You’ve bought and installed a 3D printer in your home. What should you be worried about?
tips
Did The Personal 3D Printing Market Suddenly Mature?
There’s been a change in how personal 3D printers are marketed; we think it could be because of market maturity.
Make Certain Your 3D Model’s Bottom is Flat
If it hasn’t happened to you yet, it will in the future: prints with not-quite flat bottoms.
The Challenges of Self-Made 3D Printer Filament
3D Hubs has been doing some experiments with their Filabot to prepare their own printer filament.
Make Your PLA 3D Prints Stick
We’re written about the perils of ABS plastic warping and not sticking to your print surface, but what about PLA? Are there solutions? Is it even a problem?
The Eight Fundamental 3D Printing Prep Functions
3D printing a model is often not as simple as just hitting the “print” button. There are several operations you may need to do to your model before hitting that button.
How to 3D Print in Metal – At Home!
Extraordinary 3D printing experimenter Cosmo Wenman has come up with a feasible technique for producing metal objects using a personal 3D printer.
Capturing Die Viktoria
This is the true story of how a massive 19th century German sculpture made its way into our 3D printers.
3D Printing Winged Victory
Every once in a while you bump into an incredible 3D print. We did and we wanted to make it, too. Thus began our Winged Victory Project.
How to Smooth Your PLA 3D Prints
Matthew Gorton of PrintedSolid seems to have found a way to smooth PLA prints.
Near Disaster While 3D Printing
What’s the worst thing that could happen to you while 3D printing? You could die. And it almost happened.
Interesting Color 3D Printing Capabilities with the ProJet 4500
We’re reading an interesting account of complex color 3D printing on the new 3D Systems ProJet 4500.
Hair: The Bane of 3D Scanning
Those of you who attempt 3D scans of your friends with inexpensive Kinect-based scanning solutions will definitely have feelings about hairstyles.
3D Printing’s Pathological Geometries
As you become accustomed to making objects on your personal 3D printer, you’ll soon learn there are several pathological geometric shapes you will hate.
Tom’s Leveling Video
Thomas Sanladerer presents a video explaining how to level the bed on your 3D printer.
What Does “Experimental 3D Printing” Mean, Anyway?
The phrase “experimental 3D printing” has been used by several manufacturers, but what does it really mean?
A Spectacular Paint of 3D Model
You know how to paint your 3D prints? Just spray ‘em! Nope – there’s a much better way we found at Redicubricks.
How Much Filament Do You Use? More Than You Have?
Filament management turns out to be an important task when using plastic extrusion personal 3D printers.
The Two Things You Must Do For Successful 3D Printing
If you’re using a filament-based personal 3D printer, there’s two major things you must get right to succeed.
Spooling Issues can Spoil Your 3D Print
Of the numerous issues that can fail your 3D print, spooling issues are among the most frequent.
Making Long Duration 3D Prints More Reliable
The most spectacular 3D prints are often those that take a significant length of time to print. But how do you ensure the print completes?
Shrinkage: A Problem of 3D Measurement
When 3D printing objects, sometimes the size of the object matters, and sometimes it doesn’t. Shrinkage can be a major issue.
How To Make Any 3D Printed Part Much Stronger
A persistent issue with 3D printed parts, particularly those printed on lesser machines, is strength and durability. They aren’t quite as strong as injection molded parts. Now there could be a way to easily rectify this problem.
3D Printing Hurts!
Everyone knows that personal 3D printing can be a ton of fun, but did you know it can also be hazardous to your personal appendages? We certainly do.
A Visual Tour of Lost-PLA Casting
There’s a gallery of images available that demonstrate the process of lost-PLA casting to create a metal object using 3D printing.
Some SketchUp Tips for 3D Printing
Some folks use Trimble’s SketchUp Make to prepare 3D models for 3D printing, but there are some tricks involved. We found a post that explains them.
Questions To Ask When Buying a 3D Printer
You’re shopping for a personal 3D printer. What do you need to know?
The Brilliance of Post-3D Print Finishing
Most people who own a 3D printer are content when they pull the print out and admire it. But there’s much more that can be done.
ITER’s 3D Printing Benefits Are Those Many Could Have
ITER, the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor involves work at many locations. One of them is the US Oak Ridge National Laboratory, where they’ve discovered some interesting uses for 3D printing.
Heated Build Platform Challenges
The bane of personal 3D printing is warped prints, usually solved by adding a heated build platform. But they don’t always solve the problem.
