Anybody into 3d printing???

I have a Prusa Mk3 which works very well. Struggling to get my head round CAD.
Wish I had more time to use it Thingiverse is great loads of useful bits you never knew you needed
 
If you've got more of a programmer's mindset, OpenSCAD is the quickest way to make simple shapes. It only took me a couple of hours to make a housing for my battery monitor.

I also started with FreeCAD. It's OK, but it can be annoying to work out where the constraint is (a constraint is something like these lines must stay parallel, that point is 10mm from there, etc). And because you define the shape from it's constraints, you have to think ahead. I find that even small changes mean I need to re-work big bits of a sketch... but that might just be because I don't know how it all works.

Recently I started mucking about with Fusion360. You can pretty much scribble out shapes and then add constraints to it later. And unlike FreeCAD, of you delete a line that another line was trying to be parallel to, it doesn't throw a wobbly. I made a rather complex rear view monitor mount that glues to the windscreen where the rear view mirror should go. It took several iterations to get the sizes and angles right so I could still close the front blinds, so it didn't get in the way too much and so it didn't vibrate. Fusion360 made it easy, even though I didn't really know what I was doing. My only complaint with it though is that it does so much, it's pretty overwhelming with the number of buttons and options.
 
Bob Morrison said:
Bit the bullet and got my first 3d printer 2 days ago.
Very pleased with my first efforts but just picking up files created by other users.
Spent several hours already trying to get my head around FreeCAD and really struggling! Watched several video tutorials and tried one of their own tutorials but still struggling! ?

Most ambitious print so far and very useful for getting the table accurately levelled!
Click to expand...
Is that an Ender 3 printer ? It's one that I am looking at now as the Anycubic one is just a bit to big for where I am proposing to site it. Any thoughts on the Ender ???
 
hchris said:
I have a Prusa Mk3 which works very well. Struggling to get my head round CAD.
Wish I had more time to use it Thingiverse is great loads of useful bits you never knew you needed
Click to expand...
I like the Prusa but it's just a bit to low in printing height for my purposes :(
 
How big are you intending to print? The bigger the print, the longer it takes and the higher chance you have of ending up with spaghetti. Going vertical is especially hard as the accuracy starts to suffer.

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Guigsy said:
How big are you intending to print? The bigger the print, the longer it takes and the higher chance you have of ending up with spaghetti. Going vertical is especially hard as the accuracy starts to suffer.
Click to expand...
I need about 50 cm in height, I will be doing vase type prints, hopefully, I have seen vids on YT of case type prints, maybe they put in supports as well ???
 
MR. FUSION said:
I need about 50 cm in height, I will be doing vase type prints, hopefully, I have seen vids on YT of case type prints, maybe they put in supports as well ???
Click to expand...
A normal print that big would take days. If the vase walls are only a single layer thick, then it'll be a lot quicker, but they aren't particularly robust and it's hard to make them watertight.

As a rough role of thumb, something the volume of your fist will take about 8 hours. And that assumes most of the inside is lower density infill, not solid.
 
Guigsy said:
A normal print that big would take days. If the vase walls are only a single layer thick, then it'll be a lot quicker, but they aren't particularly robust and it's hard to make them watertight.

As a rough role of thumb, something the volume of your fist will take about 8 hours. And that assumes most of the inside is lower density infill, not solid.
Click to expand...
I am putting an extraction system in my shed, for the days it may take. I dont want to breathe in anything with styrene in etc.Thanks for the info.
 
MR. FUSION said:
I am putting an extraction system in my shed, for the days it may take. I dont want to breathe in anything with styrene in etc.Thanks for the info.
Click to expand...
PLA is easy to print with and only has a slightly sweet smell. Use PLA wherever you can. ABS is a bastard to print with and stinks. I think ABS has mostly been abandoned now for PET which is mechanically nearly as good, almost as easy to print as PLA and doesn't smell too bad. It's very stringy though and can be a bugger to un-stick from the bed.
 
MR. FUSION said:
Is that an Ender 3 printer ? It's one that I am looking at now as the Anycubic one is just a bit to big for where I am proposing to site it. Any thoughts on the Ender ???
Click to expand...


It's the Creality Ender 3 Pro - cost less than £200 with a 1kg roll of filament (the printer itself comes with some filament to get you started.)
Took me about an hour and a half to assemble out of the box.

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hchris said:
I have a Prusa Mk3 which works very well. Struggling to get my head round CAD.
Wish I had more time to use it Thingiverse is great loads of useful bits you never knew you needed
Click to expand...

I've just seen that on ebay, £86, can they really sell a 3D printer kit for that little ? Beyond belief.

The only use I can think for one here is small boxes to house my little control systems. Having a box with built in mounts for the pcbs would be excellent.
 
hilldweller said:
I've just seen that on ebay, £86, can they really sell a 3D printer kit for that little ? Beyond belief.

