Who doesn’t like starting a new hobby? I know I do, so here is my newest part of the site – 3D Printing Blog!
Personally, I love starting new things. The cool toys, learning different skills, and diving into a new community are the best rush you can get! Recently, that has been 3D printing for me.
3D Printing Blog
In this post I want to talk about my newest hobby – 3D printing. I am going to discuss:
- How I heard about it
- My initial thoughts
- The printer I chose
- What my first print was
This is going to be the newest addition to the blog and will start to become a regular thing that I post about. I want to track my progress with the printer, learning the software, and how it all comes out! Lets kick things off with how I heard about 3D printing.
How I heard About 3D Printing
Funny enough, my fiancé’s dad is huge into 3D printing!
He has 3 printers, teaches classes on it, and is constantly designing things for companies, around the house, and just for fun! He is one of those people who is extremely passionate about it which makes learning from him so easy.
Over the past couple of months I have started to pay attention more. The thought of being able to design, print, and test things from scratch all from the comfort of my own home sounds amazing.
Now I know it isn’t that “easy”, but given my background in math, decent understanding of tech, and my itch to never stop learning I will be just fine.
My initial thoughts
What were some of my first thoughts about 3D printing?
Well, The first thing I found interesting about it was that the community is actually really big. While most people thing 3D printing is still a small community and industry, they would be very wrong. There are tons of printers, free materials to get started, and plenty of money to be made.
I have met a few people that make $20-$30 thousand a year just printing parts and selling them on Ebay and Amazon. Crazy right?
I think the coolest thing about printing is the amount of material that can be printed. There is a massive array of colors and material types that the printer can create. I have seen wood themed filament, shiny red filament, some that looks like marble, gold, and many other crazy things.
The one set back that I see currently with printing is the texture of some prints. I have quickly noticed that if you make it go to fast and print too many layers at once, the quality of the object being printed is greatly compromised. It is almost like touching a grainy object. Obviously this can be corrected with fine tuning the heat, better materials, and the speed of the print.
Otherwise, I am extremely excited to learn more about this industry and dig in deep along the way. With my initial thoughts out of the way, lets talk about the printer I chose and why.
X-Max 3D Printer Overview
The printer I am starting off with is actually quite expensive.
In total the thing was around $1,200. Not to mention the table I bought to hold it for $100 and the extra filament I purchased around $20. All and all, it is an expensive hobby to start, but I have my reasons.
Personally, if I am going to do something, then I am going to dive in head first. Starting 3D printing is no different. For that reason, I went ahead and got a decent printer that can print things up to 10×11, and use just about any material even carbon fiber.
My long-term idea is to get decent enough to design Ipad mini stands, cases, and eventually POS systems for my company Appymeal. We are going to need some proprietary stands eventually, so I might as well get started!
For now, I will just stick to learning the basics, testing the limits, and improving my understanding of what this thing can do.
What Was My First Print
What was my first print on the X-Max? Well, sadly it was only the initial test print that came with the printer. I recently misplaced my computer charger to my personal computer, and I can not download any slicing software to my work computer right now.
I have a list of STL files ready to be converted to Gcode files. Once I get my charger, that thing will be running constantly. Until then, I will research, learn and continue to to become apart of this awesome community.
3D Printing
Thanks for reading my first post for my 3D Printing Blog! This is going to be an awesome journey, so please tag along and learn as I do!
Cheers