3d printer has come in handy

Thanks all, gotta say that i love having a 3d printer, i have made many things since i have had it, and modeled many of them myself, i also find that more stuff then you can imagine is already modeled by someone else. The coolest thing about these is, basically if you can think of it, the only thing between you and printing it, is modeling it in 3d cad software. I fixed a sun visor in my wife's suv, it had this plastic cylinder around a metal bar that went into the snap part that holds the sun visor up when not in use. that broke, a 30 minute print later, fixed, she was wanting some sun visor extensions like my truck has that extend the width of the sun visors, those took about 2 hours to print.

My wife is a occupational therapist, and i print a lot of stuff for her, all kinds of assistive devices have been modeled on the site i linked above, and are available for printing, things that help people hold onto drink cups and bottles, things that allow you to type on a keyboard, or hold utensils, when your fingers wont work right anymore, actual therapy tools that she can use, lots of other related things, and some of these things cost $100-300 or more from the company that makes them, and with some basic skill in 3d modeling and just letting the printer run you can make them for less then $5 in materials, she all the time has me printing things like assistive drink holders and the above mentioned aids for typing and eating, for her patients, or other things like that most of those things would cost the people she takes them to around $30-100, for a $30 spool of filament i could print at least 25-30 out of that spool, and many of the people she sees are on fixed incomes and just cant afford some of the things that make life easier when you have become less able. so i print em, she gives them to the people she sees. i get new filament colors, everyone wins.

I got the first one basically cause i like to tinker, i had no idea how much it would end up getting used. ended up getting used enough to get a 2nd larger printer. i have even seen IWB holsters

mingaa said:

Do you mind sharing the hardware and software that you are using?
Curious minds...



* an article from one of my go-to sources showing 10 'Best' home printers -- prices from $300 to $3,000+

https://www.pcmag.com/article2/0%2C2817%2C2470038%2C00.asp?path=zpc-12075-gpc-100d1a&adposition=1t2&creative=243521988888&device=c&dps=1&network=g&source=s

Click to expand...

Not at all, my first printer was a tevo tarantula, with the large bed, it has a build volume of 200x280x200mm, in the X, Y, and Z axis, the standard bed version that is $40 cheaper, is 200x200x200mm, this was a diy kit, you even have to wire the power supply to mains voltage, basically it has a grounded computer cable, and you have to attach the 3 wires to the power supply, you also have to wire up everything else, power supply to the circuit board that runs it, from that to the various heaters and sensors, and because of the high power draw of its heated print bed, you will need to purchase a mosfet and wire that up to the bed, this is for safety, and it does not come with this part, so another $20, took about 6 hours to assemble, it is a mix of acrylic and aluminum parts, can take you anywhere from hours to weeks to get it dialed in where it prints very well, it takes a lot of work to get the printer to print at its best, but, it is work you only have to do once, when you have it dialed in, it stays there. it runs for the version i got around $240, tevo released a larger printer shortly after i got the tarantula, and i lucked into a deal with someone who wanted me to set them up with a bigger printer then what i had, and they offered to buy me that printer as well. So i got the bigger one made by tevo, called the tevo tornado, it has a build volume of 300x400x300mm on the X, Y, and Z axis. unlike the tarantula, this was a mostly assembled kit, that is all aluminum, importantly all the wiring is pre assembled, all you have to do is use plugs and put them where they are nicely labeled to go, all you had to do was attach the top frame of the printer to the bottom frame with a half dozen screws, and a couple of brakets, plug in some wires, and it was ready to run took all of 10 minutes to assemble, and that was being careful. it also was tested at the factory prior to shipping and had a test print on its build plate. that i might add was a royal pain to remove. It doesn't require any calibration other then leveling the bed before your first print, at most from unboxing to really nice first prints, you will have around 20-30 minutes. And it can be had for around $400

