Can Has 3D Printer
Chris Ellerby
Admin
in Fabrication
After nearly a decade following 3D printing technologies I finally pulled the trigger and ordered a printer for my shop.
I did not make this decision lightly, and did a lot of research before finally settling on the Ultimaker 2 Extended+. I was going to wait for the Lulzbot Taz 6 to come out (as I'm a fan of its hackable nature and large print volume) but it's still a few months away and the Ultimaker 2+ series can print slightly higher quality.
Having my own printer will greatly increase my productivity, as I will no longer have to rely entirely on the printers at my local makerspace for all my projects. While I'm grateful to have access to printers at my makerspace, it will be nice to setup prints at night and be able to see them in the morning, and start a new print in the morning for when I get home from work, rather than having to drive to a shop where I can only manage a couple prints a week.
If you need me I'll be waiting by the front door for the next week.
/Chris
I did not make this decision lightly, and did a lot of research before finally settling on the Ultimaker 2 Extended+. I was going to wait for the Lulzbot Taz 6 to come out (as I'm a fan of its hackable nature and large print volume) but it's still a few months away and the Ultimaker 2+ series can print slightly higher quality.
Having my own printer will greatly increase my productivity, as I will no longer have to rely entirely on the printers at my local makerspace for all my projects. While I'm grateful to have access to printers at my makerspace, it will be nice to setup prints at night and be able to see them in the morning, and start a new print in the morning for when I get home from work, rather than having to drive to a shop where I can only manage a couple prints a week.
If you need me I'll be waiting by the front door for the next week.
/Chris
2
Comments
Hope you have many hours of fun with it!
Have you heard of NinjaFlex? I really want to have a play with some of that.
I thought about building a printer, but they can be so finicky and require hundreds of hours of tweaking and adjusting to get them to print well. Many of the pre-built printers on the market now are much more reliable than kits, and print at higher quality, so that's what I went with.
That second video is by James Burton who uses Lulzbot printers, which I've heard a lot of good things about. If the Taz 6 were on the market now I would have likely gone that route. Maybe that'll be my second printer.
/Chris
Here is a video of the first print, which turned out perfect:
And here is a shot of the printer all snug in its new home:
I'm feeling rather brave today, so since the first test print turned out great I'm diving right into a 7 hour print. Wish me luck!
/Chris
So I redid that 7 hour print, followed by an 8 hour print, then a 4 hour print and a 11 hour print. Just started a 5 hour print.
Here's everything I've printed so far:
This is a bottle prop from the game Fallout 4, and 2 parts of the mother mold for the bottom half of the bottle. I'm printing the 3rd mold piece now, and then I'll start printing the mold pieces for the top half of the bottle.
You can follow progress on that project here on the forums on this thread.
I am really impressed that out of all these prints so far I've not had any real issues. Super glad I decided to go with the Ultimaker.
/Chris
However I am not sure I have time to learn a CAD package and the skills of 3D rendering.
Just don't want it to become an expensive toy gathering dust because I don;t have the skills to use it properly.
Dave
CAD design can be a massive can of worms to dive into (oh mixed metaphors), but there is a lot of great free software and tutorials out there to get you started. I'm a big fan of OnShape, which is free and they have a good set of video tutorials that helped get me started.
CAD is an extremely useful skill to hone these days. 3D printers, CNC machines, and laser cutters are all becoming more affordable and accessible, and they give the artist a massive amount of power.
Just having access to a 3D printer and some basic CAD skills also lets you solve all kinds of other challenges. For example, I live stream a lot of the build nights in my shop, and to do so I use a MacMini. I recently moved it to the top shelf of my workbench to help it get better WiFI signal, cool better, and keep it away from dust. The problem is the top shelf is basically a trough so it would sit down inside the metal walls which trap heat and block WiFi. For now I've raised it up by propping it on some random objects, but yesterday I designed a new stand to raise it up that I will 3D print tonight.
I also did something similar to create a wood keyboard stand for my workbench drawer using a laser cutter. It only took me around 2-3 hours from CAD to laser cutting to finished piece, and most of that was waiting for glue to dry.
Basic CAD is easier than you might think, and if you ever have any questions I'm happy to answer them. I'm fortunate enough to have mechanical engineers from places like Space-X and Hyper Loop on hand to teach me this stuff. I'm always down to share what I can, and could even do a live stream covering basic CAD on my twitch channel.
/Chris
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/tutorials/how-to-make-an-eye-mechanism-design-3d-printing-assembly
I tend to be more the Organic Mechanics where I will do a lot of hands on and only then look to CAD for mass production.
On the other hand it means that I can whip things up pretty fast is I need to just by tinkering in my workshop..
Many thanks
Dave
This printer is not getting much down time!
/Chris