Actually, the lingo is that the 3D model is in the CAD file, and you make a part with the printer.
Hopefully the printer works with common CAD formats -- there are some big- name consumer 3D printers out there that try to capture you with their proprietary CAD file format. I doubt that the kit people would want to do that, though.
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Tim Wescott
Control systems, embedded software and circuit design
OK, so is it easy to go from the 3-D cad file to (whatever) to the slicer? My son is much more knowledgeable than I on the whole subject. Any cheap (free?) 3D cad software?
Yeah at the moment he's downloading files from thingiverse. (I assume they are "standard" format.)
I think he's hoping to sell stuff to his friends at school. (darn capitalist :^)
That may be a fair assessment -- I think it depends on what you want to *do* with the printer (i.e., the printed works).
I was disappointed in the "cosmetics" of the parts that were available from the printers to which I have "free" access. And, the mechanical strength of the products.
[Fine if you want to print some "curio" to set on your desk!]
And, if you want to *design* something (instead of "printing from a catalog" -- why not just ORDER the printed part??), the effort to build the 3D models represents a far greater "investment" than the savings of 3D printing (vs. having it cut from a block of aluminum/etc. with a wire EDM)
I think for the industry to move beyond hobbyist/tinkerers, there needs to be an easy/reliable/accurate way of building a model from a tangible part (i.e., 3D scan) coupled with a way of producing a printed part that is of comparable mechanical and cosmetic quality as the "original".
Home 3D printers are a great tool for those that enjoy fettling.
But sending STL files to a commercial printing house is a great way of getting remarkably cheap and good complex designs fabricated. The wide variety of materials is useful.
Dunno -- I believe so. The closest I've gotten is making 3D models and emailing them to a friend with a printer.
FreeCAD is free open-source 3D software. It's evolving rapidly, I believe in thanks to 3D printing.
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As is typical of FOSS, the documentation sucks but the web forum is excellent. I'm pretty sure that at least one of the regulars on the "newbie help" forum is a developer, and there's a lot of helpful power users.
STEP and IGIS are the two common standard formats.
I think there's going to be a lot of cottage-industry style 3D printing. Lots of gizmos to be built -- I visited one of my customers a few weeks ago and they were showing me their 3D printed cases.
So far so good... he (my son) futzed around a bit getting the bed level, (they have a screw at each corner.) But after one failed print... it's been all printing and no tweaking.
A lot depends on how you want to express your design.
If you want to start with basic shapes (spheres, cuboids, cones etc) then add/subtract/rotate/translate/scale/shear them using a declarative programming language, then take a look at OpenSCAD and its many brethren. Some are installed applications, some are executed in the browser.
For simple "cleaning up" the generated triangles in the STL file, use netfabb basic.
One of the benefits of 3Dprinting is that you can make stuff that you can't make on a mill. Internal/externally inaccessible cavities, for example. Scanners aren't very good at "observing" those features. A feature that's shadowed or "inside" won't be captured correctly.
I've been observing a newbie with an A8 for 4 months. He's made a lot of gizmos that improve the machine...stuff that should have been included with the machine. You can't make a decent print without a better cooling nozzle. Why can't they just ship it with the correctly shaped nozzle?!!
He's burned thru a lot of filament, but never made a single useful thing that wasn't an improvement to the machine, and has no plans that require doing so.
If you can imagine your part as addition or subtraction of spheres, cylinders and cubes, TinkerCad is trivial to use. There are more complex base shapes, but the concept is the same.
One issue with printers is that many use proprietary "chipped" filament spools that cost 3X the price of generic filament. Yes, it removes some of the variables, but you can't easily tweek the parameters when it doesn't work right. And PLA gets brittle with time. If you don't use it, you lose it. I've read a lot of opinions on why, but they conflict.
There are a lot of options for having your designs fabricated. Must be a lot of bored people with idle printers, cuz there are ads for printing services on craigslist.
I live two blocks from a UPS store with a 3D printer. Their sample ABS prints are amazing. Problem with all the options is the high cost of getting it done. UPS quoted $26 for a case for an EBAY circuit board designed on thingiverse. Not gonna happen.
If you have an obsolete tool with a busted plastic piece, you can imagine making the part. How often does that happen?
I'd like to have a 3D printer. I keep a running list of all the things I'd print if I had one. After 4 months, it's still blank. But I'm still gonna buy one as soon as I meet that person who's finally realized that they'll never use it and puts it out at the garage sale.
Have you used this Tim? I've only used 2-D cad programs, pretty basic stuff. I wouldn't mind paying ~$500 (one time) for something with a nicer interface/ documentation. I think my son is using Autodesk inventor at his school.
I got home from work last night and it was buzzing away in his room. He's got orders for three "spiny things" at school... and is already dreaming of different plastics and colors. So I'm feeling somewhat motivated to be able to design my own gizmos.
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