Five 3D Printer Buying Decisions
When you’ve decided to buy a 3D printer there are some questions you should ask yourself before proceeding. The current array of buyable 3D printers is the largest in the history of the world, so having some parameters to make a decision is a good thing. The questions are actually not about 3D printers,… Continue reading Five 3D Printer Buying Decisions
Top 10 Handheld 3D Scanning Tips
At the Fabbaloo Lab we’ve performed 3D scans using a variety of handheld scanning equipment, ranging from el-cheapo Microsoft Kinect hacks to pricey USD$50K units. The experience can be both frustrating and elating; it’s normally a learning process of discovering what to do and what not to do. Today we thought we’d list a few… Continue reading Top 10 Handheld 3D Scanning Tips
Making Stuff Beyond 3D Printing
Those new to personal 3D printing may still glow from the thrill of creating objects simply by pushing the “print” button. It is always amazing to see objects appear from nothing and then hold them in your hand. But is this the end of it? Will you simply print plastic items? Not necessarily.… Continue reading Making Stuff Beyond 3D Printing
The Five Most Important 3D Printing Tips You Must Know
If you have a plastic extrusion-based personal 3D printer, there’s some things you’d better know. This printing technology has its quirks regardless of the brand and model of machine you’re using. We’ve put together a few of the most basic things to know before you get started. Level The Bed: Perhaps the single most… Continue reading The Five Most Important 3D Printing Tips You Must Know
Personal 3D Printing In Gold
Can you 3D print in gold at home? Not exactly. But we have found an example of how you can use 3D printing technology to cast gold. In a now-old post on the Ultimaker blog, jeweler Paul Steenbrink (a.k.a. Cardillac) experimented with a technique for preparing gold jewelry: The 3D print is invested… Continue reading Personal 3D Printing In Gold
Could 3D Print Recycling Be Dangerous?
Recently several ventures have attempted to produce devices for producing your own 3D printer plastic filament. The idea is that you can purchase plastic pellets at a fraction of the price of filament, feed them into the filament machine, which then extrudes filament for you to spool. There’s another way to use these devices:… Continue reading Could 3D Print Recycling Be Dangerous?
Making Prints Stick: Some Tips
The folks at ProtoParadigm have produced a terrific list of tips on how to reduce or eliminate the deadly warping effect that plagues personal 3D printers. There’s nothing worse than discovering a time-consuming mess caused by a print that lifted off the bed. The warping itself isn’t such a problem; it’s that the warping… Continue reading Making Prints Stick: Some Tips
Three Ways to Embed Bolts in Your 3D Prints
Courtesy of industrial designer David Bernhardt, we’ve been able to examine this example of embedding bolts. Actually, the piece demonstrates not one, but three different ways to put a bolt in your print. The first way is visually obvious – the head of the bolt is inside the print, while the shaft is free. … Continue reading Three Ways to Embed Bolts in Your 3D Prints
7 Things To Ask Yourself Before Buying a 3D Printer
You’re considering buying a 3D printer for your own use? There are things to think about before you take the plunge: Time. 3D printing anything takes much time. Not only the printing itself typically takes hours, but 3D model preparation and finishing also can take a lot of time. If you don’t have at… Continue reading 7 Things To Ask Yourself Before Buying a 3D Printer
The Factors You Pay For In A 3D Printer
Shopping for a 3D printer? What should you look for? Everyone knows how to shop for common items, such as cars or computers (well, perhaps excepting your grandparents), but what do you look for in a 3D printer? What are the key characteristics that define the device? Process: How does the printer work? Is… Continue reading The Factors You Pay For In A 3D Printer
A Word On 3D Printed Gun Safety
If you happened to download the 3D printed handgun models before the US government confiscated them, it may be time to remind you of safety concerns should you attempt to 3D print this item. The ease of 3D printing and the sudden availability of a working gun model meant that some people will attempt… Continue reading A Word On 3D Printed Gun Safety
Mod Your Un-Moddable 3D Printer
Some 3D printers are made for modification, such as the RepRap kits or early MakerBots. But some 3D printers were specifically designed to be used “out of the box” without modification. These 3D printers were not designed for modification by ingenious owners. However, in spite of such design constraints, we see continuing effort by… Continue reading Mod Your Un-Moddable 3D Printer
Feet As Big As You Want
The University of Washington’s Solheim Additive Manufacturing Laboratory has long experimented in radical approaches to 3D printing and now they’ve shown us another example technique for your 3D printing toolkit: Scaling. They were approached by the VA Center of Excellence for Limb Loss Prevention and Prosthetic Engineering to assist in the production of a… Continue reading Feet As Big As You Want
One Way to Reduce 3D Print Warping
One of the persistent issues with many personal 3D printers has been the tendency of ABS plastic to warp. ABS shrinks as it cools, and this all too often means your ABS prints (and sometimes even your allegedly warp-resistant PLA prints) start curling up at the bottom corners while printing, resulting in a distorted model.… Continue reading One Way to Reduce 3D Print Warping
It’s Magnificently Big!
