I recently attended an ‘Intro to 3D Printing’ class at The Hacktory (www.TheHacktory.org) in Philadelphia, and wanted to share some of the amazing things being done in 3D printing.
Some of you may already know a lot about 3D printing but I had not yet had the chance to explore the possibilities with what is coming down the line. If you do have good knowledge of this area, I welcome your comments to help inspire the Maker Community.
For those of you like myself who have not yet explored 3D printing I will share a few things I learned and some cool resources. While there are currently 3D printers available at a much lower cost than in the recent past, that doesn’t mean 3D printing at home is for everyone. I am told by sine the design software isn’t too hard to learn, especially for simple designs and in making adjustments to existing designs. (Check out Thingiverse.com for shared 3D designs). There is apparently a learning curve on avoiding common mistakes regarding making sure the initial layer of material adheres well, making sure any overhanging areas are supported and ensuring proper quality of material.
Are we there yet?
The main issues with 3D Printing on a DIY basis is maintenance/repairs to the printer itself and the time it takes to print a project.
Like any technology 3D Printers can be temperamental and need replacement parts frequently. A cool featured of 3D printing is that 3D printer can even print some of their own replacement parts…of course you better plan on replacements ahead of time because if your 3D printer isn’t working that makes it pretty difficult to print a replacement part, you know what I am saying?
Depending on the resolution, size and complexity of a project a personal 3D printer can take quite a while to print and you will want to check in on it every so often to make sure it has not gone wildly astray due to a wide variety of things that can go wrong.
Issues, Schmissues…bring on the Cool Stuff!
Now that I have warned you about some of the potential frustrations with 3D printing as a hobby or for making products or prototypes for your small business lets talk about some of the cool things that are being done with 3D printing.
When I thought of 3D printing I thought solely of printing little plastic products or knick-knacks, CNC Wood carving, maybe a product prototype, etc. It is so much more than that and includes machines that use yarn on a specially designed ‘printer’ to create a wide variety of wearable products, and yes there are fashion applications for the traditional 3D printers as well.
There are materials you can use in 3D printing that can even be sculpt improvements to the print by hand.
If you want to go the other direction with a stronger material that won’t budge you can print with Carbon/Fiberglass:
There are machines created to use the focused power of the sun to fuse glass designs. Here is a cool video demonstrating ‘Printing with Sand’
If you want your sweets you can even print some food:
Make Magazine has a recent article on 3D printing for accessibility: 3D Print Your Own Tactile Measuring Tools for the Visually Impaired
I personally enjoy woodworking as a hobby and while I have used routers and other tools to create minimal 3D effects on some wood projects I have not used a CNC router machine. However I do have a client of my web design business that makes 3D relief decorative wood plaques and am always amazed at the great plaques and clocks he creates using design software to engineer the right look and feel for his creations. (Check out www.DecorativeWoodCarvings.com or @ABIWoodworking to see some examples.)
What does that even mean? Common terms in 3D Printing…
@TheHacktory put together some common terms in 3D Printing that can help wet your appetite further (and help in your Google Search)… Intro to 3D Printing – Terminology and Resources from ‘The Hacktory’
Had enough? Actually we are just getting warmed up…
I put more info in this article than I originally planned on but there is still so much to share on the topic so I will save it for another day. Please keep following or better yet join the discussion and let us know what you have learned or want to learn about 3D printing.