3D Printing Adventures!
Hay gaiz!
So I'll maybe stick around a bit. Anyway, my work got me a 3d printer for my 5 year workaverssary or whatever. This is awesome because it means I don't have to buy one myself, and can utilize my degree for something actually!
I'm still tuning the printer, they're surprisingly more fickle than I thought they'd be, and are real jerks when you think they're almost done and BAM they randomly move out of place after you've gone to sleep and the next 8 hours are just spitting out filament making a bird's nest of useless plastic in your now swelteringly hot room because you were willing to risk the heat for an awesome thing but now you aren't getting that awesome thing so you're just hot for no reason uuuuuuuuuugh.
Anyway. My goal is first to be able to print cool crap and get them to a point of refinement where I can eventually paint and sell them. My second goal is to start printing out stuff I design myself! And then selling that! Yay capitalism!
So anyway, here are 3 of my better prints after cleaning them up. Batman, a green lantern ring, and a groot. None of these were my models, and were just stolen from thingiverse and printed. Batman's chin didn't print out particularly well, and he has a couple gaps that are hard to see if I don't point them out, but they're there, and it's obnoxious. The ring had a ton of support material I've finally gotten down to filing away and despite being a bit big for even my fat fingers, all it needs is a decent polish to be a-ok imo. Finally groot is perhaps the most detailed piece I've printed, and aside from some deformation on the bottom (some people say it's heat, but it happens even if I have the build plate unheated, so I don't understand) he's pretty much my favorite. He's also one of the better prints I've had without the use of a raft (essentially a loose set of scrap plastic at the bottom of the model so that the model has something substantial to stick to) so he's pretty exciting.
ANYWAY PITTURE
http://imgur.com/hc0pQSU
So I'll maybe stick around a bit. Anyway, my work got me a 3d printer for my 5 year workaverssary or whatever. This is awesome because it means I don't have to buy one myself, and can utilize my degree for something actually!
I'm still tuning the printer, they're surprisingly more fickle than I thought they'd be, and are real jerks when you think they're almost done and BAM they randomly move out of place after you've gone to sleep and the next 8 hours are just spitting out filament making a bird's nest of useless plastic in your now swelteringly hot room because you were willing to risk the heat for an awesome thing but now you aren't getting that awesome thing so you're just hot for no reason uuuuuuuuuugh.
Anyway. My goal is first to be able to print cool crap and get them to a point of refinement where I can eventually paint and sell them. My second goal is to start printing out stuff I design myself! And then selling that! Yay capitalism!
So anyway, here are 3 of my better prints after cleaning them up. Batman, a green lantern ring, and a groot. None of these were my models, and were just stolen from thingiverse and printed. Batman's chin didn't print out particularly well, and he has a couple gaps that are hard to see if I don't point them out, but they're there, and it's obnoxious. The ring had a ton of support material I've finally gotten down to filing away and despite being a bit big for even my fat fingers, all it needs is a decent polish to be a-ok imo. Finally groot is perhaps the most detailed piece I've printed, and aside from some deformation on the bottom (some people say it's heat, but it happens even if I have the build plate unheated, so I don't understand) he's pretty much my favorite. He's also one of the better prints I've had without the use of a raft (essentially a loose set of scrap plastic at the bottom of the model so that the model has something substantial to stick to) so he's pretty exciting.
ANYWAY PITTURE
http://imgur.com/hc0pQSU
Comments
I think if you don't have a business venture planned, or if you are good with programming/putting stuff together, get one of the cheap "do it yourself" type machines and learn how they work. I think 5 years down the line they'll probably be in the $500 range for medium quality machines, and I think that they'll eventually be a big deal.
I think that if you plan on having kids at all in the near future, they'll be an extremely good purchase as it makes costumes/simple toys pretty easy. I'll be printing out my kid's learning blocks for instance, and mobiles, probably some other stuff. There is already filament out there that polishes up like bronze and copper, so if you want to make something nice it's entirely possible. Some people are making models that are complete with internal gears and stuff that you don't have to put together, so the technology is definitely getting farther along. I think filament improvements are where we're going to see huge leaps and bounds as far as what can and can't be printed. They're looking at 3d printed shoes with this softer filament that's in testing at the moment. I definitely think it will be useful, and is something to get into. But it's not necessary to do it now.
Which is still pretty cool.
I made a Noob with the printer, but he wasn't well designed so I need to make a new noob. I want to make Spelling figures for shits since they were all simple-like. Still super busy trying to get my printer to work without issues. Some of these prints have just failed for no reason I can imagine.
Along with this fancy filament purchase I decided to purchase a slicer program, Simplify3d, which is the only slicer on the market that I know of that isn't free. Lemme tell ya, you get what you pay for. This goddamned program has turned my printer into something glorious. I've begun to print out some OpenForge stuff, which is essentially an open source RPG system where you can print out everything you need that isn't text on a 3d printer. I wont be using those for their intended purpose because I'm not really into pen and paper rpgs anymore, but having them as dioramas and stuff, that's pretty cool.
Another really neat (I think) plan is to print out an engagement ring. My girlfriend and I have been together nearly 5 years, I think it's about time to put a ring on her. But I don't want to spend tons of money on a small piece of jewelry, and she understands this. She doesn't, however, think that printing out an engagement ring is something that I would do. LITTLE DOES SHE KNOW. Using one of the metal filled filaments that have started to get bigger lately, I'm going to print her out an awesome, hand made ring, and I think she'll love it.
I'll upload pictures of some stuff when I have more to show. Huzzah!