I bought a printer for my kids this year. An Anycubic Mega Zero with a magnetic base.
It stays pretty calibrated but I have struggled with base adhesion once a few prints have been through it. IPA and abrasives have not fixed it...maybe I will get around to some other things...there have been a few random failures, but not many.
We printed a few novelties items that came out OK. The real learning curve is about the options in the slicer, the trade off between printing time and accuracy etc.
At some stage my kids printed some toy guns. Apparently one of those toys looked real to the phone engineer, the only person who had been in my house over lockdown. Later there was a knock on my door whereupon 4 police officers arrested me and began to search my house for 'section 1 prohibited firearms'. Just as officer 1 finished telling me this, the plastic gun was found. Officer 1 proceeded to give me a ticking off about the dangers of realistic models...while officers 2-4 marvelled at the 3d printer, much to the annoyance of officer 1. Officer 2 asked me if I had tried realistic finishing like with rub n buff, and got chatting about Adam Savage. I had to get a steam punk top hat I made with foam to demonstrate rub n buff to the others. This annoyed Officer 1 enough that he decided it was time to go! I am not quite sure whether I find the episode funny or not. It was pretty scary to begin with.
I actually haven't found anything I wanted to print for a while. I make a lot of things but 3d printing is not always the best tool for the job.
You’re telling this as a funny story, but to an outside observer that sounds horrifyingly dystopian. Someone improperly reported you like they were getting side-pay by the Stasi and four armed government agents showed up at your door to accost you over a personal possession within your own home. Absolutely nuts, and ironically why many people consider personal firearm possession essential to freedom.
I just looked up your printer and it looks extremely similar to the one that I have, which is the Creality Ender 3. Both appear to have an identical stock plate, which makes me think your base adhesion problems will almost certainly be addressed by switching to a spring-steel PEI plate. Although I didn't start having problems after only a few prints, the stock plate on the Ender 3 actually worked too well for me which often caused me to need to use a tool to pry and scrape prints off which resulted in damage and reduced adhesion. I switched to the PEI plate and all my problems related to adhesion went away. It's smoother than the stock plate but somehow PLA sticks pretty well to it, yet not so much that I can't easily remove prints with my fingers. No glue stick or hair spray needed so far.
3D printers really aren't good toys in and of themselves. They're fun for a little while and then you realize you don't need that many plastic doodads. But mine's been very useful for certain projects where I need to build custom parts. People sometimes forget that these printers are just tools like anything else. Fortunately they've become so cheap that it's not really that much of an expense to find that out for one's self.
EDIT: Seriously, anyone with adhesion problems should get a PEI plate. I have had nothing but success with mine and I don't know why these printers don't just come with them in the first place.
Could this have been a good cop / bad cop routine? Officer 2 was encouraging you to break the law. It is an offence to manufacture, import or sell a realistic imitation firearm, or to modify an imitation firearm so that it becomes a realistic imitation firearm.
I had a similar experience where my first few prints worked great, and then had bed adhesion trouble. It turned out the filament had absorbed water from the air, and drying out the filament solved it.
is that a normal experience in all of the US or only certain states? sounds all kinds of fucked up. the random passerby ratting you out. cops showing up over a handgun, which as far as I know are legal to own in all states unless you're a felon. doesn't sound like land of the free at all.
FYI a 3D printer is super affordable nowadays. Heres a quick guide for home usage:
FDM printers: They use a spool of plastic as filament which is heated and layed down layer by layer in a small string, are the cheapest, safest, have a large print volume. On the downside they often break down (e.g. the filament gets jammed) and have a coarse resolution (the smallest details are around 0.1mm). Most popular ones are the Ender series from Creality and Prusa printes. Prices are from $150, filament is from $17/kg.
SLA printers: They use a liquid (called resin) the hardens (cures) under UV light, they print a whole layer at once. They are capable of printing super fine details, are less prone to breakdown (they just have 1 motor vs 4 or more in FDM). On the downside the resin they use is a very toxic material, you need to vent its air outside and always use protective gear. Also the print needs to be washed and cured after printing and they have a smaller build volume (iPad mini/iPad screen size) than FDM. You can get one from $250. Check out r/PrintedMinis on Reddit to see what they are capable of.
I suggest getting a FDM printer as the first one unless you really need the fine details, e.g. for printing miniature figures.
This seriously cannot be understated enough. When I was in my final year of high school (2012) my shop teacher was the first person in the entire school board to get a 3D printer, one of the cheapest machines on the market (I can't remember the brand, or the name, only the number at the bottom of the invoice - $11,374.38). He got the machine in February and tasked me to help him set it up. After months of dicking around with it, levelling the bed, using different slicers, trying all kinds of different models, nothing would print properly past the first ~5 layers. Dealing with tech support gave us files that printed absolutely beautifully, but no help getting our stuff to print.[0] After this experience I threw 3D printing to the back of my mind and didn't think about it again until last year...
When I bought an Ender 3 V2 around November. $250 at my door, an hour to put it together, another hour of tuning everything in, and I can count on one hand the number of non-user-error-related failed prints. With software packages like Octoprint and hardware mods like the BLTouch, I will argue that my 3D printer is significantly more reliable than any inkjet or laser print I've encountered.
[0]: That shop teacher retired the same year I graduated, so the printer got moved to the media/broadcasting room. As far as I've heard, that printer was put into permanent storage around 2015 because nobody else could get it working properly.
I’ve owned a 3D printer for 11 years. I found myself cured of the desire to print doodads pretty quickly, because they just become “stuff” lying around your house. While it’s cool to see the printer produce some of these things, I feel a bit like I’m burdening myself with trying to figure out how to deal with this in the future.
I’ve found that the most useful stuff to print is not random items I find online, but things I model on my own. Most recently this was a series of mounts for the electronics for my Halloween display. 3/4 were my work, the last was a repurposed raspi mount. My favorite thing about the work was that I was solving a problem unique to me. It was a one-off, just-in-time solution.
Yep, designing and printing ones own designs is great fun. Unfortunately few folks know how to use CAD. I was lucky enough to learn in high school.
Most of my designs aren’t glamorous, mostly functional items like mounts, standoffs, etc. I did print a ergo keyboard I designed (a la dactyl) but it turns out I suck at ergo design.
Probably haven’t gotten my money’s worth for the printer, but realizing relatively simple designs can be gratifying. Designing for print-ability with minimal supports is a fun challenge.
Good list! Couple thoughts - if you are using some of these items with kids (the replacement part example) it's worth considering the types and materials of the filament you are using. Some are safer than others, depending on the application. If you are using for food storage, there are ways to take otherwise unsafe materials and make them safer for storing edible/consumable materials.
If there is something out there you need, I'd recommend searching Thingiverse, Prusa, and Thangs.com as they all have large libraries of free 3D printable objects.
Disclaimer: I'm the CTO at Thangs.com and also a bit of a 3D printing nerd ;-)
My advice for people contemplating 3D printing is similar to software dev: if you can buy exactly what you want off the shelf, you should do that. If it has to be custom, consider what parts could come off the shelf or if it all has to be custom.
I’ve printed many usable and useful things around the house and with the kids. It’s been incredibly fun and even educational, but I generally don’t do it for things that you can pretty easily buy.
I finally convinced myself to buy an Ender 3 when I found out my broken stove knobs would cost $400 to replace. I tried Amazon fakes but none worked. Once I got the printer I designed and replaced the knob backs. Printer paid for itself in one job. I use it for all kinds of projects around the house. Vacuum attachment tools, plastic washers and shims, electronic stands, and so much more. They are extremely useful tools. I have no problems with adjustments or build plates, either because I’m lucky, not too picky, or because I mostly leave it alone instead of tinkering all the time.
I got a 3D printer earlier this year for no other reason that it was on sale. I cannot even begin to describe how much fun I've been having with it. Funny enough, I've had to print some of the things on the list. I have a pile of ~10 keyboard legs right next to me on the shelf, they often take a hit when I'm angry at something.
