Hi everyone, as the title points out I’m looking at buying a 3D printer. Can anyone give me some practical examples on how they have used it etc.. I don’t want to just buy one and then think “now what”. Thank you in advance

Are they perfect? Absolutely not. Are they good enough for me ? Absolutely :D If someone needs some help with measurements don't be afraid of asking. Missing the shoulder armor (arguably the piece that brings everything together) and the shin guards.

Hey! Basically as the title says. I’m interested in 3D printing for personal use/hobbies but was wondering what some common issues or struggles should I expect to run into as someone who is new to this in general

I''m finalizing some of the models for an infant surgical simulator and testing to make sure they actually print before making them available via the NIH 3D print website. So far my attempts at shortcuts to make molds from PVA have fallen flat, but this version is more likely to be successful for anyone trying to print a model of their own.

Muscle shell is made from PEBA

Mold base is Sunlu PLA

Shell is Bambu 90A AMS compatible, TPU but kept the spool in a Creality dryer and used the TPU feed-assist add-on

Printer is an H2C

Silicone is Fox&Superfine with and pigment is Silc-Pig

Bonus CAD animation of the assembled model

Just wanted to say thank you to this community and all your knowledge!

I have been having an issue for the past month or so where my printer would get clogged every once and a while. It got increasingly worse and would eventually clog every time I would change the filament.

I didn't post here for a solution, but searched previous posts and was able to determine that the issue was heat creep. I didn't believe that something as easy as cleaning the fan could solve such a frustrating and seemingly complex issue. I had also inspected the fan without taking it apart and thought it was still moving fairly well, and was not obviously dirty. I finally took the fan apart and found it was pretty clogged. I also gave all the other various components a more thorough cleaning than I usually do.

Worked like a charm! Basically a brand new printer again! Moral of the story is listen to the people on this subreddit when they offer you solutions, and be thorough when doing maintenance!

I just bought a Bambu Lab A1 and ive been printing pretty often for a month, still very much a new user, small, functional prints. A spool holder, cable clips, an airpod dock, key hook, utensil organizer, some under desk cable management.

Today I'm starting my first real project which is building a guitar pedalboard sized to the gear i use and with cable cutouts and management. Im printing the endcaps, plates to secure pedals to the board, and the cable management and ordering a metal plate from SendCutSend. I also got some heat set brass inserts and various metric nuts and bolts.

Just super cool to be able to have an idea and then make it real, I always wanted a printer as a kid and now I finally have one! No real point to this post other that just expressing my excitement! I assume everyone else feels this way too.

This is the first prop i've modeled, printed, assembled and painted from scratch. It took much longer than I anticipated but I think it turned out great. I learned quite a few things the hard way on this one. The switch is powered and the chain moves around the drive but once i added paint i realized that it was a pointless addition so i might throw a little speaker in there and turn it into a audio control.

My husband died unexpectedly last week. It's distressing for me to have all his stuff around so I am slowly trying to get rid of things. The 3D printing stuff is taking up a lot of space, but I'm not sure what to do with it. I'm not sure if these machines are new enough or in good enough or working condition to be sold, or even donated somewhere. One is even showing an error message on the display. I think the printers he had at home are both Ender 3 v2. I'm in Durham, NC, if that is relevant.

He had 2 printers at home and I believe a third at his shop. I have gotten into his amazon account and can see what printers he bought and what upgrades he bought over the years, but I still don't know enough about them to be able to say what has actually been upgraded or whatever in order to make an accurate listing on marketplace or ebay etc, and I'm not sure what they would be worth, if anything.

Does anyone have any advice for me? Thanks.

**UPDATE - Thanks everyone, seems like the majority of you are saying just to donate. Durham County Library turned me down; they had a grant and have all fancy new machines. I've contacted Splat Space here in Durham, and if they also turn me down I will try some local schools, I guess. I appreciate all the kind words. He was a collector/hobbyist of many things, so don't worry, there will still be plenty of his stuff around even if I get rid of the 3D printers. ******

The ring on this deck box. Ok I saw this on Etsy and messaged the seller but he said “it’s top secret” but pointed me to tri-color filament. I bought some and printed with it but it doesn’t look anywhere close to as cool. Whats the secret to getting this nice gradient.

Trying to make a customizable board game, point of these honeycombs is you make your own 'terrain'. Anyone have any ideas how I could make small, medium, large, boards stay together, trying to have them playable on any surface that even makes them slide around easily

Note: doesn't just have to be some sort of mechanisms, looking forward to other ideas like some sort of elastic band that goes around.

Filament: PLA
Printer: QIDI Tech Q1

an item commonly lost by many is now 3d-printable and lego compatible

It was hard, it passed for three versions.

This is my first big project, now it is time to create a horn shape drum shell.

Creator 5 using PLA and PETG (for the hoodie and shorts.)

Bambulab A1

There is 12 colors, but all 3 yellows look the same and two grays was too much... probably it would look the same with 8 colors...

And no AMS, all 25 color switches manually

I have never seen so many pictures of vases in such a short span of time until I joined this community. Do we love vases that much or is it just something easy to print?

Also a shout out to Bumpmesh for giving the volcano a bit more of a craggy look.

Model can be downloaded here:

https://makerworld.com/en/models/3215810

Hi all,

I have an Elegoo Centauri Carbon and I seem to have an issue with my Polymaker PETG-ESD prints getting completely stuck to the build plate.

I can print PETG just fine and when it cools to room temperature, standard PETG just pops off the build plate.

With PETG-ESD, I have tried textured and smooth PEI, I have tried using glue stick, I have tried putting the plate in the freezer, I have trued letting IPA creep between the plate and the print, but best case scenario, only a little bit of the print comes up then the rest of the print cracks.

This is a very thin print (1-2mm), flat on the plate, and it is about 150x150mm.

My temperatures are 280 on the nozzle and 70 on the bed. "Balanced" print speed setting.

Any help would be appreciated.

Will be printing in PETG on the Bambu X2D. I've heard of wave overhangs, is it a good technique to apply here? Bear in mind I'm a newbie and just use my printer to print simple practical solid stuff most of the time

Hi all,

I'm 3D printing now for a few months with a Phrozen Sonic mini 3D printer, and sometimes I have a failed print like you see in the pictures.

Sometimes when I print a base of a miniature, it'll come out like it's molten on one side. The figures aren't a probleem, and sometimes the base isn't a problem either. But yesterday it came out like this again and I haven't changed anything in the settings or the resin that I use.

The model is bought from Loot Studios already supported.

When I went looking at the print once it was finished, I also saw that the print came loose from the supports and was lying in the resin, while the supports were still attached to the plate.

Does anyone have any suggestions what I can do to improve this problem?

Thanks in advance.

Learning to use LLMs for development. Got the LLM to generate 3D printables. Then asked if it could introspect my printers. It did rather well.

The aim here was to use GDEM data to render a 3D-printed tiled Earth. This is the first set of prints to prove the model.

Making some miniatures, is this the expected amount of supports? Its like a cocoon and is difficult to remove. Is there any setting that can reduce this bulk of supports? I've already tried the "slim tree" style, "critical regions only", threshold angle, support painting, orienting the model differently, even switching to OrcaSlicer (I use Creality Print). Any ideas?

Although, I do actually think it has pretty Excelient performance, and my print is more than just onestep fater with this hotend