My First 3D Printer

My youngest son is in the Mechanical Engineering program at the University of Utah and has been asking me to get a 3D printer. I finally broke down, gave him a budget, and let him pick one out. It arrived last week and we have been printing things with it ever since.

I have a buddy at work who is really into 3D printing and has his in the office working non-stop. Naturally I went to him and asked his opinion before I set my budget number. He told me to get an inexpensive one and spend some time playing with it. If I really got into 3D printing then I would know what features to look for in the next printer. Furthermore if I didn't really do much with the printer, I wouldn't be out a large sum of money. That is great advice and so I thought I would pass it on.

I decided that there are a number of printers in the $300 range and so that is what I gave my son as a budget. He scoured the internet for reviews and we decided on the Creality Ender 3. We purchased it from Amazon even though we could have gotten a better deal from other sites. We also picked up a few upgrades and 2 rolls of Polylactic Acid (PLA) filament. We decided on black and red printing material.

The printer arrived on a Wednesday and I didn't let my son build it as I wanted that experience. I flew home on Thursday evening and then spent a couple of hours on Friday assembling the printer. It went together very easily, especially after watching several YouTube build videos. I didn't try to set any speed records as I put the printer together because I wanted it to be well built. I also wanted to understand how it was put together should I want to modify it later.

My son came over Friday evening and helped with the final tuning. You have to take some time and level the printing bed or your prints won't turn out. Then we printed a little plastic dog that came on a memory card with the printer. You have the option of printing "gcode" files from a computer connected via a USB cable or from a micro SD card. I like being able to copy a design to the card and have the printer print from it.

The next thing we decided to print is a tiny Darth Vader. My dad is a huge Star Wars fan and has a huge Darth Vader collection. We had the STL file which is just a drawing of the piece. We then ran the STL file into Cura, which is free software that creates the "gcode" file to be printed. There are all sorts of parameters as it ultimately controls what gets output. The printer can't print into thin air and so it adds support material when necessary. Once you are done printing, you can easily pull off the support material. Considering it is our first print where we had to specify a number of custom parameters, I think we did a good job.

Next we changed the print material (PLA) from black to red and printed a "benchy". Imagine Steamboat Willy in Mickey Mouse's first movie and that is what a benchy looks like. It is called a benchy as it serves as a benchmark for the printer and shows you how good your printer is. Our benchy came out well.

Finally I wanted to print something useful. I really don't have a need for a bunch of little plastic toys and so I found something my youngest daughter might like. My wife and I recently gave her an airbrush for decorating cakes. She likes to do that in her spare time and she recently ordered a bunch of stencils. I thought I could print some for her and save her some cash. As stencils are large but not very thick, it is a good test for printing on the entire print bed. I went to Thingiverse and did a search for stencils and found a lot of very interesting ones. The first stencil is of a snowflake and it looks amazing. I have a few other stencils to print for her and she is excited.

So should you run out and get a 3D printer? That is a good question. The Creality Ender 3 is advertised as not being a kit like a number of the other printers on the market. However it took a fair amount of technical knowledge and mechanical skills to put the thing together. If you have trouble putting together your kids' toys on Christmas eve, you may want to get help or not bother getting one. At first I didn't think I would find enough projects to keep my printer busy. Now that I have it, I have a seemingly endless list of projects to print. I don't think I am unique. If you have a spare $300 lying around, I can recommend getting one.