The only use I can think for one here is small boxes to house my little control systems. Having a box with built in mounts for the pcbs would be excellent.
Click to expand...
If that's a genuine Prusa on Fleabay.......then I am Donald Trump ;)
 
Bob Morrison said:
It's the Creality Ender 3 Pro - cost less than £200 with a 1kg roll of filament (the printer itself comes with some filament to get you started.)
Took me about an hour and a half to assemble out of the box.
Click to expand...
Actually I might go for the ender 5 version as it gives more headroom. I will probably do all the mods as well :cool:
 
Mr Prusa was an enthusiastic hobbiest that created the 'Prusa' design and made it open source. Lots of printers can call themselves Prusa. And the are dozens of varients. Then a few years ago, Mr Prusa started a company to make the best Prusa printers. So Original Prusa are his and are really good quality. But it is confusing... especially when he's now making a non Prusa resin based printer.
 
Why I love YouTube.....

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315500
20190704_164638.jpg
Printing parts to upgrade the extruder for a new filament sensor.
www.prusa3d.com

About us | Original Prusa 3D printers directly from Josef Prusa

Hello, we are Prusa Research!And we make more than just amazing 3D printers!About Prusa Research | How We Make Our 3D Printers | Timeline | Products a...
www.prusa3d.com www.prusa3d.com
 
Last edited:
hchris said:
View attachment 315500View attachment 315500
Printing parts to upgrade the extruder for a new filament sensor.
www.prusa3d.com

About us | Original Prusa 3D printers directly from Josef Prusa

Hello, we are Prusa Research!And we make more than just amazing 3D printers!About Prusa Research | How We Make Our 3D Printers | Timeline | Products a...
www.prusa3d.com www.prusa3d.com
Click to expand...
It's a slippery slope! Before you know it, you'll have a half built mutant printer and you'll realise you've printed the wrong bit, or something breaks or doesn't quite fit. Then you face the choice of attempting to print the correct bit with a bodged printer, or spending hours reverting all your changes... been there, got the mental scars and burnt fingers.
 
Ok, so I'm now a couple of weeks from a starting point of absolutely no experience.
One of the best diagnostic tools I've come across and used with excellent results is pictured below (hopefully) - it's a little g-code file that prints a square in each corner and one in the middle.
This has transformed the quality and reliability of my early attempts by allowing you to accurately set bed height and level for good adhesion to the bed and each subsequent layer.
I was able to see very clearly that my bed, although good around the outside, actually has a hollow in the centre, significantly bad enough to take a 0.1 mm thick piece of paper under the magnetic printing surface to correct it.

File downloaded from Thingyverse - search - "bed levelling"
IMG_20190705_092539.jpg
IMG_20190705_092549.jpg
 
Bob Morrison said:
Ok, so I'm now a couple of weeks from a starting point of absolutely no experience.
One of the best diagnostic tools I've come across and used with excellent results is pictured below (hopefully) - it's a little g-code file that prints a square in each corner and one in the middle.
This has transformed the quality and reliability of my early attempts by allowing you to accurately set bed height and level for good adhesion to the bed and each subsequent layer.
I was able to see very clearly that my bed, although good around the outside, actually has a hollow in the centre, significantly bad enough to take a 0.1 mm thick piece of paper under the magnetic printing surface to correct it.

File downloaded from Thingyverse - search - "bed levelling"View attachment 315678View attachment 315679
Click to expand...
Very helpful thanks. I read the bed often requires some support. Since my aim is to work with primarily flexible materials initially, I am now looking at putting together a direct drive extrusion system using something similar or the ender as a base unit.
 
MR. FUSION said:
Very helpful thanks. I read the bed often requires some support. Since my aim is to work with primarily flexible materials initially, I am now looking at putting together a direct drive extrusion system using something similar or the ender as a base unit.
Click to expand...
Bed levelling is required to make sure your print gets a good base layer. A print with a poor base might look ok for a while, then it starts to peel or warp and the head starts catching on the previous layer and before you know it, you're printing spaghetti. My first printer was a real pain. Most of my time was spent trying to get a good first layer with lots of prints needing to be restarted multiple times. My Prusa Mk2 has bed level (and warp) correction. Almost every time the first attempt is good. I wouldn't want to run a printer without it again.

And flexible filament is really hard, even with direct drive. Working out what the issue is of you aren't already really experienced with normal filament. So start there first.

Another tip: the 3d printing scene is full of hearsay and myth. If you ask a question, you can guarantee that someone will tell you it's due to over extrusion, someone else will say wet filament and a third person will say your frame isn't stiff enough. Don't always believe the advice.

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I think I'm getting the hang of it!
Printed off this mobile phone holder last night - it took over 7 hours to complete.
Downloaded the file from Thingyverse then used Cura to add the supports.
It's easily the biggest object I've tackled so far and I'm pretty pleased with the result.
 

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Broke my bar end indicator from my bike the black plastic retaining base broke a lug off £60 to replace the full rizoma indicator gave the part to my son he used Fusion 360 to model part then printed and I had a replacement, ignore the colour you can,t see it when fitted and that was the only filament he had at the time, he also printed a head unit surround which was odd ball size (again green just a prototype made in black eventually).

Can be used for many a situation but to me the modelling is by far the hardest part to overcome.
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