Vases mode - with holes in the bottom

So it seems like this should be really easy to do. I have a theory that Simplify3D may be able to do it because it has processes that you can apply at different heights... but I don't have access to Simplify3D. First of all though, why is this even a thing. Well, I wanted to print some plant pots and they generally have holes in the bottom to allow for drainage. Sure I could design them to be hollow and design the holes in the base, but when I did this, they took a long time to print, and that z-scar... Vase mode is the answer... but vase mode doesn't handle bases with holes in... Hmm... I could drill holes in the base... or use a soldering iron... but I am an overly minimal post processing kind of guy, and besides, where is the over-engineering in that :D

Well I had to open my big mouth...

In my last post of only a few hours ago, I mentioned that things were going rather well in my 3D printing world. I then went and changed the print spool, leveled the bed, cleaned the build platform, set a print off, watched the first couple layers go down and left it alone for the evening... Now, failed prints have been exceedingly rare and my Ultimaker 2+ has been remarkably reliable over the last three and a half years that I have had the machine (Even before the 'plus' upgrade) so I think nothing of setting off a 12 hour print and leaving it alone to do its thing.

Kindles are heavy, right?

Well, ok, they are not, but they can get uncomfortable while holding them for a long time when you lying in bed. It's either far away by your knees, or up in the air cutting off circulation in your elbow... what to do. I know, a Kindle holder.

Minecraft skeleton prints

So my daughter is a little bit into Minecraft. As are lots of people I know. I don't think it's anything to be worried about, but, when I was young we struggled with computer graphics and the whole blockiness thing. Now we have advanced in the correct direction and have photorealistic computer generated imagery, and kids want the retro chic 80's all over again.

And now for something completely useless

I thought it was time to get a little more complicated. I've seen the totally useless machines on you-tube and wanted to make one for ages. Woodworking skills should be ok, but jut the time and effort, not to mention the cost in the tools... I know, why not print one. Here is what I'm talking about.

Have I Printed a Gun Yet?

To be honest, I'm really quite surprised at how many people have asked me this since I got my 3D printer. Our morbid interest with guns aside, I'm really surprised at the fact people think it's possible.

Going Full Size

Just for a laugh I thought I'd see how my head would print in high resolution...

A week to print and half a reel of plastic... Well, it was fun looking :)

3D Printing - Your face on a cup

With the ability to turn your imagination into plasticated products, what could be more rewarding, if not a little meglomaniacal, to have your face on a mug:

3D Printing - My first 'tool'

Now I know what the early cavemen felt like when they found fire - Yep, all warm and fuzzy inside. This 3D printing mallarky is all very well and good, but if you don't use it for a real purpose, then what is the point really. Well, today I built my first useful thing.

For my 3D scanning, I borrowed a compatible tablet for the scanner and started playing with that, given the Microsoft Surface 2 weighs nearly a kilo it's a bit of a burden on the fingers. The tablet needs a cradle I thought. My first challenge was trying to get the tablet on the build plate of the printer... I wanted a cradle that held the tablet in each corner, this would be the most secure and allow me to use the device in landscape mode. A rethink was required. More of a slot in harness... this has upsides, you can take the tablet out easily to use it elsewhere. Hmm...

3D Printing - Step Five - Scanning Things

It's all very well printing stuff out but what about creating models in the first place. Well, as I have previously mentioned getting to grips with some 3D modelling packages is quite a tortuous task, even for someone with quite a big head filled with high density brain matter and good techy skills. Scanners then. This is where we move to.

3D Printing - Step Four - The Future

Before I launch into an argument with myself and a larger community, first an apology on the length of this article, get your cup of cocoa ready. Right, Lets prepare an analogy - The printing of the written word.

In the beginning, possibly just after the earth cooled and the dinosaurs came, man daubed walls with mud and stuff. A very crude story telling tactic but some still survives today. Once words and ideas were formed, we invented tools and moved to stone and chisel, ink and paper etc. Mass printing came along with the printing press but it's use was limited to a few. The break through for individuals to write lots came with the manual and then electric typewriter... well, you could argue the secretary came first, but that's just nit picking.

3D Printing - Ultimaker Update

Well, there was an update release of both the firmware that drives the Ultimaker and Cura - the printing software. In a Word - Yay.

There are a few tweaks, but 2 really cool things come out, first of all the way the print is started on the printer. Now, the bed lifts, THEN the head is primed by extruding some material and the head moves to start the print. This means that the filament starts to print immediately. Previously, the extruder would prime, then the bed would lift and this meant that the extruder would empty as the head dragged due the weight of material.

The other great new thing - Rafts. Yay. Although they are still a little tough to remove, This could just be due to the material difference between my testing on the Makerbot. Here you can see the underside of a print and the raft it came off. The white is just there because there was a little bit of fusing that needed to be broken when peeling.

I think my test was possibly invalid. The print does ok without any adhesion help as it has quite a lot of surface area. This is what made it tricky to remove where as the antennae on the print were very fine and peeled away much easier than the body.

3D Printing - Step Three - The Lessons Learnt

You've unpacked your printer, slapped a few prints through and you now want to tweak a few things to get better or more tricky prints out, so, what's first? This post outlines some of the lessons I learnt along my journey that I didn't find out anywhere on the net. More specifically the bits behind why settings are set the way they are, and what you are aiming at.

Bed leveling

One of the first things that happens when you switch your new printer on is that the bed needs 'leveling'. But this is more than just leveling, you're also setting the gap between the nozzle and the bed as well and if you do this wrong you're in a whole world of pain. A few printers now and more coming soon will do a self level and this takes out the guesswork, but if you have a current model with manual setup you're in for a journey. No one really seems to outline what you're aiming for. From hours of fiddling I think the general idea is to get the bed level for the most part, but the bed as close to the nozzle as possible without actually touching it.

3D Printing - Step Two - The Model

The printer is now ready, what's next?

Part of my brief was to produce a spider like character called Stealth with 4 legs and wearing a baseball cap. I was given a simple model example and I started from scratch in Blender, I gave myself a 2 hour window to produce a prototype.

So you could just launch into knocking up a character and hope that it prints out... for example, you write a letter in Word and don't really care what printer it comes out on, they all produce the about the same stuff right? Well, that's fine for inkjets and laser printers, but it couldn't be further from the case for 3D printing.

3D Printing - Step One - The Printer

This is the first in a series of posts relating to my experience of getting into 3D Printing.

A long story short, I was roped into helping out a friend of mine with a 3D printing issue. I had a budget and a clear goal so armed with a pretty technical brain - on to the research.

The first printer I came across was the Makerbot series. I knew someone with a Replicator 2 so I went and had a play. I was quite surprised as how well my test print came out. Unfortunately I don't have a photo, but a few tweaks and a few things were already clear: