Last year I bought a 3D printer. I figured it was time to get into this exciting area of manufacturing. I have been following its progress from back when Adrian Bowyer first proposed the idea of Reprap, a self-replicating machine that can be used to make a copy of itself. I thought the concept was very clever and the way it worked was pretty much exactly how 3D printers like the one in the picture work today. You will have to excuse the mess of my desk. I am in the middle of organising things, trying to find a place for everything and am so excited about the possibilities this machine holds that I have no time for cleanup.
For those who may have heard of 3D printers but don't know how they work let me try and put it into a simple paragraph..
3D printing primer
A 3d printer has a tiny little hot-glue gun that squirts melted plastic. A special piece of software called a Slicer slices whatever object you want to make into 2D layers that are then drawn on a platform by the hot-glue gun (also known as an extruder). Once this layer is drawn it then moves to the next layer and draws that on top of the previous one. It continues this until you have lots of layers of plastic that look like what you wanted.
Of course, there are lots of elements that make this a complex process but since this technology was adopted by a strong community things have gotten much simpler. Now anyone can have one of these on their desk for the price of a standard 2d printer.
Many options are available to buy and you can even make your own using free open source plans online.
I opted for the Ender 3 S1 Pro From Creality. It has options to print in many different materials and is simple to set up. I could have tried to make one but for me, I didn't want the joys of making a 3D printer, I wanted the joys of what a 3D printer could make.
There are different types of plastic for different types of jobs, each with its strengths and weaknesses. This is sold in large rolls of filament in every colour. So far I have just printed PLA which is a plastic made from plant starch. This is easy to work with, hasn't got much of a smell and is pretty cheap.
But my Ender 3 can print Carbon Reinforced Nylon if I need lots of strength.
Inspired by nature
One of the most fascinating things I have discovered about 3D printing is about supports. These are little scaffolds that print along with your model to help support overhanging parts. They come in different flavours and the slicer software automatically adds them for you in areas where it thinks are needed. They can be straightforward grid-like structures or like in these models made to resemble trees.
They waste less plastic and for me, they just look cooler. Like some sort of Borg-made creation. It is interesting that with such high technology, it is still good to take guidance from nature.
The fruits of its labour
Once I trim the branches I am left with the fruit. This is what I wanted a highly machined part that would be difficult to make with other processes.
This is a bracket to connect a camera to my printer so I can see how it's doing over the internet when I'm not in the room.
This is the fruit from the first trees, another bracket so I can connect a different controlling computer to the printer.
I did not design these objects, rather I downloaded them from the net and just pressed print. I am now in the process of designing my own stuff and will probably be producing more posts about my progress with this exciting tool/ toy.