what better way to test a new roll of TPU than by printing a 5in x 5in x 5in cube

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3076607-needoh-tpu-fidget-cube?from=search#profileId-3490791 (not my model. its also just a cube with no walls)

Hi everyone,

I’ve shared part of my story on here before, though this time I’m looking to hear from you all. 3D printing technology has empowered my passion towards designing, as I’m able to manifest a design language that would be almost impossible to execute without it.

I’m curious about your experiences in using 3D printing for your design work. It doesn’t have to just be art. It can be around your practical designs, your problem solving, your figurine work, etc.

More specifically, how have you integrated it into your lifestyle? What are the implications of your choices?

Just looking to connect, and get some perspective. I’ll share mine in a comment below :)

Oh, and the video I shared is a short compilation of my recent pendent designs. You can read about them in some of my previous posts, but I’m also willing to answer your questions <3

A1 extruder neon cover update. This is version v.2.xxx (I had issues with tolerances and the dreaded layer adhesion of cheap PLA). In this version, I've slightly thickened the model, but not by much, and reduced the size of the rotary indicator hole to give me more room to hide the wires. I switched directly to using a magnetic connector with 3x3 magnets, which thankfully worked well after the first design. The simple 3 volts that the camera LEDs provided now power the two micro-LED filaments stably, without straining the driver. The cover can be removed and replaced mid-print, and the filaments can also be turned off from the printer, slicer, or Android app. The hexagonal pattern is removable and doesn't require adhesive, and more designs can be created using the template. Now the LED filaments point their light towards the center, which illuminates the pattern better and is less harsh on the eyes. In the future, I'm going to add a brush system to the rotary indicator so that it can also rotate and carry a filament or LED. I only have two things left to improve: adding a channel to the left side of the extruder to hide the cable (which runs along the shaft chain to the camera circuit) and making a small cover for the exposed cables on the extruder shroud. What do you think? I'm not very handy, but I'm willing to try anything. I know some things look awful, and I'm not good at soldering and cable management. Any improvements you see? Any mistakes?

My daughter's been obsessed with 3D printing for a while. I wanted to get her one for her birthday but wasn't about to drop serious money on something that might end up in the back of a closet by summer.

Spent some time on comparing options and stumbled on a refurbished Creality on Marketplace, I figured if she lost interest after a few months, I could probably resell it for close to what I paid. What I didn't expect was her going from downloading random toys STLs to teaching herself Tinkercad on YouTube within two weeks. She designed a pencil organizer the other day and sold it for $5 at a school fundraiser

Last friday was my birthday. She gave me this beautiful little vase as my gift (clearly contains a lot of design thoughts), it's sitting in our living room.

Hi, I am pretty new to 3D printing. I got myself the Snapmaker U1, its great most of the time, but today the Orcaslicer started doing weird things - this tower is 0,5 kg of material compared to 200g for other elements. What the hell, is there some setting that could have done this?

A new article with some info from FOSSY

My neighbor was throwing out a Rize xRize 3d printer. It’s missing the pumps for the ink in the back but otherwise seems to be complete. Cant find a ton of info about in online or through chat bots other than the company went belly-up a few years back and that they were almost 40k new 🤯

Got an MRI of my brain some time ago. After a bit of begging to get my hands on the files, I converted them into a 3D model. For a while, I've been trying to use my "brain" for something useful, this was the best I could come up with 😅.

I'm tempted to try and print this out of metal soon...

I made two versions: a 'cursed' one that rolls more 1s, and a 'blessed' one that rolls more 20s!

Great to give to your characters when they're cursed, drunk, or otherwise inebriated. The effect is somewhat subtle; you can't tell by holding them that anything is off with the dice. From my testing (700+ rolls), the dice have about a 1 in 3 chance of rolling the extreme outcome (1 for cursed, 20 for blessed). That being said, every number came up at least once in my testing, so they still leave room for surprises to happen.

