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| Slippyblade:
Awesome thread. I've been on the fence about getting a 3D Printer and I think I may finally pull the trigger this season. Merry Christmas to me! I'm looking at custom brackets, project enclosures, etc. |
| BadMouth:
I've used mine more than I thought I would. It's strange. Several times now I've needed a small part that I would usually have cut out of wood or bent up metal to make. Rather than getting out the jigsaw to cut it (poorly), drill and bits to drill it, It's easier to just make the thing in tinkercad and print it out. This weekend I'm going to be stuck at a Christmas party when I'd rather be at home watching football. I made a tiny stand to hold my phone up at a good viewing angle. It only took 10 minutes to design and 6 minutes to print. I printed out extra for the office, car, coat pockets. What I've found to be the most useful tool is a digital caliper. Adjust to size of part needed>look at number on display>drag object in tinkercad to that size I've also started printing thin partial parts to test fit, as part of the design process. |
| Howard_Casto:
Well I'm having to come to terms with the fact that in my left eye at least, my eyesight isn't what it used to be. I used to be really good at fabricating fiddly bits for projects but now I'm constantly screwing stuff up. Depth perception plays more of a role in making things than you would expect. Hopefully when I get glasses this spring it will help, but in the meantime I think I would actually save time and money by designing stuff in the computer and then printing it out. I guess all those years learning 3dsmax and autocad for 3darcade wasn't wasted. ;) I'm also very excited about the auto gear and sprocket plugin for google sketchup. Being able to design and print out a working gear box seems very useful. A digital caliper is on my short list of things to buy. I wanted to see if harbor freight had any deals. I will get an auto-level kit down the road, but I want to learn how to use the thing first. I figure manual calibration knowledge will help me troubleshoot any problems with the auto-level system. Believe it or not I probably have pyrex or possibly some safety glass around here somewhere. Sometimes I feel like WV is just some elaborate Truman Show, only mixed with Sanford & Son.... and Cops. Oh btw... companion projects: One of the first things I want to build is a 3d scanner. Sure enough there are thingiverse plans for a small scanner. I want to up-scale it so it can handle larger objects though. I also spent all night watching some guy rube-goldberg together a filament extrusion machine over the course of several months only to wake up this morning and see another guy had designed one that I would have made... vertical with the hot end gravity fed, which solves 90% of the consistency problems because...well...gravity is a constant. |
| SammyWI:
If I haven't mentioned it yet check out www.thingiverse.com for models shared to print. Nothing wrong with using a simple switch for the Z home. I would recommend modding it like this: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1479176 This lets you level the bed seperatly from adjusting Z home position and gives you a fairly precise adjustment. Also make sure that you lock the bed into position after leveling the corners. I think this area tends to move during printing and the wing nuts supplied may not have very good threads. Kits come with extra M3 nuts so I'd use extras as jam nuts. A better fan duct is a good early mod. Plenty to choose from, I used this one: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1823404 You'll see a lot of printed frame braces to support the points where the y axis (hotbed) belt attaches. I don't know if the frames tends to bend there or not but it seemed like a reasonable thing to reinforce at assembly. IMO the printed braces are a lot of material to solve a simple issue. I liked this idea: http://www.thingiverse.com/thing:1517525. But I just ran the extra threaded rod as close to the belt attachment as I could without printing a special belt attachment part. Just had to drill some holes through the front and center frame pieces, the back frame piece already has an oversized hole to use that can be covered with some fender washers. Again, best to do at initial assembly. You do risk cracking the acrylic parts drilling the holes but I had no problems going slow with light pressure and scrap wood backing. 3D scanner is on my list of projects. Funny you should mention gears. I am a mechanical engineer and I design gears as part of my job. Surprised to hear that SketchUp has a plug in for gears. Last time I tried to look at Sketchup for a friends project it drove me nuts with how imprecise it was. Maybe it's changed. I do have some gear models shared at Thingiverse under the username Drawcut. |
| SammyWI:
Youtube channels can vary wildly in quality but here are some of the best 3D printing channels I've found: https://www.youtube.com/user/ThomasSanladerer https://www.youtube.com/user/TheMakersMuse https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC_7aK9PpYTqt08ERh1MewlQ https://www.youtube.com/user/mrjoesays https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVmyytnqQrcTg1WRFXTo14Q |
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