How many of you have 3d printers?

Posted by: @robotbuilder

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Would love to be able to justify and afford a 3d printer

Hi @robotbuilder,

Yeah, it took me a long time to finally justify buying one.  

They are great for prototyping though.  If some design doesn’t work out then I can try something else in just a few hours.

Tom

@thrandell

I have a prusa and I usually print with PETG filament and I don't notice any fumes.  Could just be that I have an insensitive snout, but no complaints from the missus on any printer pong. 😎

@robotbuilder I agree with Ron, filament is going to be your biggest expense. I have tried to use the recycling of bottles but that is a lot of work for not much filament. If money is not problem a 3D printer is the best thing since Coke. I love mine and have built one from scratch. Also not a good idea. It would have been cheaper to buy one than to built it if you take the time and material into consideration.

I have a couple of them at work.  The latest is a Stratasys F170.  I use them to build adapters and jigs for our team.  I started with a Makerbot 5th Gen, which had several issues with regard to their programming, we bought the service contract, and we (both us an Makerbot) got our money's worth out of it. 

I have a Creality Ender 3 V2     Opens up a whole new world as far as the mechanical design of my projects.

Much better than hacking and whacking with a hand saw or jig saw. My first project was a small pen plotter.

I have access to a 3D printer. It's not mine, but it lives in my house. It's a Tevo Tarantula Pro. There's plenty of information on how to build it but very little about how to actually use it. One of these days, I'm gonna have to man up, and just turn the bloody thing on. If anyone has any pointers, I'd be really grateful. I guess they all work in pretty much the same way, and I believe the screen is similar to the Creality Ender 3. Am I likely to do any damage if I follow instructions for that machine?

Hi @mike-parsons,

   The name of your printer is rather scary 🤫 , but a glance at a photo from Google suggested it is going to be roughly similar to a Creality Ender 3, and shouldn't give you too many painful bites....I hope.

To get started, I used 'toptechboy' AKA Paul McWhorter's introductory YouTube series

It starts with an Ender 3 V2, straight out of the cardboard box, shows the assembly, plus the installation of the free version of Fusion360, and then proceeds to show how to design some basic objects in Fusion360, slice them with Cura, and print them.

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It will not teach you everything you need to know, but hopefully it will be a good introduction. Paul's style is intentionally slow and repetitive, but thorough, so find a comfy chair and give it a try. Obviously you have a different printer, so there will be a few places that you will have to adapt what is being said.

I only have 1 printer, so I can't give an overview of all the differences you might see, between your printer, and Paul's, but the most obvious place where different models can require different procedures is in 'levelling' the bed. The distance between the bed (the plate that the plastic is 'squirted' onto) and the nozzle is critical to small fractions of a millimetre, especially for the first layer. Some printers have a means of measuring it, (bed levelling), whilst others rely on the user carefully adjusting with a sheet of a paper as a feeler gauge. In Paul's video, he shows the sheet of paper method, which is a good introduction, but depending on your printer, you may have to do something different. If you fast forward to Lesson 26, he shows upgrading his printer to partially automate the process. (Sorry, I am not clear what levelling support is fitted to yours.)

And yes, you will have to switch it on ... you shouldn't do any damage, but I can't make any absolute guarantees. Maybe watch the first 3-4 videos before tempting fate? BTW, I suggest you persevere with watching the assembly video (Lesson 2), even though it is of limited obvious direct benefit, because you might begin to understand the general mechanism better.

Good luck. There is a lot to learn at the beginning, but it can be worthwhile, and even a little addictive. If there is something you are not clear on, maybe start a new thread, with a question, as there are several 3D printer owners 'lurking' on the forum, who maybe able to help.

Best wishes, Dave

@davee  Thank you Dave. I see you ( and a few notable others) on this site almost daily, and I'm in awe of your generosity, and willingness to help people out. Thank you for that. To be honest, most of what little I know about microcontrollers, I've learned from Paul McWhorter and this site. His slow and detailed delivery suits my slow personality. In fact, I started his course on Fusion 360, a few months ago, and foolishly skipped the assembly chapter as mine's already assembled. I'll remedy that very soon. Sadly, Fusion 360 and my old computer didn't really hit it off, as it seemed to drag my computer down to a near standstill, so I switched to FreeCad. I found someone called the Hardware Guy who does some pretty good tutorials. I had two separate attempts at his tutorials, and I'm not sure why, but on both occasions, I never got as far as turning on the printer. I hear what you're saying about it being addictive. Another side of my nature is that I do  get addicted to stuff, (not bad stuff) and I don't know if I'll be allowed to have another hobby. I'm currently trying to get my head around PlatformIO, (not to mention Arduino and Thonny). I think you're absolutely right, it will be well worth the effort if I get to grips with 3D printing, so maybe I'll just step back from the other stuff for a while and give it my full attention.

Right in the middle of gardening season too. 🤣 

Thanks again for your time.