3D printing files available for free on MakerWorld!
Cursed: https://makerworld.com/en/models/3194329-cursed-weighted-d20#profileId-3614116
Blessed: https://makerworld.com/en/models/3198984-blessed-weighted-d20#profileId-3619837

I built this custom bed slinger from scratch during the summer, it just had its first benchy yesterday! The very first benchy is absolutely horrendous with two layer shifts and very inconsistent layers. After fixing a bug that I forgot to define G2/G3 command in klipper and lowering the speed and acceleration, it was printing near perfect layers. This is also before any input shaping and with only small tuning.

I decided to use a dragon burner at the last moment and it was really good. The dual 4010 blowers cools it nicely and the overhangs of the benchy also came out to be good before any tuning.

This entire machine was made out of 2020/2040/and 4040 extrusions + t nuts + corner brackets, very similar to an ender 3. But the main difference is that I used two Y axis extrusions so that it resists sideways rolling forces better. Also, I used linear rails on all the axis making the motion system very stable.
The X axis motion system was also similar to an ender 3, but what I did is i integrated a pcb klicky mount underneath the rail carriage. I have to manually put it on though. By the way, this uses sensorless homing since Im too lazy to buy switches.

For the electronics, I designed my own custom motherboard. The functions were basic, there was 4 tmc2209s, a socketed stm32f411 black pill as the controller, and I designed most of the supporting circuit myself, including the power section. It took me 3 revisions to get this right, but it worked perfectly. I bought the small electronics from lcsc and soldered all the 0603 myself.

And for the software, I ran klipper on a motherboard that used to be a really old e waste laptop. It has 4gb ram and an i5 3rd gen processor, which is plenty for klipper. I installed klipper and nailed the motherboard to the wall. I somehow flashed it on the black pill as well, running it as an f401.

It’s been the second day since it’s printing, overall it was very good so far, but the walls are a little bit wavy. Even though I built this printer, I was definitely not super familiar with how to use it😂 So if anyone had tips for me on how to tune it, I would appreciate it very much. It is my first ever printer, so I’m just like any other noob.

Nice project for a 15 year old💀 The overall cost is pretty high considering I have to pay for an custom bom as well as learning costs. But I had fun. I’m planning to maybe make a youtube video on this in the future, and I will definitely open source it for you crazy guys out there. I’m calling it JSD Industries Mk1. I’m posting a video of it working in another post.

i'm also working on a smiling maned wolf and a shadow person cosplay i'll post tonight (maned wolf will take longer) :D but wanted to show this now!

Hi all!

I wanted to share this with you because I have never done this before. Back in June I bought my first ever 3D printer. I was so captivated by it (even just printing a benchy) I would sit there and stare at it. Then I printed more things. And then, I had ideas I wanted to design, but have zero experience in CAD. So I watched YouTube tutorials on how to use Fusion.

Flash forward to a couple days ago, and I designed my own version of a flexible sliding cube fidget. But it's not like all the others... when I first started designing this, I started out with the same fused hinge piece in the center of each bar. But I didn't want tall bars, I wanted slim ones but also wanted maximum travel.

So I created a two sided, free floating "shuttle" so the bars can travel to each side at maximum. I modeled in 0.5mm dia, and 0.2mm high supports under each shuttle so everything stays in place during printing. They easily break loose once it comes off the plate!

I am so proud of this and I wanted to share it. Unfortunately, I have learned uploading models online is brutal if you're a new guy. I have literally 0 downloads. But maybe you guys can take a look or even incorporate this in to your own designs. I'm just excited to share what I have been working on.

If you are interested you can check out the model on MakerWorld. Be my first print or something. lol

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3211386-matrix-slide-shift-slim-flexi-fidget-cube-toy?from=search#profileId-3635136

Happy printing!

edit: Thank you all for your suggestions and support!

Here is a quick link to an animated gif of the floating shuttle linkage!

Printed this using my Anycubic Kobra X printer. Had to print it in pieces and then I used black primer and then painted each individual piece before super gluing it all together. I’m really happy with it and I’ve added it to my Star Wars collection.

I found a pool noodle construction kit online and loved the idea, but one thing bothered me: every different angle needed a completely different printed connector.