I'd love to print storage items with LEGO connectors and technic pin holes. E.g. a battery storage for AA/AAA . You'd be able to stack and expand them in any way you like.
Putting your own printed parts beside LEGO is a great way to see just how high quality LEGO really are :)
The key thing for me in making lego that snapped was accounting for shrinkage in my prints; i just guessed and gollied a factor on a few parts, but those worked where others hadn't.
You can print infinite Legos. It'll just take a high quality printer (e.g. a Prusa MK3s) and a bunch of test prints to get the tolerances right.
Now that I've got my settings for Legos dialed in I add Lego nubs to all sorts of things so you can attach regular Legos to them.
For example, I've printed a great many magnetic pins for my son's robotics team to give away as swag at competitions. They all had Lego nubs around the perimeter so the kids could attach Minifigures and other Lego parts to the pins.
Precise it is. But the hard part with any manufacturing method is tolerance or expanding/shrinking material. When you 3d print 10.85mm long bar it might actually end up as 10.88 depending on material and denseness of the print. Printing compatible Lego parts is possible, but requires some trial and error to get things right.
We recently took out my old Crossbows and Catapults set, so my kids can play with it. Unfortunately, only one of the crossbows is still functional, as the plunger on all the others broke. I'd love to be able to 3D print new plungers so that we can use them again. When I checked on ebay, these games were going for hundreds of dollars (though spare parts can probably be scrounged up for much less).
For the first one I'd recommend doing it without the printer using thick wire and a plastic dip. It will be significantly stronger and (as a result) have much fewer design constraints.
3D printer + minor woodworking + paint/sealant knowledge just kills when it comes to diy. Though I would recommend usinh a 3D printing service, maintaining a prnter can be pot luck with respect to time consumption, and services offer way more choice.
Like one of the commenters below, I recommend using a service for 3D printing. The reasoning is that for a couple of bucks (for a 4cm x 4cm x 4cm / 2"x2"x2" part), the print quality will be _much_ better than anything you can reasonably make at home. I've been able to print sub-millimeter-thickness gaskets for example. The bigger parts I make look like they're injection-molded (no layer marks, etc). Plus, I get a huge variety of materials (like metals, silicone, ceramics). I personally have used https://craftcloud3d.com/ (finds the cheapest pricing across a multitude of vendors and materials) and https://www.jawstec.com/ (one of the vendors that pops up often on craftcloud for MJF). Not affiliated with them in any way, just a very happy customer.
While 3d printing is great a few notes from my experience.
1. 3d printers are not very good for high dimensional accuracy.
2. A set of reamers is very helpful for dimensioning holes. Works much better than standard drill bits.
3. I find the smell and fragility of SLA material so problematic I never use my SLA printer.
4. Larger nozzle size/layer height has a HUGE impact on print time at the cost of resolution.
5. Since I also do CNC and need CAM investing in learning fusion360 was well worth it. I can design and print pretty quickly now.
6. If you don't like to tinker get a printer that has auto bed leveling.
7. Klipper is very worth investing in
8. Since your board mosfet can fail closed you need to be around and monitor your printer. Most systems have thermal runaway protection but if a mosfet fails closed fire is possible.
There's a lot of things I'd like to print, but there's also a lot of things I'd like to build in wood or metal too, and frequently it isn't the printing that takes the time, but the designing.
I have never printed a Benchy or whatever that cartoonish boat is called. I've printed a dimensional cube about three times, twice to prove to the various makerspaces I am a member of that I know how to do 3D printing before I can use their machines and once just to verify that my printer was accurate.
I rarely download and print STLs as they are. I usually tweak the model or completely rebuild it before printing.
Some things I have printed in my life:
A food-grade plastic insert that sits inside of the Rubbermaid cereal storage containers that captures all the small broken bits of cereal and the cereal dust and prevents it ending up in your cereal bowl.
A drive cage for my workstation because it wouldn't fit due to PSU size. Learned how to create snap fit tabs. Also improved on the original cage design to handle 2.5" SSDs with extra cooling fans.
A snap fit cupola with fans to permit extra tall Noctua CPU coolers to fit in a 4U rackmount case.
