Wow, we’re already at the last video of
this series… I’ve produced these over
the course of almost two months, and yeah,
it has been crazy. I’ve got to get used
to a routine again that isn’t “eat, sleep,
produce, repeat”, and you’re probably
wondering what should be the next steps for
you. Do you really need to buy your own machine?
How should you go about starting to use it
productively instead of getting stuck in “novelty”
phase? Yeah, let’s looks at that today!
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So where do you go from here? Great question,
but that really depends on you. I’ve tried
to stress in this series that you should think
about what you’re going to do with a 3D
printer before you grab one. Now, I know usually
101 or “basics” series have an “examples”
section where they just go through the things
we just learned and apply it to a “real”,
fake project, but you know, there are plenty
of videos or writeups on my channels and on
others that are either full-on 3D printing
projects or just make use of 3D printing where
it makes sense. I’ve linked a few up here.
If you’re unsure about whether a 3D printer
is the right tool for you, maybe check out
your local makerspace first. Right now, a
lot of them are still closed, unfortunately,
but maybe you’re watching this video a year
after I uploaded it in what is now July 2020
and maybe things are different by then. Or
maybe not. I don’t know.
Anyway, having a “known good” machine
that you can try printing your ideas on is
really valuable and you’ll get a much better
feel for what’s doable and what actually
printing something entails than what I can
show you on video.
Whatever you do, start small. Pick a small
project or a simple design to get going on,
and just take things one step at a time
And that can be as small or as insignificant
as this little piece. This is an adapter my
mom needed so that she can directly set her
coffee filter onto her mug in the morning.
Perfect for making just one mug of coffee!
You know, stuff like that, useful, not too
much of a time investment if it doesn’t
work out, but still with plenty of learning
opportunities along the way. For example,
for this to be dishwasher safe, I printed
it out of PC-ABS, because PLA is obviously
just going to warp.
And with those learning opportunities comes
the temptation to start upgrading thing. My
suggestion: Try to understand what is going
on first before you dive into a potentially
frustrating and costly upgrade bonanza. Sometimes
just a better slicer profile can make heaps
of a difference for print quality and reliability.
What I also always find super useful is being
able to print different materials. PLA is
totally fine for a lot of things, but knowing
how to print with PETG, ABS, Polycarbonate,
and maybe flexibles and Nylon really expands
what you can do with that same skill set of
knowing how to print parts. When trying a
new type of material, start with a known-good
filament first, so that you can learn how
it behaves and how to work with it without
having to worry about the material just being
bad. And once you’ve figured out how to
print it, you can then always step down to
a cheaper brand if you want to and if you
run into problems with that, you’ll know
whether it’s bad filament or just an an
inherent shortcoming of the type of material
you’re using.
Once you’re comfortable with your machine,
there are plenty of good causes that you can
use your 3D printer for. For example, in the
early months of the Covid-19 outbreak, there’s
been a huge demand for printed faceshield,
in fact just the small headbands that you
clip an easily available transparency sheet
to. That has worked fantastically well in
places where regular supply chains just weren’t
able to keep up, so I guess you can expect
a lot more like that in the future, now that
we, as a 3D printing community, have proven
that yes, these machines are able to make
real, functional parts, fast, and that people
are able to self-organize to make it happen.
So, thank you to everyone who has contributed
to that cause.
If you want a big project, there’s e-nable
that you could join, printing low-cost prosthetic
limbs, but you know, even just helping out
friends and family and printing the little
nick-nags they need is, I think, something
that already makes the world a tiny bit better.
Let’s check out some of my subscriber’s
comments and questions from the rest of the
series!
Mario is saying “great content, please don’t
forget Tinkercad!”: Yes, you’re totally
right, I should have mentioned that. Autodesk
used to have a lot more “simple” tools,
like 123D Design, which was a Fusion360 “light”
version, basically, but all those 123D tools
are now gone, but Tinkercad survived! So Tinkercad
is a really simple, I guess actually “playful”
way of designing 3D parts; it’s all about
starting with a few basic shapes and combining
those with each other, cutting away bits,
adding bits here and there. It’s not the
most powerful tool in the world, but it’s
definitely an easy start if you or your kids
have never used a CAD tool before. So definitely,
Tinkercad is worth a look. It’s free and
I guess Autodesk are seeing it as a “soft
introduction” to eventually sell you a subscription
to their bigger products.
Adam is asking “should I use a 0.45mm first
layer height on a 0.4mm nozzle and will that
a loss of detail?”: I’m not a fan, unless
you go real wide on your extrusion width as
well, as a general rule of thumb, you do lose
quite a bit of control over how that extruded
filament sausage ends up looking, and as a
rule of thumb, if you go above ¾ of your
nozzle size, or I guess more accurately, of
your extrusion width, it’s going to start
squirming out towards the sides and isn’t
going to make great contact with the bed,
so you end up with the opposite of what you’re
trying to get. Now, you’d think the extra
width would be an issue with small details,
but modern slicers like PrusaSlicer actually
compensate for that and will fill those small
spots as well.
MC is saying “Newbies should know about
thermal protection!” - and yes, I totally
agree, but it’s impossible to find out if
the manufacturer has correctly implemented
all the safety features that are needed for
a reasonably safe use their printer, so definitely
look at some reviews that test those features.
Tom is asking about the resolution of the
Z-axis, which I’ve super briefly touched
on in one of the videos, but basically, every
axis has a “natural” step size, and on
most printers, you don’t have any guarantee
that the microstepping between those positions
is reliable. Now, Prusa do something where
they let you calibrate that microstepping
interpolation on their Trinamic drivers, but
on most printers, the microstepping positions
can be pretty far off. So on those, in the
best case, you can only get reliable position
on every half step, so with a common setup,
every 0.02mm - and 0.15mm layer heights aren’t
divisible by that. So yes, 0.16mm layers would
be a better choice, but as soon as you introduce
auto bed leveling, all that goes out the window
and basically, you can use any layer height
you want because you get dithering of those
steps throughout the layer. But that’s a
topic for another video.
Vorname wants to know where I get my shirts:
On the internet! It takes a lot of scrolling
to find these!
Anyway, I hope that answers some of those
burning questions, and I hope this series
helped you get into 3D printing - or if you
already knew everything I was talking about,
share it with a friend that could use the
info.
A massive thank you goes out to my Patrons
and YouTube members for the help with deciding
which topics to cover, I’ll try to do a
lot more direct voting on future video topics
there, so if you’re interested in that,
there’s links in the description. We also
do Q&A Hangouts there!
And lastly, I couldn’t have taken the risk
of spending the better part of two months
just working on a series like this, so thank
you to the sponsors that made it possible.
And thank you to you for watching! I would
encourage you to get subscribed and then to
comment below what you would like me to cover
next. Anyways, that’s it for this series,
keep on making, and I’ll see you in the
next one!
