Anyone Playing Around With Desktop Type 3D printing?

[Nitric]

I'm bored so I'll start a thread on my hobby of the week!

This is very new to me, like this week new! I've had it for weeks and decided to get it out and play around. I know nothing yet.

I bought a cheap 3D printer to play with. It's An Anycubic i3 Mega. No problems with setup and adjusting.

NOW...Comes learning the programs and how to make everything work together. I started out by Playing with Cura and using a laptop running vista. This is how bad I am at this stuff...It took me two hours to figure out how to redo the firmware. I downloaded it from the site, lost it in my computer(somewhere, wherever the stuff disappears to in there), Then get it to the SD card. I had no clue what I was doing. BUT I GOT IT!!!!

Anyone playing with these type printers? Any suggestions on programs, hacks, upgrades?

Looks like it will be fun once I figure out the programs. I was able to adjust it so that the test print they give you came out almost looking like it was molded plastic.

 

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[iWeld]

Ive got a destop 3D printer in my office at work. They definately cool toys. It's an Ultamaker and I run Cura. I do a lot of modeling in solidworks so it works pretty good for what i do. I needed some prototypes a while back but once i looked at the smaller printers I figured I could buy one printer for half the cost of the prototype part i needed.

 

[lookingharder]

I'm also a RC rock crawlers nut. I have 3 RC rock crawlers. I see these 14 year old kids on Youtube making every part imaginable. I'm afraid if I ever got a 3D printer, I would never see the day light again. They are amazing once you learn how to use them.

 

[Nitric]

Ive got a destop 3D printer in my office at work. They definately cool toys. It's an Ultamaker and I run Cura. I do a lot of modeling in solidworks so it works pretty good for what i do. I needed some prototypes a while back but once i looked at the smaller printers I figured I could buy one printer for half the cost of the prototype part i needed.

It took me a few tries....Then I realized I had to adjust the settings in Cura. The suggested or default or whatever came with the test print weren't right for the printer or the filament. Once I got that figured out I was actually impressed with how well it did come out.

I pd $65 for the printer since it was an open box/return. The firmware or something was messed up in programing. Once I figured that part out, I was happy that it actually worked. haha

They look like a lot of fun. I bet it would be fun to make drone parts. I picked one of those up recently too.

 

[Nitric]

I'm also a RC rock crawlers nut. I have 3 RC rock crawlers. I see these 14 year old kids on Youtube making every part imaginable. I'm afraid if I ever got a 3D printer, I would never see the day light again. They are amazing once you learn how to use them.

Thats funny that you say that!!! One of my first thoughts were the old RC cars. I have a collection of the old Associated cars. RC10,TQ,T,B3,B2, GT, etc..

And I bet you could build some cool stuff.

The guns were the next thing I thought about... But..I'm no way near even attempting gun parts yet. I still have to learn the program and filaments.

 

[iWeld]

You can probably find a good forum with folks that use the same printer and get their settings they have the best luck with as well as brand of filliment. I've made some pretty knarly stuff. Just wish I had more time to "experiment" on some non work projects.
I just started to model up a clip-on hoslter to snap on my ATpro to hold my pinpointer. I have a habit of holding it my hand with my digger instead of my belt holster.

 

[Nitric]

You can probably find a good forum with folks that use the same printer and get their settings they have the best luck with as well as brand of filliment. I've made some pretty knarly stuff. Just wish I had more time to "experiment" on some non work projects.
I just started to model up a clip-on hoslter to snap on my ATpro to hold my pinpointer. I have a habit of holding it my hand with my digger instead of my belt holster.

I was looking around a little on the forums. It's cool that there is so much stuff out there that other people have designed and shared the program(?) file(?). A lot of smart people out there! It would probably take me months to try to even design something simple. After...I learned the program!

 

[iWeld]

Yep, lots of talent out there willing to share their work. Thingverse is a good place to look for free .stl files to get started with.

 

[Nitric]

Yep, lots of talent out there willing to share their work. Thingverse is a good place to look for free .stl files to get started with.

Thanks I'll check that out! I was just looking and realized that I can't design in Cura, it's just the conversion(?),translates(?) program. To change .stl files to Gcode for the printer. I think.....

 

[iWeld]

Your on the right track, Cura just rights the instructions for the printer to do it's thing like Layer height, temps, speeds, tool path and such. You need some other modeling software to design the actual models. I use some profesional software for work but there should be some freeware out there to do some simple models. If i can remember the name of it ill post it for you.

 

[FingerChili]

I have a monoprice maker select, it's one of the Prusa i3 clones. In cura I just select the prusa i3 preset and it prints fine, so if you're having printing problems try to find what your machine may be a clone of. Perhaps a prusa i3 plus?

First thing I printed (aside from the hello world butterfly on the included SD card) was a set z axis braces. It helps a lot with smoothing the print finish because the tower isn't wobbling. I also went to OSH and got a piece of 1/8 plate glass cut to size and taped it to the print bed. It sticks a lot better than the normal bed material for me.

I also noticed that the bed doesn't level well, the lower plate is thin aluminum, so it warps, and only has three contact points with the x/y sliders, so isn't very stable. The glass fixed the problem. You can also buy an upgraded lower plate made of thicker material.

Cura is just a slicer, like iWeld says, it just takes your .stl model and makes a gcode file the 3d printer can read. I use autodesk 123D design which is a decent, but limited (like cura), free program to build models.

Definitely check out thingiverse.

Keep us up to date on what you're printing. A friend wanted to make gold hog like sluice riffles. That could be a good experiment.