3D Printing

3D printing was an end goal for me. When I started designing electronics I very quickly learned that most of what I was building would need protection from the world. In the beginning I was able to buy simple box enclosures from the local Radio Shack (rest in peace) to protect my projects. Soon I realized that I needed a better way to do this, which led me to 3D modeling and printing.

History

When I first got into 3D printing, much of my time was spent searching for ways to design and print an enclosure for electronics. 3D printing has been around since the 80's, but it didn't get big until around 2011. The cost of printers was dropping fast and affordable desktop printers were coming into existence. I picked up my first 3D printer in 2015 from a company called Printrbot. I took my time assembling it to make sure everything was perfect. I knew that these machines were sensitive to any variations in their assembly. I spent my first few months learning how to get a decent looking print. Thingiverse provided me with plenty of models to practice with while I was getting the printer dialed in. The printer itself is actually only half the equation though. The majority of the time spent tuning was actually dealing with the slicing software. In particular, I used Repeteir for slicing. I recently picked up a new printer and the improvements made to the design and overall print quality compared to my last printer are incredible. It's essentially plug and play. Assemble it, level the bed, and get printing using Cura as the slicing software.

I currently print with the Creality Ender 3 Pro.

Technique

My modeling technique is different when I intend on printing. Everything has to be based on real world values, it can't just be about the way it looks. I also have to take into consideration the physical movements that the printer will take when printing a model. This involves being cognitive of overhangs on the model, how a model is positioned, and when a model will need support for printing. Keeping these things in mind, I can basically print whatever I want, to an extent. I keep a micrometer at my desk so I can take measurements of any objects I'm trying to build. These numbers can be put into Blender directly to build accurate models. Once a model is exported to the .stl file, it can be sent over to slicing software for printing.

Once I can actually touch an object, it completely changes the way I think about it. Things that looked good in a 3D representation may not make quite as much sense in the real world. An example of this would be with my motorcycle turn signal project. While I was very happy with the render and the way the 3D model looked on the computer, once I could see it in real life and actually interact with a tangible object, I wasn't as pleased with it. There's just something about being able to hold an object in your hands that changes the way you think about it. This is why 3D printing is such a valuable resource to me.

Demonstration

The following video clip demonstrates how I go about modeling a part that will be printed. This particular piece is a housing for a Kessil LED lamp power brick. It will be used to mount the power brick up and out of the way inside an aquarium stand. Measurements were taken from the power brick and the housing was built to scale based on these measurements.

The completed power brick housing took about six hours to print and once it was complete it worked exactly as expected. The power brick is now mounted in the cabinet, out of the way of everything else and looks great.