California artist Cosmo Wenman has created something pretty amazing with his MakerBot Replicator: a replica of a horse head sculpture from the Parthenon in Athens. The first very noticeable aspect of this work is the startlingly realistic bronze patina applied after printing. The second is the size of the work, as you can see… Continue reading It’s Magnificently Big!
Make Your Own iPhone Case, and More
There’s a great Instructable now available showing how to design and 3D print an iPhone case. You might not find that particularly interesting, but we found one aspect quite intriguing. It was the method of design. While one might simply obtain the dimensions of an iPhone and then design around that, the Intstructable did… Continue reading Make Your Own iPhone Case, and More
3D Print Time, Size and Accuracy
With the announcement of MakerBot’s giant Replicator 3D printer, we’re now entering a stage where most personal 3D printers have a significantly large build envelope, typically around 200mm wide by 200mm deep by 150+mm tall. This means we can print big things! But should we? Sure you can print something “twice as large”, but… Continue reading 3D Print Time, Size and Accuracy
3D Printing Reality Checklist
An article posted on ExtremeTech showed up recently and introduced 3D printing to the general public in the usual overly-optimistic way: a replicator and teleporter in every home You can plug it into your computer via USB, load up some freely-available 3D modeling software, and print stuff; it really is that simple. The only… Continue reading 3D Printing Reality Checklist
Defeating Warping
If there’s one thing that personal 3D printer operators dislike, it must be the evils of warping. Warping, the phenomenon that occurs when a coincidence of material, temperatures, extruder speed and stretching results in printed models that have curled up corners. Typically warping is much more prevalent with ABS plastic and this may have led… Continue reading Defeating Warping
Essential Calibration
You’ve assembled your 3D printer after great effort and are anxiously awaiting your first printout. It will be amazing. It will shock everyone watching. Printing an actual object! But it turns out to be a sullen lump of misshapen plastic. This is the dilemma of many who assemble their own 3D printer. The… Continue reading Essential Calibration
The Tribulations of Printing 3D Models
You’ve read yesterday’s post about where you might find amazing 3D models for printing, but you’re wondering what to do next. Is it as simple as downloading the model and printing it? Not exactly. Here’s some considerations: Are you legally permitted to print this model? What license was it distributed under? Best to check… Continue reading The Tribulations of Printing 3D Models
Fixing Model Problems
One of the issues facing 3D modellers is the ability to create models perfectly suitable for 3D printing. A correct visual appearance does not mean it will print correctly, because the design might be ambiguous, have non-printable shapes or be “leaky” (non-watertight). Shapeways writes: I’ve found that it’s often difficult to retrofit your existing models… Continue reading Fixing Model Problems
Cutting Modeling Costs
Sweet Onion Creations (whom we’ve covered before) has posted several very useful tips for reducing the costs of printing 3D models. The article focuses on the Architectural crowd, but the tips are useful for anyone printing 3D objects. Some tips we noticed: “… think about doing a hybrid model – This entails a complete… Continue reading Cutting Modeling Costs
3D Printing Tip
An interesting forum post at 3DSociety.org talks about how best to reduce the “little sand-like jaggies on the surface” of your printed objects. Tim-Gibson writes: Sometimes you can place your 3D model on the bed in a certain way so as to reduce the stepping on the flattest surface of you model. For instance if… Continue reading 3D Printing Tip
Advice on Buying a 3D Printer
A discussion thread at C4DCafe.com discusses the question, “what should you consider when buying a 3D printer?” The answer, not surprisingly, turns out to be “it depends on what you want to do”. As with any purchase, you must determine your intentions before proceeding. Once you know your direction, you can then consider the basic… Continue reading Advice on Buying a 3D Printer