Hi @mike-parsons,

   Thanks for your kind reply. I can appreciate your situation, and my comments below will probably also be things you already know, but maybe something might be helpful. I have briefly looked FreeCad and others, but not actually built a design and printed it ... that is on my infinitely long to-do list...

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 I would have to agree that Fusion360 appears to be very 'computer hungry'. As part of my start of retirement, I put together a 'workstation' style PC, based on an early-ish I7 processor, graphics card and motherboard, that I was given, to which I added 32Gb memory, 1Tb SSD etc.

[ My build preceded Bill (@dronebot-workshop)'s excellent video+blog on the subject, and mine is not Windows 11 compatible, due to the processor and motherboard being too old, but the general approach was very similar, should you contemplate an upgrade in the future, and be looking for an idea of where to start.

https://dronebotworkshop.com/dual-boot/ ]

Whilst most programmes are near instant on this box, Fusion360 is usable, but 'leisurely' in some aspects, like rotating the image.

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I haven't used it, but another YouTube guy I keep a look at, albeit more for 5 minute tips, than long tutorials is Chep's Filament Friday, who has done some short demonstrations of how to use TinkerCad, suggesting it is actually quite powerful, in spite of, or perhaps because of, it being aimed at the school age market.

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https://www.tinkercad.com/

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https://www.youtube.com/@FilamentFriday  

I don't have a list of specific appropriate videos from Chep, but maybe start with

Clearly it doesn't pretend to be a Fusion360, but they both come from AutoCad, so if you have a login for Fusion360 (probably email + password), then you already have an account for TinkerCad as well. TinkerCad is a web based program, so no download or reliance on high-end graphics card, and it seems to function on the elderly laptop I am typing this reply. It offered STL output, which should paste into Cura for slicing, the same as from Fusion360.

So, sorry, I can't give an honest opinion on its use, but it looks promising, and you should be able to try it to enter a trivial design in a few minutes, without paying any money, so that you can make up your own mind.

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As an alternate, or maybe as well as, to get your printer actually printing something, download a simple design, maybe something like a test cube, from somewhere like Thingiverse, and then follow the appropriate Paul's tutorial, from just after he exports the STL design, prior to pasting it into Cura, and prints it. Try Lesson 9, from about 28 minutes in, onwards.

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I don't know where you live, but if it is a fair way north of the equator, I can imagine you might want to do the gardening at the moment, so maybe make it a 'priority' when the days get shorter, and colder!

Best wishes, Dave

@davee Thanks Dave, for your excellent input again. I think I'm just going to have to step away from the microcontrollers for a few weeks (or however long it takes), and put some effort into getting to know this machine and some Cad package or other. I checked out Chep's Filament Friday and he seems to offer a lot of good information. I'll check out TinkerCad too, I've seen quite a few people who use it in their projects. I'm not looking to become a design wizard, but there are so many occasions where it would just be so handy to print out a part, both for projects and other stuff around the house. As it happens, I did download a file from Thingiverse for a project case some time ago, but for some odd reason, I never went any further. If I manage to print it out, I'm gonna have to come  up with a project to fit the damned thing 😊. 

I've been promising myself a new computer for a few years now, but I think I'll just buy one off the shelf. I have often thought about building one, but at this point in my life, it's a rabbit hole I'm just not prepared to jump down.

I live in the far North of Scotland (don't mention the football), so it's been quite a while since I needed to type the word 'equator'. At this time of year, we hardly see any darkness, but obviously, the Winters can be a bit dull. Either way, I tend to confine my electronics to the evenings as, like yourself, I have a never ending and ever increasing to do list, and it's generally not me that keeps adding stuff to the list. If I ever manage to get my head around this 3D printing, rest assured I'll be back here boasting about it.

Once again, thanks for all your efforts.

All the best

Mike

Hi Mike @mike-parsons,

  Thanks for another kind reply. I had a feeling you might be in some part of the UK ... I live near Gloucester, a  "few" miles south of you. 

I am certainly not a mechanical engineer either, but I thought it would come in handy for making a plastic box or similar, but I have used if for a few other things as well.

I won't mention football, because I have never had the slightest interest in it.

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If you do think about buying a 'workstation' or 'desktop' computer, depending on your background, you might still find watching Bill's video on building one informative background material. The cheaper ones typically come with skimpy amounts of memory and 'drive' (used you to be a disc drive, but now solid state drive SSD), which tends to be bad news for CAD programmes ... but if you make sure it comes with an upgradeable motherboard, etc., you have the opportunity of plugging some more in later, if it starts struggling. It is basically just a screwdriver and clip job, once you have made sure you have bought the right parts. (it's actually pretty easy to build a pc, but like most things, you can get caught on a hitch, which could be tricky to fix, so I completely understand why you might buy a ready-built one.)

Of course, laptops are a bit more tricky, but the same story often applies, albeit you might need a YouTube to figure out, how to get into it! I only buy a one every few years, but before ordering, I check out a video that shows how to upgrade it, and also find out what memory and SSD upgrades are possible.

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If you still have the Thingiverse case, then that might be a good starting point. You should be able to use the reference of moving from Fusion360 to Cura in Paul's video I wrote earlier, which will be the same process, except your STL file will be from Thingiverse.

Actually, for the 'very first' print, I suggest printing something very much simpler ... say a 2 x 2 cm square, 1 mm thick. The most likely time things will go wrong (on smaller jobs) is printing the first layer, which initially, I suggest you do with a finger near to the main power button. As I mentioned before, the height of the nozzle above the bed is critical, especially for the first layer, and having it too close, and even hitting/scraping the bed, or too high ... possibly by a cm or more, so it prints 'spaghetti' into air, are far from unknown possibilities. It should only take a few minutes to print a 'postage stamp' sized patch, and if it does that ok, then you have a good foundation for a more interesting shape.

Good luck and best wishes, Dave

@mike-parsons Don't feel bad, I have tried to follow Bill's instructions for installing PlatformIO but they must have changed something, I can't get past step one.

Yes you will need a fair amount of horsepower for Fusion 360, but Win11 pc's are dirt cheap, I just got a new machine after I 'broke' my other for less money than my scope.

My health prevents me from spending the amount of time needed to master CAD so that the printer becomes useful. My printer sadly has not even been turned on now for a few months and everything I tried to make other than a calibration cube has been junk. There are a few people on the forum that use it a lot and produce good work, most do not. It is something that takes many hours of practice.

All that is to say you are not alone, try to find a local maker club, that will likely helkp a lot. I live in the middle of nowhere so no clubs.

Good luck.

@zander Thanks Ron. My biggest problem is that I watch far too many of Bill's damned videos, and now my head is full of stuff that I only half understand. I recently bought an ESP 32 Cam, as per one of his videos, and I quite fancy a Seeeduino Xiao, as per another video. PlatformIO ,as per yet another video,  seemed like a promising prospect, keeping all projects under one hood, and all in one language. (All this, even though I'm only half way through Paul McWhorter's series on the Pico w, using microPython.) In all fairness, Bill did warn us that it was a much steeper learning curve than the Arduino IDE. Once I discovered where the code went, after a second or third watch, I've been getting on ok, but it's been quite a journey to get to a place where I can now do what I could already do with the Arduino IDE. My hope is that one day, I'll be good enough to take advantage of some of its more advanced features.

Thanks to some excellent encouragement and help from @davee, I've now turned my attention to tinkercad, in an effort to get to grips with 3D printing. As I explained to Dave, I don't want 3D printing to become a hobby, but I accept that I'm going to have to put in the work in order to learn how to drive it, so that's my current mission.

I really must get my act together and get a new computer before this one breaks, as the transfer will be a lot easier from a working machine. I'm just really slow at getting round to stuff. My wife's been waiting for over twenty years for a new carpet in the hallway. At that rate, I should have my new computer well in time for Windows 28!

Finally, thanks for all the work that you do on this site, just  to help people out, and I hope your health improves soon

All the best, Mike

@mike-parsons This is not what PlatformIO is all about

PlatformIO ,as per yet another video,  seemed like a promising prospect, keeping all projects under one hood, and all in one language.

Quite the contrary, you can have different languages, and as the name says different target platforms. That's cool, but I don't see a use for any of that as yet personally. The only reason I might want it is for debugging. Coming from a life as a professional programmer, these various IDE's offer very little in debugging ability BUT until I can get PlatformIO and VSCode properly installed I don't really know how good they are.

Get yourself a decent computer first. With good virtualization tools, it will be able to also run Linux or Raspbian OS. If you are also interested in Raspberry Pi, I would wait for the anticipated Pi 500.

I think you said you were from Alberta, if so I will be happy to help you find a decent PC at a decent price. Let me know.

Ron

@zander I think I may have led this discussion off topic, in which case, my apologies to the originator. I don't know how to shunt this elsewhere, and anyway, I don't think my ramblings warrant a separate topic. I think you may well be overestimating my abilities. At this stage in my development, one platform for many microcontrollers is far more appealing than having to investigate and learn new platforms.

Many years ago, I dabbled with VB6 for a few years. At the time, I felt it was frowned upon by real programmers, but it gave me the ability to write a pretty comprehensive record-keeping and invoicing program for my little gardening business, which served me well until quite recently. One of the great features, for me at least, was that you could run your code one line at a time with real time values for variables. I do find it frustrating in Arduino, having to write extra code snippets, just to display variable values to the serial monitor. I'm not sure if that is the kind of debugging you're talking about, or something way more advanced and beyond my comprehension. I get the impression that this feature is available in VS Code, but I haven't been able to make it work as yet. I'll just keep plugging away.

Thanks for your offer of help with a new computer. I actually live in the Highlands of Scotland, not Alberta. We've obviously had some crossing of wires at some point along the way.

Yet again, many thanks for your input, it's always much appreciated.

Mike