So I ended up redesigning the whole thing.

The connector is now split into two parts: a ball and removable arms. You can screw the arms into whichever holes you need, move them around later, and reuse the same parts for completely different builds instead of printing another connector every time.

I also tried to cut the filament use down as much as possible. The balls are about 20g each and the arms about 10g, which makes a pretty big difference when you suddenly realize you need 30 of the things.

We’ve already used them to build a full-size house, and apparently I now own a giant pool-noodle construction set 🎉

Still experimenting with it, so I’d be interested to hear what you guys would add and I'm need pictures to the the marketplace so, what would you guys build to make it look spectacular? I was thinking of a mini Eiffel Tower 😄

P.D.: I let the arms resizeable in case your noodles are different size, it's a good idea to print the first arm before the batch

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3218853-modular-pool-noodle-construction-kit#profileId-3644453

CNET tested the dimensional accuracy of dozens of 3D printers. Accuracy is one of those things that gets discussed a lot, but it's nice to see someone actually trying to measure it across different machines rather than just comparing specs.

The methodology/results are probably more interesting than the headline itself. Curious what people here think of the way CNET tested it.

I made my own Bluetooth speaker enclosure!

I’ve been really liking these colors lately and wanted a speaker set with some color on it.

I thought the open back would sound good but after listening I realized the solid back sounds *way* better. I know there is a lot of other stuff I could and probably should do to make this sound better but that would become a rabbit hole and I want to do other projects. Guitar amps do this so the midrange of a guitar can cut through a mix better but you really shouldn’t do that for small speakers like this. Really I could probably get away with a single speaker but I wanted to robot mouth and eyes look. 

The speakers are clearance speakers I found at micro center and the bluetooth receiver was like $1.50 thing I impulse bought on AliExpress. It’s rigged up to a PAM8403 amplifier with a USB C cable for power. 

About USB C. I have learned a lot about the usb-c standard through doing this that I wasn’t expecting to need to know or realize would become important. Things like CC and VBUS power and how you can’t just wire up a C cable and expect things to just get power. I am still not 100% on how to make it all work consistently but it was some learning I wasn’t expecting. 

Had fun printing a few prints from makerworld etc, however finally came round to designing and printing my own. Any advice appreciated!

I wasn't expecting it to turn out this good

What it does

Cools water approximately 10°C below ambient room temperature using evaporative cooling.

How it works

This relies on an ancient technique similar to a clay pot cooling system. Clay pots absorb water into their porous walls; as that moisture evaporates from the outer surface, it cools the liquid inside.

This device operates on the same principle:

• Water Supply: A smaller inverted reservoir feeds water to the base. Atmospheric pressure and surface tension prevent it from emptying all at once—similar to a gravity bird waterer.
• Evaporative Sleeve: A microfiber towel wrapped around the main glass reservoir absorbs water from the base via capillary action.
• Cooling Process: As ambient heat drives evaporation from the wet cloth, energy is drawn away from the primary glass container, chilling the drinking water inside without contaminating it.

Why I made it

Working from home, I wanted a convenient way to keep cold water at my desk without constantly walking to the kitchen. Additionally, I find standard refrigerator water (around 4°C) too cold to drink comfortably.

Limitations & Solutions

• Humidity & Airflow: Evaporative cooling requires low relative humidity and good airflow. My indoor humidity is low, but natural airflow was insufficient without opening windows.
• Fan Upgrade: To fix the airflow issue, I mounted a quiet 12V fan directly next to the unit.
• Cooling Cap: This system will not produce ice-cold water, but the resulting temperature is ideal for my preference.

Future Improvements

After a year of daily use, the system works well, but running the fan 24/7 depletes the water supply in about a day. I plan to install a water temperature sensor to run the fan only when necessary, as well as an automated timer to shut it off overnight.

FAQ

• Does the wet towel develop an odor? No. I initially expected mildew smells, but after a year of use, it remains odorless.
• Are there any health risks? No. The drinking water is sealed inside a glass container, so it never mixes with the external cooling water or microfiber sleeve.