I've been curious about 3D printing for a while, but it seemed awfully expensive for printing out various plastic gewgaws of no real utility. That attitude has been adjusted by my dealing the the 3D printing lab across the way at work, where they make handy bits of tooling and protective equipment for fragile parts. And I realized I might have some uses for the stuff as well.

Then last Saturday, a friend mentioned that he had just gotten a Creality Ender 3, and that they were on sale for a mere $160 (although shipping and tax added another 20 bucks or so). So I started looking into it, watching a LOT of YouTube videos, and I was sold. I ordered Sunday, and the kit arrived (checks watch) yesterday at around 5:00. In short order I had it assembled (between some of the videos and my own mechanical aptitude, it was trivial) and not much later I had the small sample of filament loaded up and attempted one of the test files. Right out of the box, with only slight adjustment to level the bed, it printed very well. Alas, the sample of filament wasn't quite enough to finish the sample print, the poor cartoon dog only made it up to his eyebrows. So I hied myself to Amazon and ordered a couple rolls - black and white, and the black had a $4 off coupon! Typically a Kilo of filament runs $20-$25. It won't arrive until Wednesday, alas.

In the meantime, I researched models for upgrades and accessories for the machine, and software for making said models. Alas, the makers of Fusion 360 have decided to end their hobbyist support - one can get a year free, but then you have to pay. But there is a mature, ten year old open source product out there called FreeCAD which can do almost the same thing (and the areas of lack are extremely esoteric). I watched a guy model a turbine blade in both programs [Scratch that, the other program was SolidWorks] and the results were identical, plus the process blew my mind.

There's also a free "Slicer" program that converts the model into G-Code for the printer, called Cura. There's another furnished by Creality, but everyone uses Cura because it's very capable. It lets you step through the print, and adds supports, manages the in-fill, and more tricks than I know what do to with. It's capable of directly driving the printer via USB, but if you have Windows 10, with its uncontrollable updates and reboots, the chance of it ruining a print is high, so you can also save the G-code to a mini-SD card, and have the printer run it from that.

Now I just need to figure out what to do with the inevitable plastic gewgaws....

Posted by: J Greely at December 25, 2020 09:11 AM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: J Greely at December 25, 2020 04:07 PM (ZlYZd)

Posted by: Mauser at December 26, 2020 01:42 AM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Mauser at December 30, 2020 05:08 AM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Mauser at January 12, 2021 05:17 PM (Ix1l6)

Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at February 14, 2021 07:51 PM (LZ7Bg)

Posted by: Mauser at February 15, 2021 09:04 PM (Ix1l6)

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