Drawer insert trays to go in a library card catalogue drawer to prevent things from falling through.
Cubby hole insert trays to go in an antique postal center (one of those classic parisian style ones with lots of little doors).
Custom sized drawer organizers for the two "junk drawers" that every house seems to accumulate.
Wall attached battery holders so that the rechargeable AA and AAA batteries that are in the queue to be charged are kept organized.
A custom box to hold all the Munchkin cards and cards for other card games.
A custom box to hold all the Munchkin Quest parts and cards. Plus some little figurines to represent the Munchkin Quest monsters.
And a half-dozen other "useful" items around the home.
I've gotta say, the convenience of having the printer is great, but the amortized cost of each print is about $700 at this time.
I love 3d printing, but I really desire to have the ability to print metals. As a simple dij solution not feasible at this point. I really wish to print replacement parts for my old exotic cars. Bearings, wishbones etc
Suspension parts may be a bit much, but I've had good success with smaller parts for my race bike. Like brackets for a CO2 regulator that would have been difficult in metal due to angles necessitated by the curve of the fender. http://www.daves-speedshop.com/CO2brackets.php Making my own velocity stacks for the throttle bodies allowed me to add mounts for a sensor and the airbox tray. http://www.daves-speedshop.com/graphics/FT550/sparkPro2.jpg I couldn't make those out of metal without a full CNC mill.
Would 3d printing work there? Isn't there a whole bunch of crystallization hoo-ha around metals and how they are made to make sure they can handle high stresses? e.g. knives being folded many times; rotor blades in jet engines grown from a single piece.
Yeah, I'm a wargamer and bought an Anycubic Photon Mono X with a Wash and Cure Station four weeks ago to strengthen my addiction to shiny unpainted toy soldiers...
I even ordered a second printer yesterday.
And don't talk to me about Blender and the like.
I'm thinking about getting a Wacom Intuos pro.
I'm done, I can't get the monkey off my back.
I see it coming, hundreds of printed miniatures stacked in boxes, unpainted.
Some of them probably designed by myself in the foreseeable future.
So maybe I should make the best of it and sell them as a side/hobby business...
[+] [-] jimnotgym|4 years ago|reply
I bought a printer for my kids this year. An Anycubic Mega Zero with a magnetic base.
It stays pretty calibrated but I have struggled with base adhesion once a few prints have been through it. IPA and abrasives have not fixed it...maybe I will get around to some other things...there have been a few random failures, but not many.
We printed a few novelties items that came out OK. The real learning curve is about the options in the slicer, the trade off between printing time and accuracy etc.
At some stage my kids printed some toy guns. Apparently one of those toys looked real to the phone engineer, the only person who had been in my house over lockdown. Later there was a knock on my door whereupon 4 police officers arrested me and began to search my house for 'section 1 prohibited firearms'. Just as officer 1 finished telling me this, the plastic gun was found. Officer 1 proceeded to give me a ticking off about the dangers of realistic models...while officers 2-4 marvelled at the 3d printer, much to the annoyance of officer 1. Officer 2 asked me if I had tried realistic finishing like with rub n buff, and got chatting about Adam Savage. I had to get a steam punk top hat I made with foam to demonstrate rub n buff to the others. This annoyed Officer 1 enough that he decided it was time to go! I am not quite sure whether I find the episode funny or not. It was pretty scary to begin with.
I actually haven't found anything I wanted to print for a while. I make a lot of things but 3d printing is not always the best tool for the job.
[+] [-] tristor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ravenstine|4 years ago|reply
3D printers really aren't good toys in and of themselves. They're fun for a little while and then you realize you don't need that many plastic doodads. But mine's been very useful for certain projects where I need to build custom parts. People sometimes forget that these printers are just tools like anything else. Fortunately they've become so cheap that it's not really that much of an expense to find that out for one's self.
EDIT: Seriously, anyone with adhesion problems should get a PEI plate. I have had nothing but success with mine and I don't know why these printers don't just come with them in the first place.
