• Frenchgeek@lemmy.ml
    3·
    17 hours ago

    I should learn how to use FreeCAD (or OpenSCAD) but unfortunately, my printer cannot print motivation…

    • hakunawazo@lemmy.world
      4·
      2 days ago

      Wow, you put real effort in that. Do you need to separate paths for that or can you 3D print any random image?

      • batmaniam@lemmy.world
        5·
        2 days ago

        It was actually very low effort! There are a number of image to STL converters. I used this one: https://imagetostl.com/

        Like you can see it’ll flub some stuff. I would have been better off filling in the areas of text and doing the emboss manually myself, but I just wanted to hit print. 2% infill, I think it was like 2.5g of filament and 20mins.

        It’s fun to screw around with that process. I’m tweaking one of my friends cabin to use to make a mold. My goal is cast concrete or something similar so I can pound some thin copper around it, and be left with a cool wall decoration.

  • PieMePlenty@lemmy.world
    27·
    2 days ago

    I’ve pretty much settled on just printing flower pots and cute animals for my sister. Last one was this bulbapot

  • Tenthrow@lemmy.worldMEnglish
    66·
    3 days ago

    That struggle is so real… Although, once you start to learn paremetric modeling, you stop having as much plastic waste around and a whole bunch of slightly different prototypes of a desk organizer or toilet roll holder that result from not measuring properly the first time.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
        21·
        3 days ago

        Printing takes forever and I need to get it exactly right on the first go, so I’m just going to noodle on the diagram for another 40 hours.

        • Test_Tickles@lemmy.world
          6·
          2 days ago

          That’s ok, it will still come out wrong because of some issue that you never thought of.

          This is why people share their models so freely online. It’s not pride in what they’ve accomplished. It’s because they’ve just spent 3 weeks and $60 in plastic to finally “correctly” print something that cost the original manufacturer $0.15 to print and would have worked perfectly if they had just stopped cutting corners when they got to $0.17, but saving that extra $0.02 per item made sure that it was definitely going to fail.
          And by sharing it you pass the curse onto others and enable yourself to finally produce a print that is still totally fucked but just good enough that you are willing to call it done and start the cycle over with something else.

          • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.worldEnglish
            2·
            2 days ago

            It’s because they’ve just spent 3 weeks and $60 in plastic to finally “correctly” print something that cost the original manufacturer $0.15 to print

            Sure, but that’s because the manufacturing is working in bulk while the hobbyist is doing a one-off. The original modeling likely cost a comparable amount. It was just amortized out over the production life. And there are plenty of instances in which the $.15/unit manufacturing just doesn’t have the thing you’re looking to make, because it is some kind of artistic eccentricity rather than a standardized widget.

            The thing I see 3D printers used most commonly for are TTRPG models. And at that scale, it really doesn’t hurt to just print off a two-headed Owl Bear with a scorpion tail, rather than hunt around on the secondary market for the weird thing you’re looking for. Even the specialty D&D printing services aren’t going to come in much less than $60 for that sort of thing.

    • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world
      12·
      3 days ago

      I measure 3 times and still need to print at least 3 times to get something right.

      I’m working on an outdoor hose grommet that’s a custom fit to my house. I measured with calipers. I also took paper, traced the fixture and marked the holes before modeling and 3d printing.

      I have a desk full of badly fitting prototypes. -or just bad because I forgot to set a print setting in the slicer.

      • toynbee@lemmy.world
        12·
        3 days ago

        I need to print something to repair my garage door rail. I have no idea how to get started on measuring that.

        That’s okay, though. I also need to fix my 3d printer before I can get started on the other project.

  • MissJinx@lemmy.world
    2·
    2 days ago

    Wait you qre printing stuff 2 weeks after getting a 3d printer?!! You yungsters have it so easy

    In my time we had to build, then spend a whole spool just trying until we got something not horrible

    • batmaniam@lemmy.world
      14·
      3 days ago

      Literally why I got mine. If you’re losing motivation use 3d builder. Use blenders clay tug and pull function to make something hideous.

      • Honytawk@feddit.nl
        3·
        2 days ago

        I can recommend MatterControl instead of blender.

        Blender has too many functions you don’t need, so it has a steep learning curve.

        Mattercontrol is literally drag and dropping shapes and cutting them out of each other. You can use prexisting stl files to do so.

      • neidu3@sh.itjust.worksEnglish
        3·
        3 days ago

        Same. Started printing a few weeks ago (well, I initially did 13 years ago, but that’s another story), and I’m currently working down a long list of issues that I solve with a printer.

        After a while I can slowly refocus my printing towards a pet project that has been in the planning stage for 20 years.

  • MehBlah@lemmy.worldEnglish
    111·
    2 days ago

    Almost all my prints these days are ones I’ve created or modified in freecad.

      • MehBlah@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        2 days ago

        It just has a steep learning curve. Since the 1.0 release though I’ve had few problems with it. Nice addons and only freezes up for long periods when you are importing a massive mesh so far. I’ve gotten pretty good at taking one color stl files and converting them to multi color/extruder.

  • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
    12·
    3 days ago

    Me 5 years after buying a 3D printer: been working on CAD’ing that one project for well over a year with probably about as much time left before it’s ready for its first prototype.

    (And that doesn’t include all the time I was distracted with other projects, many of which were not 3D-printing related at all.)

    I’ll dust my printer off when it’s time for that first prototype.