Amateur 3D Printing

[Amberdrake]

When friends ask why I got a 3D printer, they immediately assume I did so to print little figurines and novelty items.

 

Whilst I'm not really into that and have not even printed the right-of-passage Benchy, I am massively addicted to boardgames (Catan, Wingspan, Powergrid, Pandemic, Viticulture, etc).

 

So I thought I would put the printer to good use and after failing to find a suitable design on Thingiverse, I printed an organiser for the most of the fiddly pieces in one of the games we're playing regularly.

 

Screenshot 2021-02-03 073744.png

A quick model up.

 

The one are of the design I'm finding is tricky/trial & error is latching systems/notches. That slide-in lid has a small recess to match a raised bump on the box. This is to ensure the lid "locks" into place. I made it 1mm high with a 1mm fillet all round, but after printing I found out that 1mm is way too much and i needed to shave it down. Will try 0.2 or 0.4mm (increments of my print height) next time and hopefully that will allow the lid to slide on smoothly and still lock into place.

 

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A good few hours of printing.

 

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And designed to fit neatly in the original box

Even though I don't print organisers, I have many board games and a fully printed catan......

[patches]

Even though I don't print organisers, I have many board games and a fully printed catan......

 

I've seen some of the Catan models on Thingiverse. Some people have gone into insane detail to create custom hexes.

 

We have about 7 Catan boxes cluttering up our sideboard (Seafareres, Cities & Knights and 5-6 player expansions of those too). Klaus Teuber must be a very rich man.

 

That said, since the Covid lockdowns last March, we play online "Catan" (colonist.io) with our friends (zoom video call on the side) as it's easy and requires zero setup and a quick weeknight game is feasible. In person lately has been mostly Wingspan and Viticulture.

[bertusras]

Whilst I'm not really into that and have not even printed the right-of-passage Benchy, I am massively addicted to boardgames (Catan, Wingspan, Powergrid, Pandemic, Viticulture, etc).

 

Neeeeeeeerd 

 

Kidding. Your modeling skills are awesome, well done patches!

Edited February 3, 2021 by bertusras

[The Ouzo]

you guys are making me want to get into 3D printing.

 

Whats the cheapest entry into this?

[Vetplant]

you guys are making me want to get into 3D printing.

 

Whats the cheapest entry into this?

Outright cheapest, get a buddy with a 3D printer and pay him per print...

 

Design your stuff on https://www.onshape.com/en/products/free

 

In terms of a good option for a proven 3D printer at an affordable price, the PRUSA line of printers are fantastic. We run a bunch of them at work for Tools, Jigs and Fixtures.

https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/66-original-prusa-mini

[The Ouzo]

Outright cheapest, get a buddy with a 3D printer and pay him per print...

 

Design your stuff on https://www.onshape.com/en/products/free

 

In terms of a good option for a proven 3D printer at an affordable price, the PRUSA line of printers are fantastic. We run a bunch of them at work for Tools, Jigs and Fixtures.

https://shop.prusa3d.com/en/66-original-prusa-mini

Those are not badly priced. bit out of budget at the moment buy nice to know.

[Amberdrake]

Prusa is reliable and known working. There are cheaper options like Ender3 and its variants but they require lots of tinkering. Id also learn fusion 360 over onshape but its personal preference.

[bertusras]

Creality Ender 3 (Regular/Pro/Silent) is a good start. I have a Creality CR10 Mini, which to be honest, was overkill. I could have managed with an Ender 3.

[patches]

Neeeeeeeerd 

 

Kidding. Your modeling skills are awesome, well done patches!

 

hahaha, you're not wrong. I spend more hours per week playing board games than riding bicycles or dirt bikes 

 

As for the modelling, thanks! It's so good to be back "on the tools" after years of middle-management duties. I'll take 3D modelling over writing business cases, specifications and procurement plans any-day. Unfortunately my mortgage won't agree

[patches]

Prusa is reliable and known working. There are cheaper options like Ender3 and its variants but they require lots of tinkering. Id also learn fusion 360 over onshape but its personal preference.

 

 

Creality Ender 3 (Regular/Pro/Silent) is a good start. I have a Creality CR10 Mini, which to be honest, was overkill. I could have managed with an Ender 3.

 

Yeah, very happy with my Ender 3 v2 as a foray into 3D printing. It'll be a while before I outgrow it.

 

And can concur on the Fusion 360, although I am a massive fan and former daily user of Inventor Pro, so I am somewhat biased towards the Autodesk products.

 

Fusion 360 is a great starting block into 3D modelling. It would make for a good knowledge base if one were to want to delve into the more specialist packages like Inventor Pro, or even Solidworks (although it's Dassault and not Autodesk, many of the concepts are the same).

[patches]

I think I'm almost ready to branch out from the safety of PLA and PLA+.

 

I see a number of you on this thread use PETG as your go to. I'm guessing it prints fine without an enclosure?

 

My local supplier also sells PMMA (which seems great on paper, but may be tricky to print).

Any recommendations for printing PETG? (I'm using an Ender 3 v2 with no hot-end modifications).

[bertusras]

My experience with PETG hasn't been the best to be honest. I could never get it to consistently print well. I'm not sure if I didn't have the temperature right, but I would get a lot of ooze which would end up wrapping around the nozzle and just causing a whole bunch of havoc and ugly prints.

 

I now only print PETG if I have a water exposed part. The nice thing about PETG though is you can print 0.25mm layers instead of 0.2mm so you score about 20% on the speed there, but you need to print a bit slower than PLA, so it's not all that different in the end.

[Amberdrake]

I had breeze coming over printer so PETG was warping. I have enclosure now but haven't tried again so can't comment unfortunately.

[bertusras]

I had breeze coming over printer so PETG was warping. I have enclosure now but haven't tried again so can't comment unfortunately.

 

Oh yes, that's my other annoyance. Sometimes (but not al the times), I would get a corner lifting on my PETG prints, but it doesn't stop after a few layers, it just flipping carries on and on and on. I realise that this is a cooling issue, but bloody hell it is annoying.

[patches]

Aliexpress finally delivered my BL Touch.

I installed it and some Capricorn tubing last night. Installation of the BL Touch was easy. It was for some reason the fine tuning on my Z-offset took about 5 attempts.

 

In the end though I printed one of TeachTech's big single layer X's and the results were great. Very even "squish" even after manhandling the printer and bed to install the BL.

 

I added the G29 command into the G-code so a bed levelling sequence is run before every print. Adds 1-2min onto the print, but in the grand scheme of things it's not bad.

 

Will give an update after a few months of use

[Amberdrake]

About 50% of the time it takes me 3 tries to get Z-Offset right, likely due to fact that I rarely do it. I went so far as to tighten bed all way and its fairly level(I did a thing with washers previously), so I don't even do a full check just a single point G28 + Load mesh. I am running UBL, don't think standard board has space for it.

Aliexpress finally delivered my BL Touch.

I installed it and some Capricorn tubing last night. Installation of the BL Touch was easy. It was for some reason the fine tuning on my Z-offset took about 5 attempts.

 

In the end though I printed one of TeachTech's big single layer X's and the results were great. Very even "squish" even after manhandling the printer and bed to install the BL.

 

I added the G29 command into the G-code so a bed levelling sequence is run before every print. Adds 1-2min onto the print, but in the grand scheme of things it's not bad.

 

Will give an update after a few months of use