3d printers
 

Anyone else here have one, post up your prints and printer you use.
I'm using an Creality Ender 3 I picked up little over a year ago.
Using FreCAD and Cura software.
It's challenging to accurately design stuff especially if you've never had engineering or graphics training. I've made a few things from scratch, templates mainly, a few keychains and few other things.
Tons of stuff to download and print out.
Printed some carbon fiber tig tungsten electrode holders out couple weeks ago and a few of these face mask clips today.
Printed some craftsman drawer clips awhile back as they are 15 to 20 bucks each new.

Very interested in this. Don't have but want.


:waiting:

My oldest son has a 3D printer. I don't think he's printed anything with it yet. :shrug:

Sorry, I don't understand the terminology of this, how in hell can you 'print' a part for something?? need the plastic it's made of and some way to make the chunk of plastic conform to the printed shape....no??

how about the metal parts.....I read of allusions to guys doing this in some shop environment but that means some method of making a chunk of metal conform to some 3D PRINT??? how in hell you PRINT a machine tool process???

or is it all just a stretch of the word print??? seems like it to me....

certainly not off MY printer.....

You're not buying the right kind of printer ink. You have to ask the people for the special 3-D stuff they keep in the back. There's a password and secret handshake involved, too.

Basically you have a roll of plastic or some other material(wood fiber, carbon fiber for example) and the machine melts it and it sticks to the other Plastic or the printer bed in a precise location (x, y and z dimensions).
Yes metal can be 3d printed also, there are also powder printers and others adapted to cut instead of print.
The typical 3d printer uses PLA or ABS usually.
Quality depends on filament used, software settings and the printer. You can print quickly for drafts(think before you sand wood after routing) or super slow and using the right filament it's almost undetectable it's thousands of layers.
The machines are actually simple machines and CPU's. The price point came down so the normal guy can afford them the last couple of years.

So I"m right, it's a stretch of the common term 'print'.....it's not really printing, it's machining witch is obviously 3 dimensional....LWD

Well it isn't taking anything away, probably why term in print I'd say instead of machining.
Bioprinting of prosthetics(noses and ears) and 3d printing of skin with blood vessels is also been done.

Machining involves the removal of material, does it not? You start with a block of metal and carve parts away until you have the shape you want.

3D printing is more like sculpting something out of clay - you start with nothing and build it up until you have the shape you want.

That's my layman's view. :D

The robotics club I mentor (Parallel Universe) has a few different 3D printers, and print all kinds of custom parts for their robots. An alumnus of Parallel Universe founded the company "Formlabs" that makes 3D printers, among other endeavors. My son worked there for a time.

For obvious reasons, I have no way to get pictures of the printers themselves. But here is a picture of a 3D printed part that my son has sitting on his night stand. I'm not sure exactly what it is supposed to be, but if I had to guess, it is a rook to a chess set. :shrug: