I've always been curious as to what most of our members and viewers of 3dprintboard use 3D printing for. Are the majority of you guys at-home users, doing it as a hobby or do you do it for industry related purposes?
Please share!
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I've always been curious as to what most of our members and viewers of 3dprintboard use 3D printing for. Are the majority of you guys at-home users, doing it as a hobby or do you do it for industry related purposes?
Please share!
just got into it and have been transforming every area of my home I can print stuff for lol. but i love it so much my mission is to get involved from a career standpoint in sales. just need to figure out how to now.
Mainly to design and print stuff for my RC addiction. After that, to design and print various yard things. Whatever gets my attention after that...
I'm an at-home user, doing it as a hobby. I find it offers a fascinating and fairly unique combination of mechanics, electronics, microcontrollers, software/firmware, and materials science. There's almost always a backlog of things on the "hey, could you print something to do this" wish list. Time permitting, there's also always something I can futz with as far as a setting adjustment or upgrade on the printer.
I sometimes make practical sorts of things, but mostly I use it to make sculpture, either complete pieces or components of larger things. Also I make jewelry patterns, burning them out so I can cast them in metal.
So far:
custom models (characters, spaceships, etc.)
replica movie props
vintage camera parts
robotic/animatronic mechanisms
replacement toy parts for my kids
custom storage solutions for tools
Combination of:
things that I cannot buy.
things that come under the: 'hey Alex can you make me: a thing to do this, one of these, copy this etc
Thing round the house that have broken
stuff for my dad's: shooting, motorhome, fishing
Things that i have invented
very occasionally ornaments - but probably 99% practical items
Looking to make more stuff to sell and get into the rapid prototyping & design sector on a more professional basis
Also looking towards selling a fairly unique device that I can hopefully patent as well.
We'll see - got to get the bugger working first :-)
If it works it'll be worth good money to a lot of people - if it doesn't work - it won't be. lol
And yes it's meant to be cryptic. First thing that's said on all the patent sites I've looked at: Do Not Tell Anyone What It Is.
So I'm not going to :-)
For my customers needing special parts, of course at-home (repairs, mods, hobbies, sculptures, etc) and at-work (my regular job). For the latter I design and print parts for R&D test rigs which are one-off.
Continuously moving towards more technical plastics. ABS is the main workhorse. Poly-carbonate (PC-MAX is a dream to work with) is well under control now, and getting to grips with PEI filament (need special parts for 160 C working temperature and organic solvent resistance). For the latter I am modifying a printer to reach 360 C hot end temp, and a temp-controlled heated chamber (ceramic heater+fan) up to 60 C.
How ? Even polymaker, the guys who make it, couldn't tell me how to print with it reliably. what do you print it on ?Quote:
(PC-MAX is a dream to work with)
Sorry for the thread hijack eddie - but I have two rolls of the stuff and no clue as to how to make it stick to something or let go once it's stuck :-)
Hi aardvark, no problem.
You get sheets of buildtak with it, but I don't use them. Far too finnicky to get right and always tearing them apart when prying loose parts.
I found that a sheet of ULTEM PEI (the plain amber stuff) works perfectly. Stick it to the build plate with high-temp double sided adhesive, and roughen up the surface with some fine steel wool. Then it a matter of getting the z-zero right. Too far and the part will warp, too close and it takes a lot of effort to tear the part loose. However, the PEI sheet can take an enormous amount of abuse (I have a 3mm thick PEI sheet stuck directly to the 8mm alu build plate), so try pretty close and gradually increase the Z-zero to get them tight, but easier to remove.
Print at 250-260 C with 30-40 mm/s. Take into account about 0.2-0.4 % shrinkage when slicing. Heatbed starts at 100 C for first layer, then 99 C for layer 3 and 98 C for layer 5+ (S3D settings)
Parts are very strong and can withstand higher temperatures than ABS.
I do have a heated chamber. I put a compact electric heating element+fan inside the enclosed printer, and control the temp with a cheap chinese temp controller (10 euro). The fan I put on the mains permanently, so that it keeps running when the heating element is off. Otherwise the fan will turn on/off with the heating element and the latter will dissipate more heat to the fan when off. The temp controller regulates the temp inside the printer, the fan moves the air around to
I also have a micro-swiss full metal MK10 style hotend in my replicator clone for polycarbonate (and PEI). Works very well, have two more in the mail now.
We test our 3D Printers and heads by printing production parts for the printers and heads that we sell.
Back when I had my own business I used for prototyping clients' parts. My FFCX did a lot of work. Nowadays I use it to create props of things that interest me (busy making a full-size replica of an 88mm artillery round i.e projectile and cartridge atm) and tinkering with gadgets. I find Xrobots on Youtube to be particularly interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Eddie
At home I design products and parts around the house and some work parts is I get behind at work. At work I use it for prototypes and fixtures. We do also print some low volume production from time to time.
hi, i use my prusa i3 ALUNAR 3D printer mostly for diy fun, printing something such as pencil box, flowers, toys.
So far the printer works very good, it show great performance.
the attached some photos i printed the 3D rose by ALUNAR 3D printer M508.
It is so amazing. love it!
If you guys have any questions for the 3D printer, you are welcome to come to me , i will be glad to help.
my skype:eros1025
I kinda do both....
I would consider myself a hobbyist. But 3D printing is a costly hobby, so I also sell prints (both custom and pre-fab stuff) in order to pay machine maint and material to print my own stuff.
ALOT of my orders come from a local model railway club.
Started as a hobby about two and a half years ago with a Printrbot Simple Metal. Printed whatever caught my fancy mostly found on Thingiverse back then. I began to get more and more requests for small commercial type work so I quickly moved up to a Makergear M2 and turned it into a part time business. Also adding a Prusa i3 MK2 here in a few weeks.
From there I started getting requests asking for 3D scans as well so I put together a David based SLS scanner closely modeled after their SLS-2. Basically the same system.
I'm no 3D modeler that's for sure but I could see that I had a gap between the scanner and printer so I decided to make the investment and purchase SpaceClaim for reverse engineering applications.
That in it self is quite a learning curve but I'm making progress and hope to add 3D modeling and reverse engineering to my bag of tricks at least at a simple level for now.
I use it mainly for prototypes but end use items as well:
- SLS for cast Metal for jewelry
- robot parts
- mechanical principle testing
- characters like articulatable action figures
Attachment 9748
- prototypes for injection molded parts
- I have worked on 3d printed textiles with an Objet Connex machine
- electronic enclosures
- showcase scale models of vehicles I have designed
- toys, home objects, lampshades etc.
I mostly do stuff for upgrades to my printer,or parts for rc aircraft.I also made the parts for a tri-copter,and currently printing parts for a new corexy machine.
I also made a german shepherd for a friend ,to put in the back seat of his 1/4 scale Piper Cub plane,and 3 cat dishes for my neighbour.
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I just got mine and plan to use it for miniatures or costume props for home use. Also as a learning project for my kids.
Mostly prototyping. Most of the projects are electronic cases.