OT: Took the Plunge on a 3d Printer - Now what?

[Carbonita]

What have y'all designed or printed? My most recent print was a 1.1mm cassette HG hub spacer for a MAVIC id360 wheelset, which is (surprisingly?) not the same spline length as a Bitex HG hub. My resin and FDM printers are on my table saw extension, BTW.

[Matt92037]

I purchased the exact same setup 7 months ago after getting sick of trying to get a Creality to print well.

Absolutely buy a filament dryer. I have had nothing but excellent prints from my Bambu except when the filament was not dry. PETG and PLA absorb moisture and moist filament will print terribly. Also, a new sealed spool of filament can show up too wet to print as well.

Bambu Labs file share (Makerworld) has a lot of good stuff that you can export directly into bambu lab studio. Doesn’t get any easier than that.

All things considered, I have tried many different brands of PLA and Bambu Lab prints the best for me. After my Creality experience, I don’t want to waste a bunch of time and effort printing a bunch of tests, etc to determine my printer settings.

Good luck

[brewsmith]

Originally Posted by Carbonita

Agreed @Louis! When I volunteered at the library for CAD and 3DP, tinkercad was great for starting kids (and adults) on their first projects. For complex shapes, parametric CAD wins out for me, since adding fillets or modifying one of many objects in the part updates everything. Onshape works well, is a pro level tool, and is free for personal use.

Originally Posted by Louis

I would think that just as important as the 3D printer itself, you'd want to have a good CAD package.

Thanks for the insight both of you. This was actually another reason I wanted to get one as CAD has long been a skill I have wanted to learn, at least on a hobby/practical level. As I mentioned, my 5yo is a lego obsessive, so I also want to introduce him to ways to make use of that that mindset in other applications.

I have a tinkercad account and will look at onshape. Fusion360 was also reccomended and it looks like there are some good tutorials. Any other good resources or walkthroughs to learn one of these programs?

[JAGI410]

Tinkercad is fun, especially for the kids and lego mode!

For using Fusion, I haven't found a better instructor than Lars Christensen. https://www.youtube.com/@cadcamstuff

[bicycletricycle]

Have you seen the price of home depot angle brackets these days?

Originally Posted by Talrand

Typical 3D Printer life cycle goes something like that:

1. Buy a 3D printer you don't need.
2. Waste kilograms of plastic making useless trinkets you'd not spend a penny on otherwise.
3. Try hard to find 'practical uses' AKA spend hours printing spacers and angle brackets that would cost next to nothing at Home Depot.
4. Put it in the garage where it will collect dust until you throw it away, adding to local landfill.

If you bought it without a clear use in mind the best thing you can do is try to return it.
Second best is throw it away immediately, seems counterintuitive, but the alternative is just wasting spools of filament on 'cool projects' before skipping to this step.

[bicycletricycle]

I can't imagine having a 3D printer and not having some CAD capabilities, being limited to what other people have come up with would be frustrating (although the CAD libraries are deep now)

I got a bambu X-1 carbon and found a filament dryer very important for successful prints

I have had a lot of fun printing stuff for my sons brio train set up recently.

[FriarQuade]

Originally Posted by Louis

I would think that just as important as the 3D printer itself, you'd want to have a good CAD package.

One is worthless without the other. If you don't have skills on the CAD box or the goal to learn the printer will forever be an under utilized tool.

I've got a Prusa and we use it a couple times a week on average. Mostly for printing workflow aids for the shop, but we do some prototypes on occasion. I keep meaning to mess with a flat bar AXS shifter paddle that doesn't suck...

FWIW, filament drivers seem to be a local specific need. I've never had an issue with our filament in the high desert.

[54ny77]

wow i bet you're fun at parties.

Originally Posted by Talrand

Typical 3D Printer life cycle goes something like that:

1. Buy a 3D printer you don't need.
2. Waste kilograms of plastic making useless trinkets you'd not spend a penny on otherwise.
3. Try hard to find 'practical uses' AKA spend hours printing spacers and angle brackets that would cost next to nothing at Home Depot.
4. Put it in the garage where it will collect dust until you throw it away, adding to local landfill.

If you bought it without a clear use in mind the best thing you can do is try to return it.
Second best is throw it away immediately, seems counterintuitive, but the alternative is just wasting spools of filament on 'cool projects' before skipping to this step.

[verticaldoug]

You can be like the guys from Big Bang Theory.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tsz9GUZv1IA

[Talrand]

Originally Posted by 54ny77

wow i bet you're fun at parties.

I'll be at those parties while you're troubleshooting your 14th Benchy to troubleshoot issues with printing an extendable, print in place grabber arm that you'll play with for 3 minutes

@brewsmith
Sorry to OP for assuming you bought it for no reason, glad to see you've found a 3D printing solution to your specific needs. I've just seen a lot of posts like that in 3D printing forums and anyone asking for printing resources and ideas after buying a printer is a bit of a red flag.

[Quadzilla_Jr]

Anybody have any luck with a 3D "scanning" app on iPhone? I want to print a proprietary headset cap for integrated bars, as I cracked mine and a replacement is >$50.

[deluz]

We have one at work that the MEs use a lot.
Before that they had prototypes made from machined aluminum which was expensive and took weeks to get a part. They use Solidworks which is kind of expensive but I read you could use Sketchup to design models.
I use it a lot for woodworking
.

[brewsmith]

Originally Posted by deluz

We have one at work that the MEs use a lot.
Before that they had prototypes made from machined aluminum which was expensive and took weeks to get a part. They use Solidworks which is kind of expensive but I read you could use Sketchup to design models.
I use it a lot for woodworking
.

What have you used it for in woodworking? So far I have made a set of corner radius guides for my router which turned out great and loads of hardware organization/tool storage