[+] [-] dTal|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] bittercynic|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] davrosthedalek|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] throwaway2077|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wlll|4 years ago|reply
Try using a heated bed and enclosing the printer in a chamber to prevent draughts (anything will do, cardboard).
A heated bed and IPA work for me.
[+] [-] dekhn|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kingcharles|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sydd|4 years ago|reply
FDM printers: They use a spool of plastic as filament which is heated and layed down layer by layer in a small string, are the cheapest, safest, have a large print volume. On the downside they often break down (e.g. the filament gets jammed) and have a coarse resolution (the smallest details are around 0.1mm). Most popular ones are the Ender series from Creality and Prusa printes. Prices are from $150, filament is from $17/kg.
SLA printers: They use a liquid (called resin) the hardens (cures) under UV light, they print a whole layer at once. They are capable of printing super fine details, are less prone to breakdown (they just have 1 motor vs 4 or more in FDM). On the downside the resin they use is a very toxic material, you need to vent its air outside and always use protective gear. Also the print needs to be washed and cured after printing and they have a smaller build volume (iPad mini/iPad screen size) than FDM. You can get one from $250. Check out r/PrintedMinis on Reddit to see what they are capable of.
I suggest getting a FDM printer as the first one unless you really need the fine details, e.g. for printing miniature figures.
[+] [-] FractalParadigm|4 years ago|reply
This seriously cannot be understated enough. When I was in my final year of high school (2012) my shop teacher was the first person in the entire school board to get a 3D printer, one of the cheapest machines on the market (I can't remember the brand, or the name, only the number at the bottom of the invoice - $11,374.38). He got the machine in February and tasked me to help him set it up. After months of dicking around with it, levelling the bed, using different slicers, trying all kinds of different models, nothing would print properly past the first ~5 layers. Dealing with tech support gave us files that printed absolutely beautifully, but no help getting our stuff to print.[0] After this experience I threw 3D printing to the back of my mind and didn't think about it again until last year...
When I bought an Ender 3 V2 around November. $250 at my door, an hour to put it together, another hour of tuning everything in, and I can count on one hand the number of non-user-error-related failed prints. With software packages like Octoprint and hardware mods like the BLTouch, I will argue that my 3D printer is significantly more reliable than any inkjet or laser print I've encountered.
[0]: That shop teacher retired the same year I graduated, so the printer got moved to the media/broadcasting room. As far as I've heard, that printer was put into permanent storage around 2015 because nobody else could get it working properly.
[+] [-] huhtenberg|4 years ago|reply
Woah. That's way better that I would've expected.
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] sircastor|4 years ago|reply
I’ve found that the most useful stuff to print is not random items I find online, but things I model on my own. Most recently this was a series of mounts for the electronics for my Halloween display. 3/4 were my work, the last was a repurposed raspi mount. My favorite thing about the work was that I was solving a problem unique to me. It was a one-off, just-in-time solution.
[+] [-] jackyinger|4 years ago|reply
Most of my designs aren’t glamorous, mostly functional items like mounts, standoffs, etc. I did print a ergo keyboard I designed (a la dactyl) but it turns out I suck at ergo design.
Probably haven’t gotten my money’s worth for the printer, but realizing relatively simple designs can be gratifying. Designing for print-ability with minimal supports is a fun challenge.
[+] [-] demeyer1|4 years ago|reply
If there is something out there you need, I'd recommend searching Thingiverse, Prusa, and Thangs.com as they all have large libraries of free 3D printable objects.
Disclaimer: I'm the CTO at Thangs.com and also a bit of a 3D printing nerd ;-)
[+] [-] _def|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] djmips|4 years ago|reply
Thanks from the bottom of my heart.
[+] [-] SSilver2k2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sokoloff|4 years ago|reply
I’ve printed many usable and useful things around the house and with the kids. It’s been incredibly fun and even educational, but I generally don’t do it for things that you can pretty easily buy.
[+] [-] sircastor|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] codazoda|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] axegon_|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] _Microft|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hyperman1|4 years ago|reply
Anyway, the 3D printer is coming any day now.
