty which allows me to bring it back after a year or two and apply the purchase price toward a better model. I am making the gamble that this endeavor will be successful, and I will want a bigger and better printer after a year. You might be able to find one cheaper on eBay.
Other brands I have heard good things about include Prusa and Elegoo.
Comments
Key features of the P1S included the Automatic Material System (AMS) shown on top of the printer below. This came included with my unit and allows up to four filament spools to be automatically fed to the printer making it easy to print objects with four colors. Another feature I was looking for was an enclosure to keep the particulates, fumes, and noise contained. My Bambu includes a carbon filter for fumes. I ordered a HEPA filter for it as well from Voxel. Also, Bambu comes with an easy-to-use phone app for interacting with the printer and easy to use slicer software (Bambu Studio) that prepares the object for printing. This was all seamless and user-friendly. I got from boxed item to doing my first print in about an hour. Setup of the unit was super easy. This is a popular printer and there is a very active community of users out there to learn from and interact with.
This is a good time to get into 3D printing. There are lots of STL files for retrocomputing. For example, here are some Atari items also from Thingverse. Here are some from Cults 3D. Here are some from Yeggi.
Here is a project I completed to design and print an LED base for giving an Atari 800XL or 130XE some colorful bling!
Here is another project I completed to print some cartridge cases for making A8PicoCarts.
I have enjoyed my Bambu P1S so much I purchased a second one!
