3D printing
My (a bit incredible) entry into 3D printing
One day I found what looked like a 3D printer in the ikea bag, standing in the corner of the garbage room of my building. Famous Berlin “zu verschenken” phenomenon.
— "One man's trash is another man's treasure"
It was carefully packed with a service card, spare parts and a little bit of filament. After a very quick inspection, I decided to give the device a second chance and took it home. Unfortunately, the screws for assembling it were missing so it was left sitting for a while until I got time to investigate where to get them and if there was anything else I need to bring it back to life. Back then I was living in a small apartment, so it was stowed away and didn’t attract attention for a while. Then the time for moving to another place had come, and when I was preparing stuff, fortunately there was a spare box to pack it in. Now I realize that this would have been a good opportunity for the thing to be returned to the garbage room, because usually you want to move fewer things rather than more (especially if their worthiness or usefulness is unproven). But it survived. Once the stars aligned, I ordered a pack of screws and assembled it.
— Sits nicely near an unassuming 2D printer
With literally zero experience in 3D printing, I didn’t expect much and indeed, first attempts were just chaotic molten filament. It took some time to fix the levelling (I understood why someone might want to throw it away) and finding the proper printing parameters. Nothing stuck to the printbed - tried even the duct tape hack but it didn’t help. Eventually I found the problem - in my gcode there was no printbed heating.
— Evolution of my attempts
But once the sample was printed as expected, it was exciting! I can now create things without even leaving the house! The very next thing I tried to print is, of couse, Benchy - to get an idea of the overall print quality - and it just worked!
— A Benchy appeared out of nowhere!
Since then I have printed a few things - some of them were even useful - and I didn’t really invest much into researching the best printing parameters. I will share more details in the dedicated posts.
I’m quite impressed by how it worked out, considering it was the most entry-level device. If this is what a 100 Euro printer can do - what the high-end devices are capable of?!
P.S. Do not try to print keycaps on such a device.