3D Printing - The Start Of An Interesting Journey

Back in January 2016, I had an idea. It was a good idea (or so I thought). An idea that would solve a problem experienced by many people but, in order to prove the work-ability of this idea, prototypes needed to be built and tested.

Now, I'm pretty good working with wood but that material just wouldn't have been suitable for this particular application. It was more of a 'metal and plastic' thing. I'm also pretty good with computers, electronics and designing stuff so the 'natural' thing to do was to draw up this 'idea' in CAD and 3D print the plastic bits.

Small issue however. I knew nothing about 3D printing!

This would be the start of 'An Interesting Journey!'

Many, many hours (months) of research ensued, reading things about slicers, gcode, cartesian movements, delta configurations, RepRap, manifold models, printing material properties and numerous other things that, at first, were totally alien. After several months of swaying between 'this isn't worth the faff' and 'let's crack on with this', a 3D printer was ordered. A Wanhao Duplicator 6 (D6). Unpacking your first 3D printer is a mix of extreme excitement and trepidation. You have a fantastic new toy but don't have a damn clue what you're doing with it! There are instructions of sorts but they are of the typical 'Chinese translated into gibberish' style that are next to useless.

Anyhow, the D6 was unpacked and set up on the kitchen table, printing filament loaded the bed was levelled using a bit of paper (advanced stuff this). Sal and I then watched in wonder as the thing started to print the test file supplied on the SD card.

Except it didn't.

It certainly went through the motions, but nothing was printed. No plastic emanating from the nozzle. Schoolboy (or noob) error number 1. The test print was designed for PLA filament but I had unwittingly loaded ABS. Those in the know will be laughing at this point but ABS has a significantly higher melt point than PLA so it was hardly surprising that nothing was coming out of the nozzle!

ABS was removed, PLA was loaded and YAY things began to happen!.

After an hour or so of 'woah, this is the work of Satan' like comments, we got bored and went to the pub.

I later learned this was possibly not the wisest course of action as the D6 did not have something called Thermal Runaway Protection as standard. However, on returning, we were not greeted by the smell of a burning residence but a little hand in the form of an 'OK' sign.

Ultimately not the most useful print on the planet but at least it prove the thing was working!

Hmm, It's a bit 'Meh'

At this point, I really didn't know what to expect from a 3D printer. The initial print looked OK (forgive the pun) but, in hindsight, it was actually pretty crap. This became more apparent when I started printing things I had designed myself.

Luckily there was a fairly new (at the time) Facebook Group for Wanhao D6 owners. It quickly became apparent that the part cooling on the D6 was woefully inadequate and the primary cause of my quality issues. After trying several 'dual fan' part cooling setups (each having their own problems), I ended up designing my own, which is still one of my most downloaded designs on Thingiverse!

Sketchup Is Great (NOT)

After correcting the initial print quality issues, there was also the pain point of actually designing things.

I had been using Sketchup for my woodworking and general design for a number of years. Initially, I was under the impression this was also a good choice for 3D printing but, unless you are a complete masochist, this is actually pretty far removed from the truth. Generating a 3D printable design in Sketchup is painful. It doesn't naturally generate 'manifold' designs, flips faces when it feels like it and requires a raft of 3rd party add-ons to get even close to the task. It's good for many things but utter crap for 3D printing (this may have changed since 2016 - I can't be arsed to find out).

After messing around with a number of 3D CAD packages, I'm now (almost) exclusively using Autodesk Fusion 360. It's made the design process a pleasure and is just so capable. I'm currently able to use this on a free startup license but would be worth every penny of the subscription should I need to pay in the future.

Although I did eventually produce prototypes of my original 'idea' (and they did work), it didn't actually come to much. That particular project is still on the back-burner and may well be revisited in the future.

Why Am I Doing This?

What I did find useful however was actually having a purpose for a 3D printer. I learned so much more about printing by being in a situation where I needed it to do something specific and practical. This made me further my knowledge well beyond what was originally envisaged and made me realise that you can take an inexpensive 3D printer and make it produce quality equalling 'pro' printers that would cost thousands. All this by a bit of hardware and software tuning, knowing how to 'slice' a print properly and installing a few carefully chosen upgrades.

The Value of Facebook

Gaining this knowledge does take time. 3D printing has a learning curve akin to a brick wall. I see so many new owners who just do not appreciate this fact and expect their new printer to be 'plug and play'. Whist they can be such, it's highly unusual and you just have to be prepared to work at it.

Facebook groups can be a good source of help when you get stuck but I would urge anyone starting out to search Google and Youtube first. Experienced members of Facebook groups and online forums do get a little peeved (sometimes cuttingly rude) when the same basic questions are asked repeatedly and Google would have found the answer in 2 minutes. You also need to learn that there are a lot of Facebook 'experts' who are far from such (actually complete arse-holes) and seem to make a hobby of leading new users 'up the garden path'. Take note!

My 'Interesting Journey' continues.

What started out as a one off project has turned into one of the most rewarding hobbies I have ever had.  Ultimately it has also become a side-business that provides a small income on top of paying for itself. Check it out at https://the3droom.co.uk.

At the time of writing this post I have expanded to 11 filament printers and a resin printer (resin being a whole new learning curve).

The D6 is still doing it's thing, although it's been modified a bit and is reserved for printing specific materials. Having learned what I have, I would have chosen my first printer differently but, that's another blog post and hindsight is an exact art!