What did you 3D print today?

I'll add perspective from someone who jumped into it a month ago and is absolutely no expert by any means.

The real question is, are you willing to dedicate some time to pick up a new hobby? I read somewhere that if you want to be successful at 3d printing, you have to take on the attitude that the act of printing is your hobby, not the end product itself.

I picked up a "beginner friendly" filament printer (which is to say, it wasn't the most expensive printer, but it wasn't the cheapest either). And I've gotten some prints out-of-the-box that I was happy with. Plus, you know, some prints that were spectacular failures. My most frustrating bit is that for some reason my camera really likes exaggerating the layer lines when I go to post them. They're there, they're just not as obvious to the in person eye.

These are two recent examples. The van probably exhibits every possible mistake one could make, but I love it anyway. The wood beercan coozie is a little more realistic on the resolution that I'm getting as a beginner, on a standard 0.4mm nozzle. I could swap to a finer nozzle to smooth out those layers, but as was said before, it's never going to match resin quality.




Real answer, pick one up if you have free time to spare. It's fun as a hobby, and so far, it's been entertaining to learn. But if you don't have the time or desire to dedicate hobby-level commitment to it, find a friend and trade them beer for prints.

 

Bitching pieces!

I'm sure it'd be super easy and quick to learn, that doesn't concern me.

My concerns were more about strength of said print, size of print job, and limitations (in quality) on a more budget friendly setup.

But I could go on easily without ever buying one. Thought it could be a nice tool to add to the arsenal where I'd need to model a mock up of an assembly before committing to cutting it out of metal for welding.

 

Prototyping with these things is awesome

 

Been building all week. I just now started hanging plexiglass.






Finding a place for the filament sensor has been a challenge. I'm not sure I like this setup. It gets chattery on even medium sized prints. I'm thinking of making a recessed can so that the sensor mount sits halfway up into the ceiling, then let a couple centimeters of Bowden tube hang underneath so that it's not tugging laterally on the sensor brass. Think that will work?

 

For a complete improvise-as-you-go, manic frankenstein smash job, I'm pleased as punch at how the enclosure build went. It's a little, uh, taller than I intended, but it's a righteous utilization of the office/mud/dog/craft room.

I still have some fine tuning to go, but I love that the little machine is not heating the room nearly as much.






Doors on three sides, tool rack tucked neatly on the inside.



I recessed the runout sensor into the ceiling and added a socket for installing a Bowden fitting. Raising it those two inches smoothed it out so much that I might not after all. I'll see how it does on the taller prints for a while.





... Now that I'm almost done I'm not sure what I'm going to do with myself next.

 

14 hours for 1/8th of a 10" Ulbricht Sphere? Sure, why not! Been wanting to mess with one and this is easier than the other methods of making one, and cheaper.

Just a test this round as the layers are likely FAR too thick near the bottom, actually likely all the way around.

The design is set up so you can print the whole sphere just by mirroring 4 of the 8 parts, however that isn't going to work for the holes with threads....so maybe threaded inserts for the final.

Still need to do the buffer and the fill plugs/adapters for the four ports.

 

Sometimes the print gods can be cruel bitches.

There's a fifth of a roll down the tubes. Guess the niece is getting a gift card this afternoon.

 

How is it that I just now discovered gridfinity?

I'm going to be printing these stupid little boxes for years.

 

I don't even know how many random pegboard boxes and mounts I made when I first got my printer. Days and days worth. I'm glad I never found those.

 

I was searching for a hardware drawer that was economical on filament so that I could clean up my enclosure. Someone on another forum suggested this. I think I was just handed a gateway drug.


I'm currently making a run at a small problem-area in my master bath, just to see if I can get it done in under a week. If so, watch out kitchen, garage, and laundry room.

 

Ok. I'm curious about expensive lessons - whether everyone does it, whether my printer is weaksauce, or whether I'm just a dumbass.

So first I drilled a trench in my bed due to z offset malfunction. Cool. 25 dollars for a new bed.


Then I had a print where the PLA curled up and wedged into my touch sensor, putting a hairline crack on the sensor mounts. 40 bucks for a new sensor, plus about two thirds of a spool wasted. Let's just say it took a minute to figure out why I couldn't seem to find level.

And today... well fuck today. After a solid week of perfect prints, blobs the size of Buicks started showing up in my prints. Turns out the nozzle threads in my hotend were slightly boogered. And a pool of molten plastic had been apparently accumulating between extruder and hotend all week, only to be unleashed all at once Dante's Peak style.

Kay. Fuck. 40 bucks for a hotend. Fortunately I narrowly escaped paying 110 bucks for said hotend after I clumsily discovered that the connectors are rubber-cemented to the circuit board by default.





Is this learning curve of hard knocks par for the course, or am I a big galoot in a china shop?

 

OOF

 

does anyone else have to slow down thier speeds so much to avoid jumping/jittering? im on my 6th attempt with abs on a job now down to 20% speed.

 

ABS takes a bit of trial and error to narrow down good settings. Sometimes even due to the printer itself. There are a lot of YouTube channels dedicated to 3D printing that could provide more help than I could.

 

It just happens sometimes, which is why I usually stick around the printer to watch the homing and first layer go down. Better to cut power or cancel the print before anything is too damaged or I waste too much time on a print that will fail. I use these hardware "failures" as excuses to install upgrades most of the time.

If you have the time and resources, I would recommend getting a Raspberry Pi and a Pi camera or basic usb webcam and installing OctoPrint on it. This lets you point the camera at the print area and monitor the job remotely. You can also upload your gcode files and control your prints remotely instead of having to plug in the microsd card and doing everything from the printer's control panel. I also have a plugin that can remotely turn on the printer using a TP-Link smart plug, and power the printer off after a print finishes and things have cooled down (handy for long/overnight prints).

You can also register with Obico (previously The Spaghetti Detective) which uses AI to detect print issues and get notifications when it thinks your job may have failed. There is a free and paid subscription version depending on your needs.

ABS/ASA are finnicky at best and I've found that it can print or flow differently depending on the brand of filament. Most of my ASA is from Polymaker but I have a couple of rolls from Fillamentum that seem to flow a little thicker or have a tendency to look overextruded. I haven't really needed to slow my prints down compared to PLA/PETG though. Have you tried doing a hotend PID tune at ABS print temps?

 

my hotend maxes out at 250c so im lucky it flows at all. using polymaker currently, its just i get a layer shift if I print too fast. im currently down to 15%

 

I am really thinking about picking up another 3d printer to print press brake tooling.

 

Printed these the other day for someone...

 

Are your belts tensioned correctly?

 

I always stick around until the first two layers are down. Failed prints don't sting as bad as broken equipment though. I'll own the hotend as my fault - I swapped a nozzle when it was at temperature, which i suspect is the reason why the threads got stripped.

The touch sensor cracking really boils down to a root cause of a shitty bed. My bed has a slight valley in the middle - the touch-levelling compensates for it but it still invites frequent curl ups unless I ramp up temperatures and practically scratch the first layer into the bed.

The latest news is another bed problem - the bed thermister has a short, and I suspect that the short is somewhere in the base of the cable. I thought about going through the pains of Creality's CS rigmarole, but its a good excuse to upgrade to an aluminum 3-point plate and knock out multiple birds with a single $95 stone.

Once I get the hardware solved I might just look into Octoprint. Hopefully. My printer budget is blown by a mile at the minute.