[+] [-] h2odragon|4 years ago|reply
The key thing for me in making lego that snapped was accounting for shrinkage in my prints; i just guessed and gollied a factor on a few parts, but those worked where others hadn't.
[+] [-] cjv|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] riskable|4 years ago|reply
Now that I've got my settings for Legos dialed in I add Lego nubs to all sorts of things so you can attach regular Legos to them.
For example, I've printed a great many magnetic pins for my son's robotics team to give away as swag at competitions. They all had Lego nubs around the perimeter so the kids could attach Minifigures and other Lego parts to the pins.
[+] [-] holoduke|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] theshrike79|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gnicholas|4 years ago|reply
We recently took out my old Crossbows and Catapults set, so my kids can play with it. Unfortunately, only one of the crossbows is still functional, as the plunger on all the others broke. I'd love to be able to 3D print new plungers so that we can use them again. When I checked on ebay, these games were going for hundreds of dollars (though spare parts can probably be scrounged up for much less).
[+] [-] Normal_gaussian|4 years ago|reply
3D printer + minor woodworking + paint/sealant knowledge just kills when it comes to diy. Though I would recommend usinh a 3D printing service, maintaining a prnter can be pot luck with respect to time consumption, and services offer way more choice.
[+] [-] jrootabega|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Scene_Cast2|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] greenail|4 years ago|reply
1. 3d printers are not very good for high dimensional accuracy. 2. A set of reamers is very helpful for dimensioning holes. Works much better than standard drill bits. 3. I find the smell and fragility of SLA material so problematic I never use my SLA printer. 4. Larger nozzle size/layer height has a HUGE impact on print time at the cost of resolution. 5. Since I also do CNC and need CAM investing in learning fusion360 was well worth it. I can design and print pretty quickly now. 6. If you don't like to tinker get a printer that has auto bed leveling. 7. Klipper is very worth investing in 8. Since your board mosfet can fail closed you need to be around and monitor your printer. Most systems have thermal runaway protection but if a mosfet fails closed fire is possible.
[+] [-] justinlloyd|4 years ago|reply
I have never printed a Benchy or whatever that cartoonish boat is called. I've printed a dimensional cube about three times, twice to prove to the various makerspaces I am a member of that I know how to do 3D printing before I can use their machines and once just to verify that my printer was accurate.
I rarely download and print STLs as they are. I usually tweak the model or completely rebuild it before printing.
Some things I have printed in my life: A food-grade plastic insert that sits inside of the Rubbermaid cereal storage containers that captures all the small broken bits of cereal and the cereal dust and prevents it ending up in your cereal bowl.
A drive cage for my workstation because it wouldn't fit due to PSU size. Learned how to create snap fit tabs. Also improved on the original cage design to handle 2.5" SSDs with extra cooling fans.
A snap fit cupola with fans to permit extra tall Noctua CPU coolers to fit in a 4U rackmount case.
Drawer insert trays to go in a library card catalogue drawer to prevent things from falling through.
Cubby hole insert trays to go in an antique postal center (one of those classic parisian style ones with lots of little doors).
Custom sized drawer organizers for the two "junk drawers" that every house seems to accumulate.
Wall attached battery holders so that the rechargeable AA and AAA batteries that are in the queue to be charged are kept organized.
A custom box to hold all the Munchkin cards and cards for other card games.
A custom box to hold all the Munchkin Quest parts and cards. Plus some little figurines to represent the Munchkin Quest monsters.
And a half-dozen other "useful" items around the home.
I've gotta say, the convenience of having the printer is great, but the amortized cost of each print is about $700 at this time.
[+] [-] Zensynthium|4 years ago|reply
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_t-3lCZXlPM
[+] [-] holoduke|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dave4270|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] fnord123|4 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Borrible|4 years ago|reply
And don't talk to me about Blender and the like. I'm thinking about getting a Wacom Intuos pro.
I'm done, I can't get the monkey off my back. I see it coming, hundreds of printed miniatures stacked in boxes, unpainted. Some of them probably designed by myself in the foreseeable future.
So maybe I should make the best of it and sell them as a side/hobby business...
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] unknown|4 years ago|reply
[deleted]