The tornado is actually a clone of another printer called the CR-10, they are also the same price, same build volume, they look identical other then color, and that is a hugely popular printer. The main difference between the two is, the tornado uses a ceramic glass blend bed with a AC heater under it, the CR-10 uses an aluminum bed with a DC heater under it, but they have a piece of glass on top of the aluminum bed, because glass gives you a nice flat surface to print on, and doesnt warp when heated, the aluminum does warp when heated. What that means to you is, the tornado can heat the print bed in less then 2 minutes, 5 minutes for really high temp requirement prints, the CR-10 can take up to 30-45 minutes to hit the high temps, and even at the low temps can take 10 minutes. i have also seen some reviews of them side by side, where they put the build plates (also called bed) under a IR camera and the tornado bed was a consistent temp all through it, the cr-10 bed was almost 10-15 degrees C hotter in the middle then the edges. They also have different extruders, this is the bit that feeds the print material to the printer, the extruder on the tornado is higher quality and is able to print more types of material over the CR-10. It is worth mentioning, no matter what printer you get, when you get it, check every screw, belt, wire, everything to make sure nothing is loose, you dont want to have any problems, and loose wires can do things like electrify the printers metal frame, to start fires. The cr-10 has a mosfet preinstalled in its control box, the tornado uses a solid state relay, also prewired in its control box.

If you look up reviews of either printer on youtube you can usually find a discount code that can get them for around $350, just make sure you get the US version of them, all of the printers i have mentioned ship from china, and go worldwide, on the cr-10 it isnt super important to get the US version as all you would have to do is open its control box and flip the switch on the power supply inside it from 220 to 120 and grab a computers power cable, while you can do that on the tornado, because of its AC bed, you will be running a heater that was built for 220 volts on 120, and wont have nearly the performance out of it.

As for software, i use cura for slicing, that means taking a 3d model and making it individual layers that the printer can then print 1 at a time from bottom to top, the software is free, another good one is ideamaker, also free, and honestly it works better. but cura is more user friendly. one really important thing whatever slicer you use, make sure that the speed settings in the software, and the filament dia setting, match what printer you are using, the company that makes cura for instance makes the ideamaker printers, and its settings reflect the printer that they make, it is easy to change them, but if you dont you will have some really messed up prints. There is a paid option called simplify 3d, it costs $150, i tried it, and was thankfull that it had a return if your not satisfied within 2 weeks of purchase policy, cause once i had it, i saw very little difference between it and cura or ideamaker, especially ideamaker. Very hard to keep a $150 software when a free option does the same job just as well.

When it comes to 3d modeling i recommend fusion 360, it is from autodesk, the people who make autocad, and as long as you use it for personal use only, it is free. Other software's do exist, but fusion is very easy to use, and a lot of tutorials exist online, blender is another good one that is also free (see a reoccurring theme) where fusion 360 is fantastic if you want to do something like the model posted first in this thread, blender is what you use if you want to make a dragon, because it does organic shapes much better.

If you want to stay under $1000 it is really hard to beat a cr-10 or a tevo tornado, check youtube you will see more reviews of each then you can shake a stick at. Its hard to recommend one of them over the other for one reason only, the makers of the CR-10 have better QC, but, as long as nothing is messed up when you get it, the tornado is the better printer, once they are printing, they are pretty well identical in speed and quality, the tornado out of the box can get printing faster, and can print a higher number of filament types, but i have seen a few, not many, but a few, think around 5 or so, people on the facebook group who have gotten broken printbeds when they opened the box, this is out of tens of thousands of printers, but i would be remiss to not mention it, this isnt tevos fault, it is more the shippers fault, and tevo always sent out a replacement bed within 2 days, but, as these printers ship from china, it can take 2 weeks to a month to get your printer, so if a part is broken, it can take just as long to get the new part. The tornado does have 1 area that it is weaker then the cr-10 though, the motor mount for the y axis motor, is on a weak piece of metal, you can print a part that fixes this by reinforcing that mount, and it is easy enough to do, takes a couple of hours and fixes the issue for good. but, it is worth mentioning. mine for instance was bent when i removed it from the box, it was a easy matter to straiten it, and i put a zip tie around the motor and the frame while i was printing the reinforcement part, just to keep the motor from moving any. Never had a problem once i printed that part.