3D printing - A Beginning

Years ago, I learned about 3D printing and being a complete tech nerd, I got super excited about it! But I thought to myself "Well I'll never be able to afford that! Just like a Tesla!" So it was just this fascination that I would look into every now and then to see what advancements that had been made. But recently, a friend of mine invited me over with a text saying "Hey, you need to come over. I have something you need to see!" Needless to say, I was very curious. I came over and saw something amazing! It was a 3D printer unlike I'd seen before. Every printer I'd seen up till that point was a big fancy looking box, a futuristic enclosure that glowed blue. But this was different. It looked similar, it had the printing bed and a nozzle, but the rest looked so.. not like a 3D printer. It was just a black frame made from hard plastic. I was fascinated!

It turned out that a company by the name of Prusa Research had been working on a project to change the nature of 3D printing and make it more available to everyone. Instead of making the fancy enclosures that costed thousands of dollar, Prusa had created a 3D printer that was sold as a kit that you have to put together yourself! Saving the customers tons of money! Since Prusa came up with this idea, other companies followed and my friend had gotten himself an Anet A8 printer, one of the cheaper models that was a knock off of the Prusa.

After that, I was obsessed. To the point that I kind of annoyed my wife by talking too much about it. But I knew I had to have one, this was my opportunity that I had been waiting for. Finally, my poor college student self could get a printer for under $300. I did research about the Anet A8 and talked to my friend a lot about it. I learned that since it was a low end printer that was a knock off, it had some issues, but none of them were so extreme that there wasn't a work around.

So after saving up, I was finally able to buy my own. When it arrived, I wasted no time in getting my friend over so we could put this bad boy together! What followed was a 6 hour long process of following poorly written instructions, a lot of guess and check, a few work arounds, and just a touch of super glue.

Step one: Assemble the frame. Started at 5 pm.

Step two: The bed is finally on! At 8 pm.

Step three: Slap that nozzle on there. At 9:10 pm.

Step four: Finally completed! At 11:10 pm.

With the printer finally assembled, this was the first thing I ever printed as a test!

That was a few months ago and I've been learning more and more about the best ways to print things. How to get the layer height right for different types of prints, how to do supports so things print properly, and all the other things that go into printing basically anything that isn't just a box. As I learn more and get some more awesome stuff printed, I will probably make another post about it so stayed tuned!